Frankenstein's Cat: Cuddling Up to Biotech's Brave New Beasts (33 page)

“Animals are wild…”
: Carroll, discussion, June 2010.

A corgi, for instance
: Noel Fitzpatrick, in discussion with author via telephone, March 25, 2011.

“Animals deserve a good quality…”
: Ibid.

Feline and canine anatomy
: The limitations of regular prosthetics for dogs and cats comes from interviews with two sources: Fitzpatrick, discussion; and Denis Marcellin-Little, in discussion with author via telephone, March 22 and June 7, 2011.

“a bionic dog”
: Ibid.

Fitzpatrick knew that osseointegration
: Ibid.

Blunn believed that surgeons
: Details about deer antlers, and their relevance to prosthetics, come from Gordon Blunn, in discussion with author via telephone, April 15, 2011; and C. J. Pendegrass et al., “Nature’s Answer to Breaching the Skin Barrier: An Innovative Development for Amputees,”
Journal of Anatomy
209 (2006): 59–67.

Using antlers as inspiration
: Fitzpatrick, discussion; Blunn, discussion.

One of the first patients
: Information about Coal, and the ITAP procedure, comes from several sources: Fitzpatrick, discussion; Noel Fitzpatrick et al., “Intraosseous Transcutaneous Amputation Prosthesis (ITAP) for Limb Salvage in 4 Dogs,”
Veterinary Surgery
40, no. 8 (2011): 909–25; Noel Fitzpatrick, “Intraosseous Transcutaneous Amputation Prosthesis: An Alternative to Limb Amputation in Dogs and Cats,”
Society of Practising Veterinary Surgeons Review
2009 (2009): 43–46; “Coal’s Story,” Fitzpatrick Referrals, accessed March 20, 2012,
www.fitzpatrickreferrals.co.uk/pet-owners/case-studies/coals-itap
.

“I watched it float away”
: Fitzpatrick, discussion.

“The ITAP didn’t just…”
: “Coal’s Story,” Fitzpatrick Referrals.

a black cat named Oscar
: Liz Thomas, “Oscar the Bionic Cat,”
Daily Mail
, June 25, 2010,
www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1289281/Oscar-bionic-cat-pioneering-surgery-gave-TWO-false-legs.html
; Adam Hadhazy, “Bionic Devices Let Injured Animals Roam Again,”
Live Science
, July 15, 2010,
www.livescience.com/10742-bionic-devices-injured-animals-roam.html
.

two dozen of these
: Fitzpatrick, discussion.

The procedure has been
: Blunn, discussion.

One of the first recipients
: Fitzpatrick et al., “Intraosseous Transcutaneous Amputation Prosthesis (ITAP)”; Norbert V. Kang et al., “Osseocutaneous Integration of an Intraosseous Transcutaneous Amputation Prosthesis Implant Used for Reconstruction of a Transhumeral Amputee: Case Report,”
Journal of Hand Surgery
35, no. 7 (2010): 1130–34.

Denis Marcellin-Little
: Details about his patients and work come from Marcellin-Little, discussions, March and June 2011.

Meanwhile, one equine researcher
: The researcher is Gary Sod at Louisiana State University. Information comes from Sod, in discussion with author via telephone, March 10, April 18, and June 6, 2011.

Veterinarians tried to repair
: “Barbaro Euthanized After Lengthy Battle,”
MSNBC.com
, accessed June 14, 2012,
http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/16846723/ns/sports-horse_racing
.

“It’s about life and love…”
: Fitzpatrick, discussion.

Monkeys outfitted with brain implants
: Velliste et al., “Cortical Control of a Prosthetic Arm for Self-feeding”; Carmena et al., “Learning to Control a Brain-Machine Interface for Reaching and Grasping by Primates.”

paralyzed humans have performed
: “Paralyzed Man Uses Mind-Powered Robot Arm to Touch,”
USA Today
, October 10, 2011,
http://yourlife.usatoday.com/health/story/2011-10-10/Paralyzed-man-uses-mind-powered-robot-arm-to-touch/50716800/1
.

