Showing posts with label insects. Show all posts
Showing posts with label insects. Show all posts

2012-03-31

Tomcat (Rove Beetle) Outbreak in Indonesia


‘Tomcat’ Beetles Run Riot in Indonesia | The Jakarta Globe


Insects are an inescapable part of life in Indonesia, but a recent infestation of one species has got many people itching and irritated. The latest scourge is tomcats, or rove beetles, which are being dislodged from their habitats near areas making way for development.

Many people have suffered acute dermatitis and swelling to the skin after coming into contact with the insects.




By Poisonous Liquid, Tomcat (Rove Beetle) Has Attacked Surabaya (East Java) | Scienceray


Tomcat or Rove Beetle (paederus riparius) has toxin that 12 times more dangerous than poison of the cobra.


Tomcat is poisonous insect. The animal has lesser 1 cm in size. It likes light in the night, so it usually attacks at night. In Indonesia, tomcat is known as semut semai(semai ant) or semut kayap(kayap ant).  Yes, tomcat looks similar to an ant. It has a more elongated body with orange and black colors. And the insect is known as tomcat, probably because of its shape like F-14 Tomcat fighter plane.

Tomcat does not bite, but it has toxin (hemolimf fluids) that 12 times more dangerous than poison of cobra snake. The colors of tomcat, orange and black, are sign that the animal has poison. When threatened, tomcat raises its abdomen in the manner of a scorpion. It will release its toxin automatically if touches human skin directly or indirectly. The toxin of tomcat is paederin (C24H43O9N). Paederin can cause serious inflammation or dermatitis or blisters 24 to 48 hours after contact with the skin.



Labels:

2011-12-02

Robobees Harvard's Flapping-Wing Micro Robots

Robobees

A convergence of body, brain, and colony
Overview of the Micro Air Vehicles Project

INSPIRED by the biology of a bee and the insect’s hive behavior ...

we aim to push advances in miniature robotics and the design of compact high-energy power sources; spur innovations in ultra-low-power computing and electronic “smart” sensors; and refine coordination algorithms to manage multiple, independent machines.




Update  2012-11-07

Science Nation - RoboBees: Design Poses Intriguing Engineering, Computer Science Challenges - YouTube



It started with a TV show, "Silence of the Bees," about honeybee populations in steep decline. At Harvard University, electrical engineers Rob Wood and Gu-Yeon Wei, and computer scientist Radhika Nagpal saw a challenge. And, so began the creation of the "RoboBee," a miniature flying robot, inspired by the biology of a bee and the insect's hive behavior. With support from the National Science Foundation and a program called Expeditions in Computing, Wood put together a diverse team of collaborators to get the RoboBee project off the ground. [...]



Harvard Microrobotics Laboratory


Flapping-wing microrobots
As the characteristic size of a flying robot decreases, the challenges for successful flight revert to basic questions of fabrication, actuation, fluid mechanics, stabilization, and power - whereas such questions have in general been answered for larger aircraft. When developing a flying robot on the scale of a common housefly, all hardware must be developed from scratch as there is nothing "off-the-shelf" which can be used for mechanisms, sensors, or computation that would satisfy the extreme mass and power limitations. [...]



Labels: , ,

2011-11-25

Cyborg Insects Draw Energy From Wing Motion

BBC News - Cyborg search-and-rescue insects' power source unveiled

Efforts to create an army of cyborg insects are being pursued by a team of US-based engineers.
The group is investigating ways to harvest energy from the creatures to power sensors and other equipment fastened to their bodies.

The team has created an energy scavenging device that is attached close to the insects' wings.

It suggested the creatures might one day be used to aid search-and-rescue operations and surveillance.

The University of Michigan team of engineers published their study in the Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering.

Michigan Engineering | Insect cyborgs may become first responders, search and monitor hazardous environs


Professor Khalil Najafi, the chair of electrical and computer engineering, and doctoral student Erkan Aktakka are finding ways to harvest energy from insects, and take the utility of the miniature cyborgs to the next level.

"Through energy scavenging, we could potentially power cameras, microphones and other sensors and communications equipment that an insect could carry aboard a tiny backpack," Najafi said. "We could then send these 'bugged' bugs into dangerous or enclosed environments where we would not want humans to go."

The principal idea is to harvest the insect's biological energy from either its body heat or movements. The device converts the kinetic energy from wing movements of the insect into electricity, thus prolonging the battery life. The battery can be used to power small sensors implanted on the insect (such as a small camera, a microphone or a gas sensor) in order to gather vital information from hazardous environments.


