Move over, James Bond—your new competition has six legs and a bad attitude! DARPA’s cooking up a swarm of insect-sized spy robots, from RoboBees that flap faster than your heart at a horror movie to cockroach bots that laugh at gravity. These tiny terrors might soon be eavesdropping on your picnic or sneaking through your vents, all in the name of national security. Or maybe they just really want to know what’s in your sandwich.

DARPA Going Hard on Insect-Sized Spy Robots