Photos: Meet the robo-pigeon

No, this isn't a punk rock pigeon with a crimson mohawk. It is instead a digitally enhanced squab that receives computer commands through the microelectrode device implanted--rather cumbersomely, it would seem--in its head. Scientists from the Robot Research Center at the Shandong University of Science and Technology in Qingdao, China, performed the avian mod, which allows them to direct the pigeon's flight (take off, hover, fly forward, turn right or left) by remote control.

Credit: He Yi/ChinaFotoPress