Scientists at the Rehabilitation Institute
: Todd A. Kuiken et al., “Targeted Muscle Reinnervation for Real-time Myoelectric Control of Multifunction Artificial Arms,”
Journal of the American Medical Association
301, no. 6 (2009): 619–28.

In particular, the Defense
: “Revolutionizing Prosthetics,” DARPA, accessed March 20, 2012,
www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/DSO/Programs/Revolutionizing_Prosthetics.aspx
; “DARPA’s Revolutionizing Prosthetics Program Approaches Milestones,” DARPA, October 10, 2011,
www.darpa.mil/NewsEvents/Releases/2011/10/10.aspx
.

7. Robo Revolution

In the 1960s, the Central
: Information on Acoustic Kitty is from Robert Wallace and H. Keith Melton,
Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA’s Spytechs from Communism to al-Qaeda
(New York: Dutton, 2008): 200–202; Jeffrey T. Richelson,
The Wizards of Langley: Inside the CIA’s Directorate of Science and Technology
(Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books, 2001), 147–48; Charlotte Edwardes, “CIA Recruited Cat to Bug Russians,”
Telegraph,
November 4, 2001,
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1361462/CIA-recruited-cat-to-bug-Russians.html
; and Julian Borger, “Project Acoustic Kitty,”
Guardian
, September 11, 2001,
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/sep/11/worlddispatch
.

as a heavily redacted CIA memo
: “Views on Trained Cats [redacted] for [redacted] Use,” memorandum, March 1967, available at
www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB54/
.

In 2006, for example, DARPA
: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency,
Hybrid Insect Micro Systems: Proposer Information Pamphlet
(BAA 06-22, March 9, 2006), available for download at
https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=ec6d6847537a9220810f4282eedda0d2&tab=core&_cview=1
.

Building these machines … aloft for very long
: Michel Maharbiz, in discussion with author via telephone, February 8, 2010; Michel M. Maharbiz and Hirotaka Sato, “Cyborg Beetles,”
Scientific American
, December 2010, 94–99.

The Nano Hummingbird
: “Nano Hummingbird,” AeroVironment, Inc., accessed April 23, 2012,
www.avinc.com/nano
; “AeroVironment Develops World’s First Fully Operational Life-Size Hummingbird-Like Unmanned Aircraft for DARPA,” AeroVironment, Inc., February 17, 2011,
www.avinc.com/resources/press_release/aerovironment_develops_worlds_first_fully_operational_life-size_hummingbird
; Dana Mackenzie, “It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s a … Spy?”
Science
335 (March 23, 2012): 1433.

the DelFly Micro
: “DelFly Micro,” DelFly, accessed April 26, 2012,
www.delfly.nl/?site=diii&menu=home&lang=en
; G. C. H. E. de Croon et al., “Design, Aerodynamics, and Vision-Based Control of the DelFly,”
International Journal of Micro Air Vehicles
1, no. 2 (2009): 71–97; Maharbiz and Sato, “Cyborg Beetles.”

“Proof-of-existence of small-scale…”
: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency,
Hybrid Insect Micro Systems.

So far, nature’s creations
: The advantages of insects are discussed in many papers, including Hirotaka Sato and Michel M. Maharbiz, “Recent Developments in the Remote Radio Control of Insect Flight,”
Frontiers in Neuroscience
4 (December 2010); Ethem Erkan Aktakka et al., “Energy Scavenging from Insect Flight,”
Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering
21 (2011): 095016; Alper Bozkurt, “Balloon-Assisted Flight of Radio-Controlled Insect Biobots,”
IEEE Transactions of Biomedical Engineering
56, no. 9 (2009): 2304–2307.

“it might be possible to…”
: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency,
Hybrid Insect Micro Systems
.

What the agency wanted … buildings or caves
: Ibid.

