High School Students Create Robo Roaches At Cooper Union
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) - This is far from your average teenage summer camp experience.
At the Cooper Union, physics professor Robert Uglesich and some very smart high schoolers are spending their summer on a variety of projects.
WCBS 880's Paul Murnane In Manhattan
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Among them is "a neuroprosthetic where they're taking an electrical box and interfacing it with the nervous system of a cockroach," he says.
Electrical impulses through wires on the roaches' antenna can be patterned to tunes from student Dumitchel Harley's iPod, such as Lady Gaga and Weezer.
The cockroach is alive during the experiment.
"I wanted to go to pre-med when I go to college and then hopefully become a neurosurgeon," said Harley.
He admits that with some, there is a thin line of ethics. But with this kind of research, he says there can be big benefits.
"It has applications in terms of prosthetics which will replace sensory functions," says Uglesich. "For example, artificial retinas."
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