Chinese Engineers Use Mind-Control Headsets to Force Cockroaches into Compliance

Oh come on! Are we really supposed to believe there is a cheery positive upside to this line of research?

If this can be done with the brainwaves of a human controlling a cockroach, who is to say the brainwaves of a human cannot be used to control another human??

Via Inquisitr:

Engineering students in China have devised a brain-to-brain interface to control live cockroaches, transforming these critters into tiny biological robots that obediently follow the directions of their human handlers. Using the interface, the students have successfully steered living cockroaches along S-shaped, as well as Z-shaped, paths using nothing more than their minds.

The students from Shanghai Jiao Tong University presented their research via a video presentation at the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society’s annual conference. They fitted one of the members with a Bluetooth electroencephalogram (EEG) headset. As if straight from a science fiction movie, the member was asked to think about guiding himself through the S- or Z-shaped pathway. His brainwaves were then translated into electrical impulses, which were wirelessly sent to an electronic backpack receiver attached to the cockroach.

The electrical impulses were hooked onto the antennae nerves of the cockroach through a microelectrode implanted into the animal’s head. These nerves control the cockroach’s behavior and hence can be manipulated to govern the movement of the critter.

This is like the movie [amazon text=They Live&asin=B005EW42MQ] meets that scene out of the [amazon text=Spongebob SquarePants Movie&asin=B000N24H0E]: