Guys, all the hard work has been done. Now all you do is figure how to apply it. Thanks to a huge effort by the Europeans, in particular, the European Commission’s Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) initiative of the IST programme as the project "Leurre." I know, it’s a mouthful, but worth swallowing. Using cunning little robots named ‘Insbots’ these ingenious scientists have done what no-one has ever achieved - except Captain Jean Luc Pickard - and infiltrated a Cocky collective with, and here’s the irony, a Trojan device that closely resembles a TINY BORG CUBE. And children, this website is FOR YOU. If ever you wanted the ultimate science project, this will blow the opposition. Defused and done. Not only how to knock up a mini-Borg, but even how to stink it up so the roaches love it - literally. For example: [Illus: Borg Collective analysis. Source, Voyager Log] Borg Unit Mods, Hardware Changes - "After running some tests with alive and dead cockroaches, trying different surfaces we decided to change the robot equipments as following .." "Instrack is able to track objects even if their contours melt/overlie by exploiting knowledge of the number of objects. The Swarm-Intelligent Systems Research Group contributed to the project Leurre by developing a software package that enables to systematically collect trajectory data of a mixed cockroach/robot society." [Pest exterminators, take further note!]

Roach Flocking

"The experimental set-up is composed of a circular arena of 1m diameter and of two shelters. The shelters are disk covered by red film filters. Cockroaches prefer to rest under the shelters. When two shelters are present they choose only one of them. They do not spread randomly between them. This collective choice is a form of collective intelligence similar to what is found with ants or bees." [No-one (NOONE) has any excuse for not being able to track down the little blighters from now on]

Roach Poo

"Identification and isolation of the aggregation pheromone in the cockroach, Periplaneta americana (L.), 09/2004 - Chemical blends involved in P. Americana aggregation .. " The origin of these molecules could be secretion in the digestive tract and they could thus be found in the faeces. Further experiments are necessary to confirm these hypotheses. " [I guess that's code for 'We're waiting for some other research group to tackle that one] Links to oh-so-cool website: Description and project details [Kids, here!]