“What I wanted at the end…”
: Maharbiz, discussion, February 2010.

He figured that most scientists … beetle flight
: Ibid.; Maharbiz and Sato, “Cyborg Beetles.”

Maharbiz and his team … on the forehead
: Hirotaka Sato et al., “Remote Radio Control of Insect Flight,”
Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience
3 (October 2009): article 24; Maharbiz and Sato, “Cyborg Beetles.”

Through trial and error … fall out of the air
: Michel Maharbiz, in discussion with author by telephone, January 4, 2012; Sato et al., “Remote Radio Control of Insect Flight”; Maharbiz and Sato, “Cyborg Beetles.”

The flower beetle’s transformation began
: The steps required to turn a beetle into a flying machine are from Sato et al., “Remote Radio Control of Insect Flight”; Maharbiz and Sato, “Cyborg Beetles”; Sato and Maharbiz, “Recent Developments in the Remote Radio Control of Insect Flight”; and Maharbiz, discussion, January 2012.

Then it was time … across the tile floor
: You can see these flights in the many videos Maharbiz and his students shot. They are posted alongside their 2009 paper (Sato et al., “Remote Radio Control of Insect Flight”) at
www.frontiersin.org/integrative_neuroscience/10.3389/neuro.07.024.2009/abstract
.

“The creation of a cyborg…”
: Sharon Weinberger, “Video: Pentagon’s Cyborg Beetle Takes Flight,”
Wired
, September 24, 2009,
www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/09/video-cyborg-beetle-takes-flight/
.

“Spies may soon be bugging…”
: “U.S. Military Create Live Remote-Controlled Beetles to Bug Conversations,”
Daily Mail
, October 19, 2009,
www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1221438/Ssh–conversation-bugged-cyborg-beetle.html<#>ixzz1ic22geJM
.

A columnist speculated
: Tracy Staedter, “Cyborg Beetles Employed as Military Weapons,”
Discovery News
, November 18, 2009,
http://news.discovery.com/tech/cyborg-beetles-employed-as-military-weapons.html
.

beetles that had been “zombified”
: Stuart Fox, “Video: DARPA’s Remote-Controlled Cyborg Beetle Takes Flight,”
Popular Science
, September 24, 2009,
www.popsci.com/node/38759
.

references to “the impending robots…”
: Ross Miller, “Cyborg Beetles Commandeered for Test Flight, Laser Beams Not (Yet) Included,”
Engadget
, January 29, 2009,
www.engadget.com/2009/01/29/cyborg-beetles-commandeered-for-test-flight-laser-beams-not-ye/
.

When Maharbiz reflects upon
: Michel Maharbiz, in discussion with author, Berkeley, California, April 5, 2011.

“Insects have inherently some sort…”
: Ibid.

“some evil government conspiracy”
: Maharbiz, discussion, February 2010.

“I think that’s nonsense”
: Maharbiz, discussion, April 2011.

“equally reprehensible”
: Maharbiz, discussion, February 2010.

Imagine, Maharbiz tells me … search for survivors
: Ibid.

“The fly is so small…”
: Maharbiz, discussion, April 2011.

A Chinese research team
: Li Bao et al., “Flight Control of Tethered Honeybees Using Neural Electrical Stimulation,”
International IEEE EMBS Conference on Neural Engineering
(2011): 558–61.

and Amit Lal, the engineer
: Denis C. Daly et al., “A Pulsed UWB Receiver SoC for Insect Motion Control,”
IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits
45, no. 1 (2010): 153–66; W. M. Tsang et al., “Insect-Machine Interface: A Carbon Nanotube-Enhanced Flexible Neural Probe,”
Journal of Neuroscience Methods
204, no. 2 (2012): 355–65; Alper Bozkurt, “Balloon-Assisted Flight of Radio-Controlled Insect Biobots,”
IEEE Transactions of Biomedical Engineering
56, no. 9 (2009): 2304–2307.