Collaborate Disseminate
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
Insects have been known to sense and tap into electric fields, but new research shows that swarms can actually produce atmospheric electric charges. By measuring the extent of this influence, the scientists found that large swarms could produce as much… Continue reading Insect swarms can generate as much static electricity as a storm cloud
If you’re one of the unlucky ones that seems to get ravaged by mosquitoes while others around you escape unscathed, a new study offers an explanation as to why. Scientists have examined what makes mosquitoes more attracted to some humans over others, a… Continue reading Fatty acids on the skin explain why some people are “mosquito magnets”
The next time an inquisitive four-year-old asks how many ants there are on Earth, you can be ready to fire back a specific number. Researchers in Germany have scoured the scientific literature to come up with an answer to that question, as well as the … Continue reading Scientists tally up the total number of ants on Earth
We already know that tiny waterborne plastic waste particles can enter the bodies of fish, which are then consumed by humans. New research, however, shows that such particles can enter the food chain via another route, by traveling from the land, throu… Continue reading Study shows nanoplastics can travel from plants to insects to fish
Why design robots from scratch when nature has already done a lot of the hard work for us? That’s the reasoning behind cyborg insects, and now scientists have found a way to make remote-controlled cyborg cockroaches more advanced, by powering them usin… Continue reading Remote-controlled cyborg cockroaches are now solar-powered
Why design robots from scratch when nature has already done a lot of the hard work for us? That’s the reasoning behind cyborg insects, and now scientists have found a way to make remote-controlled cyborg cockroaches more advanced, by powering them usin… Continue reading Remote-controlled cyborg cockroaches are now solar-powered
After 150 years sitting silently in a museum, a strange specimen has now sung its song once more. Scientists have digitally recreated the sound of a long-lost species of insect, not seen since 1869, by creating 3D scans of its wings. The specifics of t… Continue reading Scientists recreate the song of long-lost insect to help find it again