De Oorlogsstaat 27

Terwijl de mensheid aan de vooravond staat van de desastreuze gevolgen van de klimaatverandering, zoals professor James Lovelock mij vanmiddag uitlegde, gaan de machtigen gewoon door met hun oorlogsvoorbereidingen. Tom Dispatch bericht: 'Tomgram: Weaponizing the Shark and Other Pentagon Dreams.
Shark and Awe. From the Annals of Full-Spectrum Dominance We already have "stealth" aircraft, but what about a little of the stealth that only nature can provide? Navy Seals, move over -- here come the Navy sharks. According to the latest New Scientist magazine, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA, the blue-sky wing of the Pentagon, has set yet another group of American scientists loose to create the basis for future red-in-tooth-and-maw Discovery Channel programs. In this case, they are planning to put neural implants into the brains of sharks in hopes, one day, of "controlling the animal's movements, and perhaps even decoding what it is feeling." In their dreams at least, DARPA'S far-out funders hope to "exploit sharks' natural ability to glide quietly through the water, sense delicate electrical gradients and follow chemical trails. By remotely guiding the sharks' movements, they hope to transform the animals into stealth spies, perhaps capable of following vessels without being spotted." So far they've only made it to the poor dogfish, "steered" in captivity via electrodes keyed to "phantom odors." As it happens though, DARPA-sponsored plans are a good deal lustier than that: Next stop, the blue shark, which reaches a length of 13 feet. Project engineer Walter Gomes of the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Newport, Rhode Island claims a team will soon be putting neural implants "into blue sharks and releas[ing] them into the ocean off the coast of Florida." To transmit signals to the sharks, the team will need nothing less than a network of signaling towers in the area. This has "anti-ballistic shark system" written all over it.' Lees verder:
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?emx=x&pid=66469