[HN Gopher] Repurposing the cadaver of a spider to create a pneu...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Repurposing the cadaver of a spider to create a pneumatically
       actuated gripper
        
       Author : latchkey
       Score  : 39 points
       Date   : 2022-07-29 15:57 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (spectrum.ieee.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (spectrum.ieee.org)
        
       | TheDudeMan wrote:
       | The paper says hydraulic. pneumatic != hydraulic
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | cma wrote:
         | Their embedded video mentions they use a puff of air, but I
         | don't see that in the paper so maybe the video title just got
         | it wrong?
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JOS6hMHIUM
         | 
         | Or I guess it still may be air in the syringe pressing on
         | fluids in the spider and be kind of both?
        
       | fractallyte wrote:
       | So... something reminiscent of Pickle Rick, from Rick and Morty?
       | (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickle_Rick)
       | 
       |  _Spoiler:_ Rick lands himself in a pickle, and  "lacking any
       | means of mobility, he bites the head of a cockroach and walks
       | upon its back by stimulating its brain with his tongue. After
       | assembling more cockroaches into a crude exoskeleton, he sets up
       | a lab and upgrades to a powered exoskeleton made of rat corpses."
       | 
       | Fun episode!
        
         | viraptor wrote:
         | https://newatlas.com/science/fly-brains-hack-remote-controll...
         | this seems closer.
        
       | 0b01 wrote:
       | "pneumatic": so basically they apply pressure by injecting air
       | into spider's valve and it moves?
       | 
       | How is "necrobotics" a real field of research? :p
        
         | LegitShady wrote:
         | step 1 - convince someone at DARPA you aren't making an army of
         | robot zombies
        
           | BirAdam wrote:
           | Or suggest to them that you are indeed making an army of
           | zombies, but that they're super patriotic zombies.
        
             | Yahivin wrote:
             | And that the "zombie gap" is a growing concern...
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | inglor_cz wrote:
       | Leaving the morbid details aside, it is remarkable how many of
       | our industrial innovations are inspired by existing biology.
       | 
       | After all, the biosphere is an immense laboratory with
       | experiments running nonstop for millions of years, and bad
       | designs weeded out ruthlessly by evolutionary bottlenecks.
        
         | pvg wrote:
         | Which ones do you have in mind? Making the argument the other
         | way round seems a lot easier, for instance, wheels and axles
         | weren't inspired by existing biology.
        
       | codetrotter wrote:
       | I saw some videos of this on TikTok, and I still can't decide if
       | it is awesome or horrifying.
        
       | alar44 wrote:
       | I don't understand what spider legs are doing that we can't
       | manufacture ourselves. I don't really get what problem this is
       | solving. Just seems kind of fucked up to me.
        
         | rojobuffalo wrote:
         | It works because of the "inherent compliance of the legs as
         | well as hairlike microstructures on the legs that work kind of
         | like a directional adhesive". It would be hard to manufacture a
         | tiny pressurized system with valves and those hairlike
         | microstructures. Spiders are self-assembling and made out of
         | cheap materials. Anything with piloted corpses does seem a
         | little fucked up. I'm creeped out imagining accidents storing
         | live spiders or weird research advancements on engineered
         | spiders.
        
       | ThouYS wrote:
       | I don't like it
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | andrewstuart wrote:
       | I find killing of animals really offensive, haven't we killed
       | enough on the earth?
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | RickHull wrote:
       | Very tangentially related, though with AI and aliens, if you
       | haven't read Blindsight by Peter Watts, you owe it to yourself to
       | check it out.
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight_(Watts_novel)
        
       | rojobuffalo wrote:
       | The ideal tool to "discreetly capture [insects] for sample
       | collection". At least 700 actuations before it starts degrading,
       | that's impressive.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2022-07-30 23:00 UTC)