Cyborg cockroaches may soon deliver life-saving drugs to disaster victims

The Register reports that researchers at Australia’s University of Queensland have turned giant burrowing cockroaches into tiny medical drones. They fitted the eight‑centimetre insects with electronic backpacks that let operators steer them, pause them, and fire a single‑use drug syringe. The team achieved a one hundred percent success rate in guiding the roaches, with ninety percent of the auto‑injection attempts working and, when within fifteen centimetres of a target, a ninety five percent chance of delivering the dose. Stabilising a roach for injection succeeded seventy two percent of the time, and the scientists say swarms could be deployed to disaster sites within five to ten years.

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