Overview
- A paper published Wednesday in Nature Communications describes a proof-of-concept 3D-printed diving-suit backpack that kept Madagascar hissing cockroaches alive and moving underwater for up to three hours in lab tests.
- The backpack houses a chemical oxygen generator that breaks down diluted hydrogen peroxide with a manganese dioxide catalyst and pumps oxygen through four silicone tubes into the cockroaches’ thoracic spiracles.
- Control is handled by a tiny wireless pack that sends brief electrical pulses to prompt turns and movement while the insect’s muscles provide locomotion, avoiding heavy batteries or motors.
- Tests used shallow, 3D-printed tube obstacle courses and extended submerged survival from minutes to as long as three hours, making the work an experimental validation rather than a broadly field-proven tool.
- Researchers say the technology could aid flooded search-and-rescue and pipeline inspections, but scaling to smaller species, deeper water, or real disaster conditions will require more engineering and safety review; the team previously deployed instrumented cockroaches in a 2025 Myanmar earthquake response.