The Scariest Arms Race Of Our Time...And Guess Who's In The Lead?

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Revelation 9:3-10

3 "Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given power like the power of scorpions of the earth. 4 They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any green plant or any tree, but only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. 5 They were allowed to torment them for five months, but not to kill them, and their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings someone. 6 And in those days people will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them."

7 "In appearance the locusts were like horses prepared for battle: on their heads were what looked like crowns of gold; their faces were like human faces, 8 their hair like women's hair, and their teeth like lions' teeth; 9 they had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the noise of their wings was like the noise of many chariots with horses rushing into battle. 10 They have tails and stings like scorpions, and their power to hurt people for five months is in their tails."



I believe the picture is an artist's rendition of what's possible with this technology, but I could be wrong, and I wouldn't be surprised if something similar to these little critters are already being used.
They're called Micro Air Vehicles

Imagine what would happen if some madman, who thinks he's the anti-Christ, were to get his hands on something like this. Just make a few changes to the bug in the picture and suddenly the reality of someone being able to unleash the locusts of the Bible isn't so far fetched.

While researching another thread I stumbled upon a juicy little nugget of information that inspired this thread...

From July 3 - 6, 2012 in the “Lion City” of Braunschweig, Germany a competition was held called the “International Micro Air Vehicle Conference and Flight Competition" or "IMAV 2012”.

The people who put this event together (as shown in the following image) should be reason enough to take this seriously or at least raise an eyebrow...


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Now what you may find most interesting of all is that I found out about this competition while investigating a possible evacuation order in Isfahan, Iran.

Iran to Citizens: Flee Isfahan

I decided to check the University's websites for evidence of an evacuation order when I stumbled upon this from the Isfahan University of Technology...

IUT Student Aerospace Team Wins Powerfully, Hits First in Germany World Competitions

The IUT Student Aerospace Team ranked first in the International Micro Air Vehicle Competitions (IMAV2012), which was hosted by Germany. Azarakhsh IUT Team, in this world championship of tiny unmanned birds that was held on 14 and 15 Tir this year and attended by 15 teams from different countries including America, France, Germany, Russia, Japan, Australia and Turkey, won the gold medal. Pointing to the high scientific level of the tournaments as a global competition, Dr. Mehdi Nili Ahmad Abadi, who is in charge of the IUT Aerospace Team, declared: “The International Micro Air Vehicle Competitions are held every year and aim to present the latest capabilities in the design of unmanned birds and are supported and sponsored by the European Union Office of Aerospace Research and Development and the Office of Naval Research”. He added: “In these competitions, held both Indoor and Outdoor, the IUT Student Team, including Javad Poormohammad, Mohammad Reza Radmanesh, Mahdi Kaveh, Ali Riahi Samani, and Iman Samani, along with depicting the creativity and ingenuity of Iranian youth, ranked first in Outdoor Flight Dynamics, ranked second in Outdoor Autonomy, and, totally, ranked first in Outdoor section”. The faculty member of the Mechanical Engineering Department of Isfahan University of Technology described this success as an unprecedented honor during the presence of Iranian teams in previous tournaments and said: “The achievement of this success by IUT students is a symbol of scientific and technical genius of the youth of this land in competition with other countries in the design of unmanned tiny birds”. Terminating his remarks, he thanked Dr. Ali Reza Fadaei, the faculty member of the Mechanical Engineering Department of Isfahan University of Technology for his cooperation and contribution, and said: “The attainment of this pride-provoking success is due to the praise-worthy efforts and perseverance on the part of the mechanical engineering undergraduate students at the university during the past two years and the financial support by Khodran Vafa Company and the spiritual support of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the university”.

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Upon further digging into the event, I learned that the Conference consisted of 17 presentations and 4 of them were given by the Iranians including...

-A new Method for Design of Fixed Wing Micro Air Vehicle
-Sending instructions and receiving the data from MAVs using telecommunication Networks
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So now I'm left scratching my head with a new perspective on the whole technology and information sharing practices between us and our so called "enemies".

The U.S. Army and Navy help put together an event in which the Iranians schooled everyone on a technology that serves no purpose but to do harm and spy...

Does anyone else see a problem with this?

a few years back, i had read that isreal was big on these emerging 'micro weapons'
no, i'm not just trying to 'blame it on isreal'
that's just what i had seen.

edit; and the thought of being 'compromised' by one of these little guys scared me for some time too !

reply to post by Bone75


With todays current tech, it wouldnt surprise me one bit if these little bots were already out there. Scary stuff.

