Many apologies to Dan Holdsworth. He sent me this weeks ago, and I thought that I had posted it, but I didn't.
I agree with every word that he has written, and more. This 'toy' is an abomination and is a perfect illustration of quite how vile sections of our society are getting.
Jon,
I don't often mention things like this, and you know I tend towards the pragmatic end of bio-ethics, but this is too much even for me (The Register are merely the reporters, not the actual morons
suggesting this):
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/11/roboroach/
This so-called experiment consists of mutilating a cockroach for the amusement of a child, and as I have mentioned in a comment there is no way even the likes of me, working with a properly equipped biological lab and proper microscopes is going to get this horror working correctly first time out.
Moreover, large cockroaches of the sort needed here do not occur in Europe; the would-be Dr Frankenstein would have to buy in large tropical species specially for the experiment. Keeping these animals is a specialised business alone, and in a household environment they will die quite rapidly.
Then there's the wastage factor. No way can anyone perform a procedure involving freeze-anaesthesia [1] and not get things wrong a few times. Getting it wrong here means killing a cockroach.
Even if performed completely correctly, you have merely made a crude remote control for an animal, on a par with steering it by zapping it on one side or another, and all for the amusement of a child.
As an alternative, this would work much better:
http://www.firebox.com/product/6242/iRobot-Bugs
[1] I have my doubts about there even being any anaesthetic effect here; all cold does to insects is slows them down. CO2 exposure knocks them out temporarily, hence it is used by entomologists, but freezing
merely stops them moving.
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