Three energy-scavenging prototypes: (Top) A piezoelectric cantilever beam attached lengthwise along the beetle’s body generates 11.5 µW. (Middle) Piezoelectric cantilever beams attached across the beetle’s body each generate 7.5 µW. (Bottom) Piezoelectric spiral beams attached on the beetle’s thorax each generate 22.5 µW. Image credit: Aktakka, et al.

The U-M team examined several techniques to scavenge energy from wing motion with their results were published in a paper titled "Energy scavenging from insect flight," which was recently published in the Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering. The university is now pursuing a patent for the technology and is seeking commercialization partners to bring it to market.

Getting the insects to go where their handlers want them to is another part of the puzzle that needs to be solved before insect cyborgs can be deployed. But DARPA has been working on this, having put out a call some years back for research proposals for Hybrid-Insect-Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (HI-MEMS) interfaces to control the movement of living insects. Combining the two technologies could be just the thing to take insect cyborgs to the next level and see them used to monitor hazardous situations in the not to distant future.



Labels: , , ,

2011-01-24

Insects: Food of the Future

Eat insects, up food security (Science Alert)



Dining on crickets, locusts, or even cockroaches, instead of cattle or pigs, could ease both food insecurity and climate change, according to researchers.

Insects caught in the wild are already eaten widely in the developing world. Now a study says that farming them on a large scale for food would damage the environment far less than equivalent livestock production.


Save the planet: Swap your steak for bugs and worms | Reuters

(Reuters) - All you need to do to save the rainforest, improve your diet, better your health, cut global carbon emissions and slash your food budget is eat bugs.
Mealworm quiche, grasshopper springrolls and cuisine made from other creepy crawlies is the answer to the global food crisis, shrinking land and water resources and climate-changing carbon emissions, Dutch scientist Arnold van Huis says.

The professor at Wageningen University in the Netherlands said insects have more protein than cattle per bite, cost less to raise, consume less water and don't have much of a carbon footprint. He even has plans for a cookbook to make bug food a more appetising prospect for mature palates.



Discovery News

'Insect Pizza,' 'Bug Mac' Foods of the Future? : Discovery News

THE GIST
  • Insects are abundant, produce less greenhouse gas and manure and do not transfer any diseases.
  • So some argue we should start eating them.

Someday your burger could be made up of ground worms


"There will come a day when a Big Mac costs 120 euros ($163) and a Bug Mac 12 euros, when more people will eat insects than other meat," head researcher Arnold van Huis told a disbelieving audience at Wageningen University in the central Netherlands.


Labels: , , ,

2010-11-09

Sticky Feet -- Evidence for Self-Cleaning Adhesive Pads of Insects

INSECTS WIPE FEET CLEAN TO GET A GRIP


Have you ever noticed that insects' feet just never seem to get dirty? No matter that they've been standing on, they still stick to the next surface. The same can't be said for man-made adhesives: sticky tape soon becomes contaminated and fails to bond. And many insects maintain the same adhesive structures throughout the whole of their adult lives, so they have to keep them clean somehow.
[...]
 ‘Broadly speaking insects use two adhesive systems: smooth and hairy,’ explains Bullock. Some insects' feet are smooth and covered in a thin fluid film that helps them to hold on tight, while other insects' feet are coated with fluid covered microscopic hairs that mould to surfaces as they attach. Knowing that stick insects have smooth feet while dock beetles have hairy feet, the team decided to find out whether both species could clean their dirty feet by walking across a smooth surface.




Insect Biomechanics Workgroup

Welcome to the Insect Biomechanics Workgroup Cambridge!

We are interested in the functional morphology and comparative biomechanics of insects with a special focus on the mechanisms of surface adhesion and insect-plant interactions.


Design and function of adhesive systems


Animal adhesive organs have come into the focus of scientific attention over the last decade because it is hoped that some of their most interesting properties can be mimicked to make novel, superior adhesives. Although attempts to fabricate "biomimetic" adhesives are meanwhile flourishing worldwide, it is striking that the basic function of many animal "model" adhesives is still not well understood. Animal adhesives can not only stick very well to diverse surfaces, but they are also self-cleaning and rapidly controllable, i.e. they can detach very easily if necessary. How they achieve this impressive performance is not yet entirely clear.


Journal of Experimental Biology 213, 635-642 (2010)

Evidence for self-cleaning in fluid-based smooth and hairy adhesive systems of insects

Christofer J. Clemente, James M. R. Bullock, Andrew Beale and Walter Federle


(A) Experimental setup for recording friction, adhesion and contact area of insect adhesive pads. Contact area images show hairy pad (above) and smooth pad (below). (B) Order and pattern of ‘steps’ performed on the glass plate to test the effect of contamination and self-cleaning. Four initial steps were followed by a ‘contamination step’ and eight steps on clean areas of the glass plate.