Scientists may be beyond politics but governments are not. I have to think those Iranian scientists are going straight to Teheran after the conference and spill everything they know.
hopefully we have stuff a generation ahead of what's publicly known and those things won't be an issue.

I always figured the 'locusts' would be genetically engineered bugs; maybe they'll be bionic, part real bug and part tech.

not a pleasant prospect anyways. thx for posting

reply to post by Bone75


Bio engineered mosquitoes released in the everglades is what came to mind for me.
Five months is about how long most have mosquitoes around,
Just what came up in my mind not to derail thread or distract.

A bit off topic, but isn't it a bit funny that the US and others keep claiming that Iran is filled with barbarians who have pretty much nothing?

Yet everytime I turn around I see more and more genius and great R&D than most other 1st world nations.

On topic:

The idea of nano technology, in any capacity is kind of scary. There is no limit to the nefarious possibilities.

~Tenth

Originally posted by Bone75
I believe the picture is an artist's rendition of what's possible with this technology, but I could be wrong

This picture has been floating around the net for a few years now, and yes, it is just an artists model.

Originally posted by Bone75
From July 3 - 6, 2012 in the “Lion City” of Braunschweig, Germany a competition was held called the “International Micro Air Vehicle Conference and Flight Competition" or "IMAV 2012”.

Now you yourself have linked to the competition website, so why is it that since you know the website exists, that you have no idea what kind of models were entered, and won the various categories?
There are pictures...


...and they look exactly the same as any bunch of guys flying model aircraft that you could see at any model aircraft hobby club.

But you know that, because you went to the website you linked, right?

reply to post by alfa1


Unfortunately there were no pics or videos of the Azarakhsh MAV, so forgive me for not providing something I don't have. Although, one of their presentations was titled
-Numerical Investigation of Azarakhsh MAV

It sounds like this particular model is pretty significant to me.

And to be fair, here's a video of the German's MAVs:



I'm sure you could probably find something even smaller if you were trying to contribute here instead of bashing.

Glad that's just an artists model and they (hopefully) don't have anything this scary just yet.

And I agree with 10th that nanotech is scary stuff.

On the up-side, regarding the picture, I know of very few drugs which would be effective from a syringe that size, as the dose would be too small. On the other hand 1- a few of the ones i do know of can kill you or really mess up your head, and, 2- I suppose they could just use a whole swarm of the things.

Now isn't that a creepy idea?

Originally posted by Bone75
Unfortunately there were no pics or videos of the Azarakhsh MAV...

A quick google search for ...
iran imav2012
... gives me a blog by a competitor at the 2012 event.

He has photos. And among the photos unimaginatively labelled "UK.jpg", "tilt.jpg" and "IndoorPylon.jpg" is this one taken outdoors, that he called "iran.jpg" (bigger image at the blog)...

reply to post by Bone75


This is a drawing in Photoshop. There are a bunch of threads on it. It is a concept. But there are many of its type that we have heard about in the past, they have flies and such-we all know.

Thanks for posting. There has been a lot of research into 'Nano-technology', such as displayed in the Op's picture.

This attached link and reference comes directly from the Department of Defense via their Research and Engineering Enterprise. Notice all of the logo's, such as DARPA that are involved in this program. A very interesting site to peruse through.

AUGMENTING MILITARY OPERATIONS USING AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS
CHALLENGE:
The U.S. requires defense systems that can do more with less human-intensive tasks. The next-generation of autonomous systems represent an improvement over today's capabilities, but are still too fragile for complex, uncertain, unstructured environments and complex missions. Bottom line: human involvement is still required with autonomous systems in order to deal with the unexpected.

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Nanotechnology in the Military
This is a .pdf file, but gives an excellent overview of a number of the technologies that have been under research and possible deployment of the past decade. Very interesting read!

I would guess, a number of secret nano-technologies are in an 'on-going' research and study phase, however, a number have already been employed and are being utilized

Here is a short video describing some of the applications of nanotechnology. Nanotechnology deals with structures sized between 1 to 100 nanometer in at least one dimension, and involves developing materials or devices within that size.
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Eric Drexler coined the term "nano"
e-drexler.com...

en.wikipedia.org...

he has a few books and some writings on this subject, nano-warefare etc...

Just because at some conference some Iranians gave some good talks does not mean they are "in the lead"

www.nano.gov...

domino.research.ibm.com...


most of our engineers and scientists are not allowed to goto confs or publish, however "scary" you think it is,
its problay worse.....


-GhostInShell

reply to post by Ghostinshell


Without saying much more. I would agree with everything you have stated.