Scientists have given a robot the ability to sense smell using locust antennae.

There will be cameras and microphones capable of matching and exceeding human hearing and sight in 2023. But for all of our technological advancements, humans haven’t quite managed to build a better nose. Evolution has spent millions of years perfecting the smell-sensing receptors that humans, animals, and inspectors use to detect odors. Scientists may have achieved a breakthrough with the help nature.

A study published Monday in The Journal Biosensors and BioelectronicsA group of researchers at Tel Aviv University (via), created. According to ), they have created a robot capable of identifying a handful smells with 10,000x greater sensitivity than other specialized electronics. Their robot is called a biohybrid platform (read cyborg). It includes an array of antennae derived from a The robot is connected to an electronic system which measures the amount electrical signal generated by the antennae when it detects a smell. They created an algorithm to pair the robot with the signal output of the antennae, which would allow it to distinguish the different smells. In this way, the team created a system that could reliably differentiate between eight “pure” odors, including geranium, lemon and marzipan, and two mixtures of different smells. Their robot could detect explosives or drugs, according to the scientists.

A YouTube video from Tel Aviv University claims the robot is a “scientific first,” but last June researchers from Michigan State University published research detailing a system that used surgically-altered locusts to . Scientists also attempted to make locusts in 2016. into bomb-sniffing cyborgs. Let me just say that after millennia spent causing crop failures, pests might finally be useful.