Tomorrow's soldiers could be able to run at Olympic speeds and will be
able to go for days without food or sleep, if new research into gene
manipulation is successful.
According to the U.S. Army's plans for the future, their soldiers will
be able to carry huge weights, live off their fat stores for extended
periods and even regrow limbs blown apart by bombs.
The plans were revealed by novelist Simon Conway, who was granted
behind-the-scenes access to the Pentagon's high-tech Defence Advanced
Research Projects Agency.
With a budget of almost $2billion a year DARPA, established in 1958
after the USSR's first successful space mission shocked America, has a
goal of maintaining U.S. technological dominance on the battlefield.
Among it's many ambitious projects, the agency is working on an
exoskeleton that will allow soldiers to run faster and lift prodigious
weights. But its most controversial work involves genetic
modification.
DARPA is working on triggering genes that will make soldiers' bodies
able to convert fat into energy more efficiently so they are able to
go days without eating while in the warzone.
With plump soldiers able to go on deployment for days living just off
their own body fat, that would free up space in their kit bags
hitherto used for ration packs.
Mr Conway's new thriller, Rockcreek Park, is based on the premise that
a body with extraordinary qualities is discovered in Washington DC.
After his visit to DARPA, the former infantry officer told the Sunday
Express: 'It's all about improving the efficiency of energy creation
in the body.
'Soldiers would be able to run at Olympic speeds, carry large weights
and go without sleep and without food.'
Washington's military scientists are also hoping to work out how to
trigger cells to regrow limbs for soldiers maimed by enemy bombs and
landmines.
With well-documented cases already of young children regrowing fingers
severed in accidents, DARPA is throwing significant sums at research
to identify the physiological trigger and activate it in adults.
One area of success has been in shutting off the trigger of sleep. A
drug was tested on U.S. Army helicopter pilots that enabled them to
stay up longer than 40 hours, with their levels of concentration
actually improving after nearly two days without rest.
It is hoped to replace the amphetamine-based drugs that have
previously been used to keep servicemen alert during operations.
They had been found to affect decision making and had been blamed for
errors in judgement that had led to many so-called incidents of
friendly fire.
Professor Joel Garreau of Arizona University confirmed that DARPA was
experimenting with turning fat into energy. 'Finding that metabolic
switch would wipe out the £40billion diet industry in a heartbeat,' he
added.
The plans are just the latest seemingly madcap schemes dreamed up by
DARPA – which is known as the U.S. military's 'mad scientist' wing.
Earlier this year it emerged that the agency was funding research into
contact lens-mounted displays that could focus information from drones
and satellites directly into soldiers' eyeballs, and helmets that
could enable troops to communicate telepathically.
DARPA projects are often oddball technology, but it also has a history
of far-sighted technological leaps. It invented the first virtual
reality devices, and one of the precursors of the modern internet.
Source: Daily Mail
able to go for days without food or sleep, if new research into gene
manipulation is successful.
According to the U.S. Army's plans for the future, their soldiers will
be able to carry huge weights, live off their fat stores for extended
periods and even regrow limbs blown apart by bombs.
The plans were revealed by novelist Simon Conway, who was granted
behind-the-scenes access to the Pentagon's high-tech Defence Advanced
Research Projects Agency.
With a budget of almost $2billion a year DARPA, established in 1958
after the USSR's first successful space mission shocked America, has a
goal of maintaining U.S. technological dominance on the battlefield.
Among it's many ambitious projects, the agency is working on an
exoskeleton that will allow soldiers to run faster and lift prodigious
weights. But its most controversial work involves genetic
modification.
DARPA is working on triggering genes that will make soldiers' bodies
able to convert fat into energy more efficiently so they are able to
go days without eating while in the warzone.
With plump soldiers able to go on deployment for days living just off
their own body fat, that would free up space in their kit bags
hitherto used for ration packs.
Mr Conway's new thriller, Rockcreek Park, is based on the premise that
a body with extraordinary qualities is discovered in Washington DC.
After his visit to DARPA, the former infantry officer told the Sunday
Express: 'It's all about improving the efficiency of energy creation
in the body.
'Soldiers would be able to run at Olympic speeds, carry large weights
and go without sleep and without food.'
Washington's military scientists are also hoping to work out how to
trigger cells to regrow limbs for soldiers maimed by enemy bombs and
landmines.
With well-documented cases already of young children regrowing fingers
severed in accidents, DARPA is throwing significant sums at research
to identify the physiological trigger and activate it in adults.
One area of success has been in shutting off the trigger of sleep. A
drug was tested on U.S. Army helicopter pilots that enabled them to
stay up longer than 40 hours, with their levels of concentration
actually improving after nearly two days without rest.
It is hoped to replace the amphetamine-based drugs that have
previously been used to keep servicemen alert during operations.
They had been found to affect decision making and had been blamed for
errors in judgement that had led to many so-called incidents of
friendly fire.
Professor Joel Garreau of Arizona University confirmed that DARPA was
experimenting with turning fat into energy. 'Finding that metabolic
switch would wipe out the £40billion diet industry in a heartbeat,' he
added.
The plans are just the latest seemingly madcap schemes dreamed up by
DARPA – which is known as the U.S. military's 'mad scientist' wing.
Earlier this year it emerged that the agency was funding research into
contact lens-mounted displays that could focus information from drones
and satellites directly into soldiers' eyeballs, and helmets that
could enable troops to communicate telepathically.
DARPA projects are often oddball technology, but it also has a history
of far-sighted technological leaps. It invented the first virtual
reality devices, and one of the precursors of the modern internet.
Source: Daily Mail
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