Meet Japan's cyborg cockroach, coming to disaster area near you

A Madagascar hissing cockroach, mounted with a "backpack" of electronics and a solar cell that enable remote control of its movement, is pictured during a photo opportunity at the Thin-Film Device Laboratory of Japanese research institution Riken in Wako, Saitama Prefecture, Japan September 16, 2022. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

SAITAMA, Japan (Reuters) - If an earthquake strikes in the not too distant future and survivors are trapped under tonnes of rubble, the first responders to locate them could be swarms of cyborg cockroaches.

That's a potential application of a recent breakthrough by Japanese researchers who demonstrated the ability to mount "backpacks" of solar cells and electronics on the bugs and control their motion by remote control.