[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)