These ‘Cyborg Insects’ Could Become the World’s Stealthiest Spies—They Hide Where Humans Can’t

Añadido: 2026-05-20

[00:00:00]Basically, there is this German company that is trying to mount these little backpacks on cockroaches and they are they're not the pest cockroaches and I have lived in New York for many years.

[00:00:14]I am not ashamed to say that I have had cockroaches in my apartment. They are not that kind of cockroach. They are Madagascar hissing cockroaches, which are the kinds that people keep as pets.

[00:00:23]They're like [music] huge. Um but basically they're mounting these little backpacks on them that have cameras and they want to use them as a sort of like spy equipment in the future.

[00:00:35]Um in the past they've used Well, the Pentagon, this is happening in the United States, too. It [music] is by no means a new technology.

[00:00:43]Uh the Pentagon and other research groups have used cockroaches [music] to kind of send them into these like hard-to-reach places. So, it might be after a tornado or an earthquake, they might send the cockroach into rubble to see if there are any survivors.

[00:00:56]>> [music] >> I know, crazy. Uh and then the cockroaches can kind of use the cameras to pick up whether there are people still there. So, it can help recover lost troops, but there might be military applications, too. And in the story, we have experts weigh in on whether this will be useful or whether we're kind of making these unethical choices >> [music] >> and experimenting on a technology that really isn't worthwhile.