FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Tech

Remote Controlled Worms Are Just The Beginning

Scientists at the University of Buffalo have found a way to induce behavior in worms remotely.

Scientists at the University of Buffalo have found a way to induce behavior in worms remotely. Using magnetically heated nanoparticles, they found that it’s possible to affect worm ion channels, worm neurons, and, yep, worm behavior. Specifically, with very close targeting, they could stimulate certain cells to make the worms change direction and worm along the other way.

“We targeted the nanoparticles near what is the ‘mouth’ of the worms, called the amphid,” Arnd Pralle, an assistant professor of physics in the UB College of Arts and Sciences department, explained in a news release. "You can see in the video that the worms are crawling around; once we turn on the magnetic field, which heats up the nanoparticles to 34 degrees Celsius, most of the worms reverse course. We could use this method to make them go back and forth.

“Now we need to find out which other behaviors can be controlled this way,” he finishes, possibly having no idea just how ominous that might sound.

Though, in fairness, this would seem to have a lot of good potential applications in medicine, from treating neurological disorders to cancer—where the nanoparticles could be used to kill off diseased cells—or diabetes where the particles could be used to stimulate insulin making cells in the pancreas. A pancea or, much like the brain pacemaker that scared me last week, is it how they will control us?