Suresh Menon: Charge of the snail brigade

Here's what you do: Take one snail, and two electrodes, hold one in each hand, coat them with enzymes and poke them into the space between the shell and the body. The enzymes promote chemical reactions that produce a flow of electrons drawn from glucose molecules.

No, this is not a recipe for an exotic French dish, one of those escargots- something-or-the-other - but an early step towards building a cyborg, an animal/machine hybrid that, fed with some oil and some green leaves, will float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.

That's not how the scientists say it, however. Their aim is to "harness the natural sensors and power generation of insects".

In future, the tortoise will beat the hare every time because it will be programmed to do so (rather like Arnold Schwarzenegger), and not because it is hard-working and refuses to take long breaks on the way to the finishing line.

Then there is the electric cockroach too. One was immobilised while it was serving as a mini power plant, but after the experiment, it was fine, according to the scientist. Clearly no cockroaches were harmed on the road to making our lives easier, although SPAC (Society for the Prevention of Atrocities to Cockroaches), has not made a public statement so far.

Suddenly, the possibilities are endless. Cockroaches running around until their batteries die out, snails chewing up your garden faster than you can plant it, mosquitoes flying around faster than the speed of sound so you get bitten first and then hear the music of its approach. One presumes the reverse could happen too. Charging rhinos coming to an abrupt stop or slowing down to be overtaken by yet-to-be-powered snails.

But of course, as in all such matters, it is the military use that will be paramount. Spying is an obvious area, but there is too the possibility of attacking an enemy with bug phobias so they freeze at the sight of a cockroach (and then will have to be powered into motion again, but that's a different chapter). Snails can, of course, destroy a nation's lettuce arsenal.

One group of scientists, excited at all these possibilities, used the same technique on a mushroom. They were trying to produce the world's first walking mushroom in readiness for the Mushroom Olympics (an idea whose time hasn't come). The results haven't been publicised, but rumours are that the mushroom took a deep breath and dropped dead.

The super cockroach racing the super snail and attacking the super mushroom is not a scene out of a movie. It is the first step towards the robotising of animals or the animalising of robots.

It all sounds a bit supernatural to me.