Animals as Nature and DARPA Intended Them

Last night, I went out with an otherwise lovely girl who thinks that 1) Scandinavia is a continent, and 2) elephant seals are a cross-breed of seals and whales. A “combo,” she called them.

“Well, that’s just silly,” you say to yourself, as you try to imagine a whale boffing a hapless seal.

(Hold on, there, sick-o. It’s not that kind of blog.)

What you call “silly” is what DARPA (the R&D arm of the U.S. Dept. of Defense) might consider a job qualification. They’re always looking for people with creative minds who can effectively apply the DARPA Equation:

Devilishly clever, isn’t it? By sticking electrodes up the asses of all sorts of creatures, our defense services are better-equipped to fight, gather intelligence, and fulfill sadistic fantasies first-hatched in 8^th grade biology classes. Or so the story goes.

Thanks to the efforts of groups like DARPA, for a long while our country has been at the forefront of technologies such as remote-controlled sharks, electro-telepathic rats, cybernetic monkeys (glee!), and battle-cattle.

Can the computer sense what I’m thinking? Here’s a hint: This really frigging hurts.

First things first. Let’s teach the cyborg monkey the universal gesture for “#%$! You!”

But the dementedly resourceful folks at DARPA shouldn’t be complacent, because there’s a new player on the “let’s make another cyborg monkey so we can watch them fight” stage. China has announced the development of a radio-controlled attack pigeon.

This can’t be sanitary.

Well, I assume it’s an attack pigeon. The only alternative I can imagine is that these Chinese scientists are also able to control when the pigeon craps and have thereby invented the world’s best practical joke device. But I think not.

To help our boys and girls at DARPA to stay ahead in the furry-robot-arms race, I hereby suggest the following applications of the DARPA equation:

1) Gorillas implanted with a chip that makes them go violently apeshit (no pun) whenever there’s a Commie or a member of Al Qaeda detected nearby. (I know, I know… this one is obvious.)

2) Gophers that send a radio signals with GPS coordinates when they discover land mines.

3) Buzzard bombs. Similar to a smart bomb, but less expensive. Hordes of chip-implanted vultures and other heavy, large-beaked birds would plummet into any target–say, enemy troops–“painted” by a friendly targeting laser. Afterwards, no one concerns themselves with the harm that came to the vultures because, seriously, who cares about vultures?

4) Dogs with X-Ray-vision-enhanced eyes. Now when your bomb-detecting dog starts flipping out, you know he’s found something.

What say you? Any ideas?