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.
New at the Frontiers of Zoology:
Our old friend and colleague Ronan Coghlan is doing some bloggystuff for the CFZ. However, he is having some problems. The fact that I am half deaf, and on the other side of the Irish Sea from him doesn't facilitate my giving technical advice.
Most of yesterday was spent filming Tasmania stuff with Richard before he went back to Exeter. He starts his new job today as ....wait for it.... a shopping mall Father Christmas. I do hope that he manages to keep his psychotic sense of humour under control while he discharges his duties. I can imagine him interspersing his Ho Ho Hos with a monologue about liver, or brass piping, or flannels, or any of the other things that he finds amusing. But I am hoping for a real Christmas Miracle! Also yesterday I interviewed John Higgs about his recent KLF biography (which, I believe, Bill Drummond likes immensely) and I am happy to report that he will be at the 2014 WW with a talk entitled 'Magick, Chaos, and the band who burned a million quid'. I can't wait.