Cyborg Speakers: Hijacked Cicadas Create Unconventional Music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p49k0l2fsig

A plethora of summer sounds has been given an electronic twist; the chirping of cicadas has been transformed into a cyborg speaker capable of playing everything from Pachelbel’s Canon to themes from Top Gun. The researchers behind this innovation believe it can effectively convey warning messages during emergencies.

Naoda in the West and his team at Tsukuba University in Japan took inspiration from previous studies where electrodes were used to remotely control cockroaches by stimulating their muscles. While enjoying the sounds of cicadas on their forest campus, the researchers decided to apply a similar technique to “borrow a chirp.”

Cicadas produce sound using specialized organs called timbals, which consist of thick ribs connected by delicate membranes. By rapidly contracting these organs, cicadas create continuous sounds, with pitch determined by the frequency of their movements.

To manipulate the timbal sound, researchers implanted electrodes into seven large brown cicadas (Graptopsaltria nigrofuscata). They transmitted a signal from a computer, via an amplifier, to induce sounds at specific pitches.

The team successfully trained these cicadas to play music accurately, allowing them to generate tones spanning more than three octaves, from note A at 27.5 Hz to C at 261.6 Hz.

Nishida, now at the University of Tokyo, mentioned that the insects remained relatively unharmed throughout the experiments, with some even being released back into their natural habitat. “Some of them wanted to get away,” he remarked. “Others seemed fine with the use of their abdomen.”

The researchers suggest that these cyborg insects could prove valuable in emergencies, such as during earthquakes.