A 3D Printed Diving Suit Lets Cyborg Cockroaches Swim Underwater

• Cockroaches have been surviving on Earth for more than 300 million years. They can crawl through tiny cracks, climb almost any surface, and adapt to harsh environments. Now, researchers have...

Cockroaches have been surviving on Earth for more than 300 million years. They can crawl through tiny cracks, climb almost any surface, and adapt to harsh environments. Now, researchers have found a way to help them survive underwater too. A team from Nanyang Technological University (NTU Singapore) and Waseda University in Japan has developed a tiny 3D printed diving suit for cyborg cockroaches, allowing the insects to stay underwater for up to three hours while carrying electronic backpacks. The work combines 3D printing, robotics, and biology in a new type of biohybrid system that could one day help inspect flooded infrastructure or search areas that are difficult for conventional robots to reach. The research was published in the journal Nature Communications in a paper titled “An am