Abstract :
As anyone who\´s tried to squash a cock roach knows, the insects are adept at searching out nooks and crannies. Edgar Lobaton and his colleagues at North Carolina State University, in Raleigh, are finding ways to turn this natural ability to the benefit of disaster victims. The team is developing software that can create maps of collapsed buildings using data gathered by tiny circuit boards that have been attached to cockroaches before they\´re released into the buildings. Lobaton spoke with Senior Editor Stephen Cass for IEEE Spectrum\´s "Techwise Conversations" podcast about how this technology could guide rescuers to passages and other voids in the rubble.
