{"id":196400,"date":"2017-01-30T07:58:28","date_gmt":"2017-01-30T05:58:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=196400"},"modified":"2017-01-30T07:59:54","modified_gmt":"2017-01-30T05:59:54","slug":"scientists-turning-dragonflies-into-genetically-engineered-drones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/science\/196400-scientists-turning-dragonflies-into-genetically-engineered-drones.html","title":{"rendered":"Scientists turning dragonflies into genetically-engineered drones"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Draper and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute have <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.draper.com\/news\/equipping-insects-special-service\" target=\"_blank\">begun work<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0on creating cybernetic insects using genetic engineering.<\/p>\n<p>Titled DragonflEye, the project involves using optogenetics and miniature electronics to turn small insects including dragonflies and bees into remote-controlled drones.<\/p>\n<p>Cybernetic drones have been created before, but DragonflEye will have advanced capabilities such as an on-board guidance system.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDragonflEye is a totally new kind of micro-aerial vehicle that\u2019s smaller, lighter, and stealthier than anything else that\u2019s man-made,\u201d said Draper engineer Jesse Wheeler.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis system pushes the boundaries of energy harvesting, motion sensing, algorithms, miniaturisation, and optogenetics &#8211; all in a system small enough for an insect to wear.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The dragonfly is controlled via guidance commands sent to special &#8220;steering&#8221; neuron clusters in the insect&#8217;s nerve core.<\/p>\n<p>The potential uses of this technology include payload delivery, reconnaissance, guided pollination, and more.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Now read:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/science\/196088-boeing-unveils-lightweight-starliner-spacesuit.html\" rel=\"bookmark\">Boeing unveils lightweight Starliner spacesuit<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Draper and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute have begun work on creating cybernetic insects using genetic engineering.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":196404,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31750],"tags":[40928,40926],"class_list":["post-196400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","tag-cybernetics","tag-insects"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196400"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196400"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":196412,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196400\/revisions\/196412"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}