Biohacking as a personal hobby is not something you hear everyday. But Roboroach, in the name of science, will try to change all that. Warning! This is not for the squeamish and involves surgery on live cockroaches.
Roboroach is a Kickstarter- backed biohacking experiment. For $99, you get a kit that has a Bluetooth-powered microchip and surgery tools. The cockroaches do not come with the kit so must be sourced elsewhere. Apparently, Discoid cockroaches are best since they do not fly and also have helpful markers on their bodies to complete the surgery, The Next Web reported.
The biohacking involves the attachment of a three-lead system to the cockroach's head carapace. Tiny wire leads are then inserted in the leg muscles that connect with its antennae. Once done, the cockroach's movements can be controlled via your smarthphone, Tech Crunch noted.
Of course, there are ethical questions. Read the official Backyard Brains, makers of Roboroach, statement on the procedure below:
We make sure to anesthetize all our animals when we do experiments, and we explain this to students. We actually don’t know if insects feel pain, but we do make the assumption that they do, which is why we anesthetize them in the first place. Whether the cockroach feels pain when it wakes up from the surgery and detects a missing leg, we do not know. All we is know is that the wound heals, the cockroaches are walking around within hours, eating lettuce, making more cockroaches, and if they are juvenile, the leg grows back.
It is very important to avoid anthropomorphizing the cockroach with thoughts like “If I do not want my own leg cut off, then the cockroach does not want its leg cut off.”
The biohack will only work for a few seconds. After this, “neuroplasticity kicks in” and the signal is forgotten. After the experiment, the chip may be removed. The cockroach will live out its life normally after this except for the three-pronged lead on its head.
