SPIDERS just got creepier after a new video shows a zombie spider robot able to lift 130 percent of its bodyweight using dead arachnid bodies.
A team of engineers at Rice University in Texas have successfully reanimated dead spiders to complete the chilling task and released their findings in a new study.
A group of engineers have reanimated a dead spider and used it to hold things – creating a nightmarish grabber tool[/caption]
The creation has been described as “necrobotics” and the authors believe it could have several uses such as capturing insects and assembling microelectronics.
“Prior research has focused on bioinspired systems, where researchers look to nature for inspiration and mimic the physical traits of living organisms in engineered systems,” said Faye Yap, a mechanical engineer at Rice and lead author of the paper.
“Necrobotics, on the other hand, uses biotic materials, which are non-living materials derived from once-living organisms, such as the necrobotic gripper sourced from a spider in our work.”
The team got their inspiration after finding a dead spider moving things around their lab.
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They noticed how it curled up after death and learned that spider legs don’t have muscles like humans, but rather use hydraulic pressure to move their limbs.
“We understand that many people are put off by the sight of a spider, but from an engineering point of view, the spider’s mechanism of movement is very interesting,” said Yap.
“It definitely warrants taking a closer look at these creatures, and learning more from them.”
To see if the engineers could actually control the legs, Yap inserted a syringe into a dead wolf spider’s internal hydraulic chamber and added superglue to hold it in place.
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After this, she added a small amount of air and the spider’s legs immediately opened, creating a chilling grabber tool.
The nightmarish grippers are capable of lifting more than 130 percent of their own body weight, meaning they are able to grip objects much heavier than themselves.
The team also learned that the grippers are shockingly durable and Yap said they “plan on incorporating thin polymeric coating materials to prolong the lifetime of the necrobotic gripper.”
Daniel Preston, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Rice said the experiment has captured people’s attention but for the most part, the general public “has been supportive.”
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“[The] typical reaction is a brief period of surprise, then an ‘a-ha’ moment where the underlying mechanism and engineering contributions of our work become apparent,” he said.
“We hope this research will spark new ideas for how we can respectfully and sustainably source and utilize biotic materials for robotics applications.”
The spider can carry more than 130 percent of its body weight[/caption]
