Ever vigilant, ever animated

The special stature of Bush?s canine security officials fades into obscurity in the face of the news that a US military surveillance team of rats and fish and sharks may be created.

The special stature of George Bush’s canine security officials fades into obscurity in the face of the news that a US military surveillance team of rats and fish and sharks may be created. The New Scientist reports that scientists want to harness the natural ability of sharks to detect magnetic fields and use them for under-sea surveillance, especially in detecting explosives. Marine biologists have long suspected that sharks swim for miles in a straight line using only the Earth’s magnetic field as a guiding system.

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Neural implants in shark brains will enable brain signals to be manipulated remotely, controlling the fish’s movements — the next step being measuring and decoding the data recorded. Earlier, scientists have controlled the movement of rats via neural implants in their brains — essentially converting the animal into a robot, and controlling its movements from behind a computer screen. Ethical debates aside, the strides made by scientists in mind control beg admiration. The breakthrough in the research on sharks comes in the wake of the need for self-powered and silent surveillance systems under water. Pathbreaking for scientists, it is another issue to feel squirmy for ethicists and animal activists. These folks are dismayed that the research, meant for military purposes, is being disguised as research that will help address paralysis.

But instead of waving flags and pushing celebrities into cages, activists could set up parallel neural-implant systems for the threatened animal kingdom. Such that the nerd at the controls tweaking the shark’s synapses gets a message beamed back at him: Access Denied.