Sharks with frickin’ laser beams!

Bombers can drop robo-sharks on terrorist hideouts

Dr. Evil The Pentagon is researching neural brain implants in sharks that will allow the military to remotely control the animal’s movements and receive sensory feedback.

More controversially, the Pentagon hopes to exploit sharks’ natural ability to glide quietly through the water, sense delicate electrical gradients and follow chemical trails. By remotely guiding the sharks’ movements, they hope to transform the animals into stealth spies, perhaps capable of following vessels without being spotted. (1)

This is so Aqua-man: controlling the fishes of the deep sounds cool at first, but in reality there’s not a lot of crime under the sea aside from fat German tourists in thongs and gay porpoise sex.

Currently the only practical use for weaponizing sharks is to terrorize surf-bums, devour the Greenpeace activists, and spy on al Qaida’s undersea lairs (Osama loves to snorkel).

A robo-shark circles an al Qaida financier before going in for the kill

Clearly we’re missing an important ingredient to this story: obviously the sharks will be equipped with friggin’ laser beams! Obviously. When the ice caps melt, robo-sharks can patrol the streets of the third world. And what’s left of America’s coastal “blue states”. Until then the robo-sharks will need feet (2) and the ability to ring doorbells and say “candygram”.

[the team has] gained ethical approval to develop implants that can monitor and influence the behaviour of animals, from sharks and tuna to rats and monkeys.

Candygram!

Who exactly doled out the “ethical approval” to implant chips into animal brains in order to control them for unspecified military uses? Hitler’s taxidermist? The militant wing of NAMBLA’s petting zoo? Or, oh, right - the Bush administration.

Source:

1. New Scientist: Stealth sharks to patrol high seas
2. Boston Dynamics: The Most Advanced Quadruped Robot on Earth