For thousands of years humans have trained pigeons to race, deliver messages and “spy behind enemy lines”, said Bloomberg. “What would happen if people could bypass the training and steer their bird brains instead?”
Neiry, a Russian neurotechnology company linked to Vladimir Putin’s daughter Katerina Tikhonova, is claiming to be doing just that, according to The Times. There has been “no independent scientific verification” of Neiry’s claims, but the Moscow-based firm is reportedly implanting neural chips into pigeons’ brains. They can then supposedly be steered by remote operators “stimulating their brains with electrodes to make them turn left or right”.
Pigeons outperform traditional drones because animals “do not require battery swaps or frequent landings”, according to Neiry. They can fly up to 400km a day without a break and reach areas where drones would be restricted, the company says.
And there are other advantages to these bird-brained “bio-drones”, said Bloomberg. Mechanical drones are “easier to control” and “can carry bigger loads”, but when it comes to covert surveillance they are far more likely to attract attention than “one more pigeon flapping around”.
Neiry claims that the “cyborg” birds are intended for peaceful purposes, such as helping with search and rescue operations and monitoring infrastructure. But experts have warned that the technology could “easily be adapted for military use”, said The Telegraph. An investigation by T-Invariant, an independent anti-war outlet, found that Neiry had received about one billion roubles (almost £10 million), “much of it from Kremlin-linked sources”. It is funding “on a scale Russian neuroscience has never seen”, one neurologist told the website. | 
