The ordinary garden snail is now being recruited into the military as hi-tech spies. Scientists have turned the snail into a data-gathering cyborg spy that will gather and transmit intelligence back to its handler on a military base. It may sound like a plot to a Hollywood movie but it's actually happening in a research lab in New York.

A research team headed by Evgeny Katz from Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York have built and implanted fuel cells into the shell cavities of a half dozen brown garden snails. These fuel cells can extract electrical power from the glucose and oxygen in the snail's blood and generate electricity whenever the snail is connected to an external circuit.

"The "electrified" snail, being a biotechnological living "device", was able to regenerate glucose consumed by biocatalytic electrodes, upon appropriate feeding and relaxing, and then produce a new "portion" of electrical energy. The snail with the implanted biofuel cell will be able to operate in a natural environment, producing sustainable electrical micropower for activating various bioelectronic devices," the team reported in a study published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

The cyborg snail is just the latest in a line of mechanized insects. In January researchers from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio reported that they were able to implant biofuel cells in live cockroaches while another research team from CFD Research Corporation together with colleagues from the University of California reports implanting beetles with biofuel cells. There is immense interest from the U.S. military's own research arm, DARPA which has funded research into implanting piezoelectric generators that convert stress from the motion of a beetle's wings into electricity. If the research teams are successful the cyborg insects could be used for military recon. A swarm of autonomous cyborg beetles and snails that could go anywhere could be very useful for military intelligence.

Katz's cyborg snails weren't harmed by their implants. The snails were allowed to roam freely, eating and resting to recharge their batteries.

"Our snail was living for a few months with the implanted electrodes, eating, drinking, moving, etc.," Katz told InnovationNewsDaily. "The snail was fixed for a few minutes to make the electrical measurements and then it was released again to move."

The cyborg snails were only able to generate miniscule amounts of energy far below that of an AAA battery but Katz's team is working on boosting the electricity output. The team is also planning to start hooking up the snails with microelectronic devices to test if they could carry video cameras or gas sensors.

"In the future setup the implanted bioelectrodes will be connected to a microelectronic device fixed at the snail body, and the snail will be released to move as much as it wants," Katz said.

Meanwhile, Katz is already looking to another organism to mechanize. Katz and his team are already looking to develop cyborg lobsters.