Engineers put a dead spider to work — as a robot: An Excerpt
Engineers have literally reanimated dead spiders. Now those corpses do their bidding.
It's part of a new field called necrobotics. Here, researchers converted the corpses of wolf spiders into grippers that can manipulate objects. All the team had to do was stab a syringe into a dead spider's back and superglue it in place. Pushing fluid in and out of the cadaver made its legs open and shut.
It all started when Faye Yap saw a dead spider in her lab. Yap is a mechanical engineer at Rice University in Houston, Texas. She wondered: Why do spiders curl up when they die? The answer: Spiders are hydraulic machines, which means they move by pushing fluid around their bodies. For spiders, that fluid is blood. They extend their legs by forcing blood into them. A dead spider has no blood pressure, so its legs curl up.
"We were just thinking that was so cool," says Yap. She and her team wanted to use that ability somehow, and since they sometimes do research on grippers, they decided to try using a spider to make one.
They first tried gently warming the dead wolf spiders in a special kind of kitchen pan. They hoped the wet heat would make the spider expand and push its legs out. It didn't, so the researchers injected fluid straight into the spider's corpse. And just like that, they could control the spider's grip. They could use the dead spider to pull wires from a circuit board — or even pick up other dead spiders. Only after hundreds of uses did the necrobots start to become dehydrated and show signs of wear.
In the future, the team will coat the spider bodies with a sealant in hopes those bodies will last even longer. But the next big step, Yap says, will be to figure out more about how spiders work so they can control each of the legs individually. Her team hopes their findings could translate into ideas to better design more conventional (non-corpse) robots.
"That would be very, very interesting," says Rashid Bashir, who is a bioengineer at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He did not take part in the new research. A spider corpse itself probably would not make an ideal robot, he says. Unlike "hard robots," he suspects, it won't perform consistently — and its body will break down over time. But engineers can definitely take lessons from spiders. "There's a lot to be learned from biology and nature," Bashir says.
Yap is no mad scientist, despite the whole reanimating dead spiders thing. She wonders whether it's OK to play Frankenstein, even with spiders. When it comes to this type of research, she says, no one really talks about what's moral — as in what's right or wrong.
Bashir agrees and says scientists need to figure out the morality of this sort of bioengineering before they get too good at it. Otherwise, he asks, "How far do you go?"
RAD Method
The RAD method, short for Reanimated Animal Design, is the approach used by the engineers at Rice University to convert dead spiders into functional grippers. This method involves injecting fluid into the spider's corpse to control the movement of its legs. By manipulating the fluid, the researchers were able to make the spider's legs open and shut, allowing them to manipulate objects.
Initially, the team tried using gentle heat to expand the dead spiders and force their legs out, but this method proved ineffective. Injecting fluid directly into the spider's body, however, provided the desired results. The researchers discovered that by controlling the fluid, they could make the grippers pull wires from circuit boards and even pick up other dead spiders. The necrobots showed signs of wear and dehydration after prolonged use, but the team plans to address these issues by coating the spider bodies with a sealant to increase their longevity.
In the future, the researchers aim to gain a deeper understanding of spider mechanics to enable more precise control over each leg. The ultimate goal is to leverage this knowledge to improve the design of conventional robots. Bioengineers like Rashid Bashir recognize the potential in learning from nature and biology to enhance robot design.
However, the ethical implications of necrobotics and bioengineering are a concern. Faye Yap, the lead researcher, questions the morality of reanimating dead spiders or engaging in this type of research without discussing the ethical implications. Bashir agrees, emphasizing the need for scientists to address the morality of bioengineering before progressing too far.
Engineers put a dead spider to work — as a robot: An Excerpt
Engineers have literally reanimated dead spiders. Now those corpses do their bidding.
It's part of a new field called necrobotics. Here, researchers converted the corpses of wolf spiders into grippers that can manipulate objects. All the team had to do was stab a syringe into a dead spider's back and superglue it in place. Pushing fluid in and out of the cadaver made its legs open and shut.
It all started when Faye Yap saw a dead spider in her lab. Yap is a mechanical engineer at Rice University in Houston, Texas. She wondered: Why do spiders curl up when they die? The answer: Spiders are hydraulic machines, which means they move by pushing fluid around their bodies. For spiders, that fluid is blood. They extend their legs by forcing blood into them. A dead spider has no blood pressure, so its legs curl up.
"We were just thinking that was so cool," says Yap. She and her team wanted to use that ability somehow, and since they sometimes do research on grippers, they decided to try using a spider to make one.
They first tried gently warming the dead wolf spiders in a special kind of kitchen pan. They hoped the wet heat would make the spider expand and push its legs out. It didn't, so the researchers injected fluid straight into the spider's corpse. And just like that, they could control the spider's grip. They could use the dead spider to pull wires from a circuit board — or even pick up other dead spiders. Only after hundreds of uses did the necrobots start to become dehydrated and show signs of wear.
In the future, the team will coat the spider bodies with a sealant in hopes those bodies will last even longer. But the next big step, Yap says, will be to figure out more about how spiders work so they can control each of the legs individually. Her team hopes their findings could translate into ideas to better design more conventional (non-corpse) robots.
"That would be very, very interesting," says Rashid Bashir, who is a bioengineer at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He did not take part in the new research. A spider corpse itself probably would not make an ideal robot, he says. Unlike "hard robots," he suspects, it won't perform consistently — and its body will break down over time. But engineers can definitely take lessons from spiders. "There's a lot to be learned from biology and nature," Bashir says.
Yap is no mad scientist, despite the whole reanimating dead spiders thing. She wonders whether it's OK to play Frankenstein, even with spiders. When it comes to this type of research, she says, no one really talks about what's moral — as in what's right or wrong.
Bashir agrees and says scientists need to figure out the morality of this sort of bioengineering before they get too good at it. Otherwise, he asks, "How far do you go?" Use The Writing method Rad
The RAD method, or Reanimated Animal Design, was used by engineers at Rice University to convert dead spiders into functional grippers. By utilizing this approach, researchers were able to manipulate the legs of dead wolf spiders to open and shut using a fluid injection technique. The process involved stabbing a syringe into the spider's back and securing it with superglue. Pushing fluid into the cadaver allowed control over the spider's grip.
Faye Yap, a mechanical engineer at Rice University, became intrigued by the question of why spiders curl up when they die. This led her and her team to explore the hydraulic nature of spiders, as they extend their legs by forcing fluid, in the form of blood, into them. Without blood pressure, a dead spider's legs curl up.
The researchers attempted to warm the dead spiders in a specialized kitchen pan, hoping to cause expansion and leg movement. However, this method proved ineffective. Thus, they switched to directly injecting fluid into the spider's corpse, providing the desired control over the legs. The reanimated spiders were capable of grasping objects like wires and even other dead spiders. However, after numerous uses, the necrobots started to dehydrate and show signs of wear.
To prolong the longevity of the spider bodies, the team plans to coat them with a sealant in future experiments. Additionally, the next significant step will involve understanding the mechanics of spider legs individually, enabling better control. The team hopes that these findings will contribute to the advancement of designing more conventional robots, separate from deceased organisms.
Rashid Bashir, a bioengineer from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, acknowledges the potential value in learning from biology and nature. While a spider corpse alone may not be an ideal robot due to inconsistent performance and bodily degradation over time, there are valuable lessons that can be derived from studying spiders.
The ethical implications of this research are also a topic of concern. Yap questions the morality of manipulating dead insects, even though she does not identify herself as a mad scientist. Bashir agrees, emphasizing the need for scientists to address the morality of bioengineering and establish boundaries for such research.