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Stories filed under: "bats"
DailyDirt: Cyborgs Animals To Do Our Bidding
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Artificial intelligence is getting better these days, but before we had artificial neural net software and other fancy algorithms that could mimic animal brains, people tried using real animal brains to perform various tasks. Military projects have attempted to create various animal cyborgs — mostly unsuccessfully. Perhaps someday there will be a truly impressive animal cyborg, but then again, we might regret such a creation.
- The CIA had a program called Operation Acoustic Kitty in the 1960s to create a cyborg cat. The geniuses who came up with this idea apparently never owned a cat before. Seriously, how do you train a cat to do anything? [url]
- The Navy has a robotic drone (okay, not a cyborg) that could be mistaken for a shark. Combat dolphins and other sea animals have been trained for military operations, so it isn’t so surprising to see robot versions. However, these robots are probably pretty useless right now, but they’ll improve. (And let’s add some lasers to this robotic shark, Mr. Bigglesworth, okay? [/Dr. Evil voice]) [url]
- During WWII, there was an ingenious idea to arm bats with tiny incendiary bombs to attack Japanese cities. The US spent $2 million on development, using thousands of bats, before cancelling the project. [url]
If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.
Filed Under: ai, artificial intelligence, bats, biomimicry, combat dolphins, cyborgs, military operations, robot shark, robots, wwii
DailyDirt: Interesting Spider Behavior
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
People tend to have an irrational fear of spiders, which are more often than not completely harmless and also beneficial because they help control the insect pest population around homes and gardens. Perhaps, instead of focusing on their “creepiness,” people should learn about how cool these little creatures really are. Here are a few examples of some interesting behavior in spiders.
- Yes, spiders eat bats too. Apparently, bat-eating spiders live on every continent (except Antarctica). Most of them catch bats in their webs, but huntsman spiders and tarantulas have been observed eating bats on forest floors. [url]
- Spiders can adapt to zero-gravity. A “Johnson Jumper” spider named Nefertiti survived 100 days on the International Space Station, during which it demonstrated a new technique for catching fruit flies in zero-gravity. Instead of jumping on its prey, it would sidle up to it. [url]
- Contrary to popular belief, spiders can be sociable. Of the more than 43,678 species of spiders out there, about 24 social spider species have been identified. In a most recent discovery, researchers found that females from a social species of spider called Chikunia nigra were surprisingly tolerant of other spiders from the same colony and were willing to look after another’s eggs/hatchlings as if they were her own. [url]
If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.
Filed Under: bats, behavior, biology, nefertiti, species, spiders