 Scanning electron microscopy images of adhesive pads of G. viridula after contamination with beads of different sizes, followed by eight consecutive steps to allow self-cleaning. (A,B) 1 µm-diameter beads; (C,D) 10 µm-diameter beads; (E,F) 45 µm-diameter beads. As pads contaminated with 45 µm beads did not contain any beads after self-cleaning, E and F show a freshly contaminated pad.

Self-cleaning ability is an important property of biological adhesive systems and will be an important criterion for the design of bio-inspired adhesives. Scotch tape is a prime example of an adhesive that is not self-cleaning and consequently it is of no use after several applications. Efforts are underway to manufacture a fibrillar adhesive that is effective after more than one use

Labels: , ,

2010-05-02

Insect Inspired Robots

Amazing Insect Inspired Robots of 2009

Taking inspiration from insects some of the most creative minds in world crafted robots that mimic nature to transform our lives forever. Take a peep into their genius.



Clipped from: SPRAWL ROBOTS!!



The "Sprawl" family of hand-sized hexapedal robots are prototypes designed to test ideas about locomotion dynamics, leg design and leg arrangement and to identify areas that can be improved by Shape Deposition Manufacturing.
 
Sprawl robots are some of the fastest (up to 5 body-lengths per second) and most robust (hip-height obstacles) legged robots out there. They are the result of close collaboration between roboticists, manufacturing engineers and biologists.


Stanford Sprawl and iSprawl





 RHex: Robotic Hexapod






The RHex project arose from an earlier DARPA DSO effort initiated within the 1998 CBS/CBBS program called Computational Neuromechanics. In this prior work our team addressed hypotheses about the organization of locomotory control in animals in a mathematically sound and empirically refutable manner while exploring as well the prospects for using MEMS technology to create effectively an electronic harness for insects.




The RHEX hexapod robot climbing stairs



Clipped from: Case Biorobotics Lab
back to Biorobotics homeCase Western Reserve University


 
Whegs™ Robots



The robot pictured above is Whegs™ I. It is 20 inches long, and utilizes three-spoke wheel-legs and one drive motor. It can climb obstacles of heights up to 1.5x the wheel-leg radius, and the robot can move up to a speed of 3 body lengths/second (5.5km/hr).




A-pod, an ant inspired hexapod


  • A large and a very flexible head, ideal 3 DOF
  • Large mandible that can grab around a bottle/can
  • A thorax, the main body with a natural shape for all legs and main battery
  • A 2 DOF controlled Abdomen (a tail, gaster) holding all electronics




Sources:
  1. YouTube - Amazing Insect Inspired Robots of 2009
  2. SPRAWL ROBOTS!!
  3. YouTube - Stanford Sprawl and iSprawl
  4. Kod*lab : RHex: Robotic Hexapod
  5. YouTube - CrunchGear.com - RHEX hexapod robot
  6. Case Biorobotics Lab
  7. YouTube - Whegs Wheel-Leg Robot
  8. [Project] A-pod, an ant inspired hexapod - Trossen Robotics Community
  9. YouTube - A-Pod part 2
Related:
  1. Hexapod (robotics) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  2. Hexbug - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  3. Poly-PEDAL
  4. Sangbae Kim's home page - isprawl
  5. Case Biorobotics Lab
  6. New Must-See Video of the Spectacular A-Pod Ant Robot | Singularity Hub
  7. YouTube - A-Pod part 1
Labels: , ,

2009-09-12

World's Heaviest Insect

Clipped from: Flickr Photo Download: A handful of Giant Weta


Clipped from: World's Heaviest Insect : Giant Weta

World's Heaviest Insect : Giant Weta

Their physical appearance is that of a cross between a cockroach and a cricket with the addition of large legs.Wetas can be found in mountainous conditions and urban gardens by their ability to cope with wide variations in temperature. They are nocturnal as well as flightless, and have a diet consisting of leaves, insects, fungi, dead animals and fruit.

Clipped from: Weta - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Weta

Weta is the name applied to about 70 insect species endemic to New Zealand. There are many similar species around the world, most are in the southern hemisphere. The name comes from the Māori word 'wētā' and is the same in the plural (like 'sheep'). The Māori for the Giant Weta is 'wētā punga' (lumpy or jointed weta), sometimes rendered in English as 'god of ugly things'.


