Collaborate Disseminate
The crucial role bees play in sustaining life on Earth is well understood, but there are some other animals doing more than their share of heavy lifting when it comes to pollinating plant life and propping up natural resources we rely on.Continue Readi… Continue reading Look out, bees, these creatures of the night are super spreaders
What do you do if a South American weed is choking up your local Australian waterways? In the case of the cabomba plant, scientists are enlisting the help of the weed’s natural South American enemy, the tiny cabomba weevil.Continue ReadingCategory: Env… Continue reading Australia is using an imported insect to control an imported weed
We’re willing to bet you’ve never given much thought to how bugs urinate, but even if you did you probably wouldn’t imagine them using butt-based pinball paddles to flick drops of pee at 40 G’s, using physics never before seen in nature.Continue Readin… Continue reading Bug hacks physics with “butt flickers” to launch pee at 40 G’s
If a robot is going to be tiny, then it better have a way of getting around the many obstacles that will block its way. A new type of robot takes a unique approach to doing so, by jumping like a click beetle.Continue ReadingCategory: Robotics, Technolo… Continue reading Tiny robots copy the click beetle to jump over obstacles
Mosquito repellent is an everyday weapon to keep those biting bugs at bay, but it can be frustratingly fickle. Now researchers in Italy have developed new formulations that they say can last as long as eight hours, are odorless and boast other advantag… Continue reading New mosquito repellents keep bugs at bay for over 8 hours
Self-driving cars typically use radar or LiDAR technology to avoid collisions with other vehicles. Scientists have now created a much simpler insect-inspired system that could serve the same purpose more efficiently – at night, that is.Continue Reading… Continue reading Simple automotive collision-avoidance sensor inspired by insect brains
While we’ve heard about a number of “electronic noses,” the devices are rarely as sensitive as their natural counterparts. That’s why Israeli scientists have taken a new approach, by incorporating a locust antenna into an odor-identifying robot.Continu… Continue reading Wheeled robot uses a locust antenna to identify odors
One ant is not very smart, but put a bunch of them together and they can achieve some remarkable things. Inspired by this emergent cooperative behavior, Harvard researchers have built robots that can work together to escape from a “prison,” without nee… Continue reading Ant-inspired robot swarm works together to bust out of jail
If you were trying to gauge the reaction force of an insect’s leg, you couldn’t just push it with your finger – the size difference between the two would be too great to do so with enough sensitivity. A set of hand-controlled soft robotic microfingers,… Continue reading Robotic microfingers allow scientists to get a feel for tiny objects
In 2017, scientists in the UK carried out research suggesting that the small brain of the bumblebee may be more sophisticated than we realize, demonstrating how they could be trained to roll balls into a hole to score a sugary reward. The team has now … Continue reading Bees rolling balls around hailed as first evidence of insect play