Scientists continue to work on animals. Spiders’ legs, webs, and even themselves, which are among the animals in which various experiments were made, are not scary for some people, but quite scary for others. In the past years, a new technique has been developed that transforms spider webs and their vibrations into sound, and with this technique, the vibrations in the webs are transformed into music.
A study was conducted to further frighten people with arachnophobia, that is, the fear of spiders. Faye Yap, an engineering graduate student, and her colleagues at Rice University and mechanical engineer Daniel Preston have jointly developed a method that turns dead spiders into mechanical grips, or robots.
Robots created from dead spiders are called “Necrobots”
Spiders’ legs have a structure that can grasp large, delicate and shapeless objects tightly and softly without breaking them. Spiders move their legs, which do not have muscles for extension, with a hydraulic pressure called the prosoma chamber or cephalothorax. Spiders have a feature that shrinks, sends internal body fluid to their legs and allows them to lengthen.
The team that conducted the study inserted a needle into the prosoma chamber, the curled leg of a dead spider, and using a sphere of superglue, they created a seal around the tip of the needle. Injecting even just a little bit of the needle activated the spider’s legs, and in less than a second, the legs began to move fully. They then attached these necrobotic spider legs to an electric breadboard and used the legs of a dead spider in the experiment to hold various objects and electronics, most notably moving the polyurethane foam block.
Spider was able to carry a spider as big as itself
Because spiders’ legs work with hydraulic pressure, when they die, the hydraulic system no longer works. The muscles in the spider’s legs become useless and the spider curls up. Spiders are biodegradable, so using them as robot parts is thought to reduce the amount of robotic waste.
Studies have shown that the legs of a dead spider can carry the weight of another spider of the same size as itself. Spider legs have also been found to be quite robust, as they can go through 1,000 on-off cycles before experiencing any wear and tear.
The researchers tried coating the spiders with wax and found that the reduction in mass over 10 days was 17 times less than that of the non-wax-coated spider, explaining that this means the uncoated spider retains more water within its body and means its hydraulic system can run longer.
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