Robo-roaches give robot armies new reproductive prowess

We give robots all the credit for being our one day overlords, but if you base world domination potential on who is busting out the babies, we'd have to go with cockroaches. So we're really not too surprised to see them both joining forces to create a super being: the Robot Zombie Cockroach. A research team at Tokyo University is making these bio-bots by lopping off the antennae of regular roaches and replacing them with pulse-emitting electrodes. The researchers then send signals with a remote control to a backpack worn by the roach that powers the electrodes. The roaches can be told to go left, right, forward and back, and the team sees all sorts of "betterment of humanity" applications such as outfitting the bugs with mini-cameras to take on the good old search and rescue, or for a bit of espionage. We just hope they keep these guys away from the vats of radiation in the other room, or we're going to have some super-ninja-robo-roaches to deal with before long.