Giant weta

There are 11 species of giant weta (Deinacrida spp.), most significantly larger than other weta, which are themselves large by insect standards. They are heavy insects with a body length of up to 100 mm (4 in) not inclusive of its lengthy legs and antennae, and weigh about 20-30 g. A captive giant weta (Deinacrida heteracantha) filled with eggs reached a record 70 g, making it one of the heaviest documented insects in the world [2] and heavier than a sparrow. The largest species of giant weta is the Little Barrier Island weta, also known as the wetapunga. Giant weta tend to be less social and more passive than other weta. They are classified in the genus Deinacrida, which is Greek for terrible grasshopper. They are found primarily on small islands off the coast of the main islands, and are examples of island gigantism.

Clipped from: YouTube - NZ Giant Cave Weta

NZ Giant Cave Weta



Clipped from: YouTube - Weta (Super Giant Cricket) slaughter down camel spider


Weta (Super Giant Cricket) slaughter down camel spider




Sources:
Flickr Photo Download: A handful of Giant Weta
World's Heaviest Insect : Giant Weta
Weta - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
File:Knights.weta.750pix.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
YouTube - NZ Giant Cave Weta
YouTube - Weta (Super Giant Cricket) slaughter down camel spider
Related:
giant weta, an insect from new zealand - LiveVideo.com
Chapter 30: Largest | The University of Florida Book of Insect Records | Department of Entomology & Nematology | UF/IFAS
The New Zealand Weta - Home
Weta Photo Gallery
Labels: , , , ,

2009-07-15

Cyborg insects

Clipped from: Cyborg Crickets Could Form Mobile Communications Network, Save Human Lives

Cyborg Crickets Could Form Mobile Communications Network, Save Human Lives


By taking advantage of the way crickets communicate, researchers are building "cyborg crickets" that could form a mobile communications network for emergency situations, such as detecting chemical attacks on the battlefield, locating disaster victims, monitoring gas leaks, and acting as smoke detectors.


Hundreds or thousands of cyborg crickets could form a mobile communications network, transmitting signals through their calls.

Clipped from: Cyborg crickets could chirp at the smell of survivors - tech - 11 July 2009 - New Scientist
New Scientist

Cyborg crickets could chirp at the smell of survivors


Modified insects could soon be joining rescue workers in the search for survivors

Pentagon-backed researchers have already created insect cyborgs by implanting them with electrodes to control their wing muscles. The latest plan is to create living communication networks by implanting a package of electronics in crickets, cicadas or katydids - all of which communicate via wing-beats. The implants will cause the insects in these OrthopterNets to modulate their calls in the presence of certain chemicals.

"We could do this by adjusting the muscle tension or some other parameter that affects the sound-producing movements. The insect itself might not even notice the modulation," says Ben Epstein of OpCoast, who came up with the idea during a visit to China, where he heard cicadas changing calls in response to each other. The firm, which is based in Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey, has been awarded a six-month contract to develop a mobile communications network for insects.


Clipped from: YouTube - Cyborg insects

Cyborg insects

Watch some cyborg insects that are being developed and see a robot controlled by a moth.



Clipped from: OpCoast [Software and Networking]

headerbar

OpCoast Awarded Army SBIR Phase I program

April 24, 2009 — OpCoast was awarded a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) effort by the US Army Edgewood Chemical Biological Defense (CBD) organization under topic C091-105-0118, entitled "Bio-MEMs Agile Sensor Platforms and Communication Networks." Our effort, called "OrthopterNets – Using Insects to Sense and Communicate," will leverage the world-class MEMS and bio-system interfaces technology of Texas A&M University. We will develop technology to enable acoustic and RF based networking of sensor and other data on 'insect nodes'.



Sources
  1. Cyborg Crickets Could Form Mobile Communications Network, Save Human Lives
  2. Cyborg crickets could chirp at the smell of survivors - tech - 11 July 2009 - New Scientist
  3. YouTube - Cyborg insects
  4. OpCoast [Software and Networking]
Related:
  1. Robotic-Lab.COM » Researchers create robo-moth, dream of a cyborg cricket-filled future
  2. Pentagon Making Cyborg Crickets
  3. Researchers create robo-moth, dream of a cyborg cricket-filled future | www.onu.ro
  4. Researchers create robo-moth, dream of a cyborg cricket-filled future
  5. Pentagon Cyborg-insect Program Could Save Quake Victims | CafeSentido.com
  6. OpCoast [Software and Networking]AFP: Japanese scientists aim to create robot-insects
Labels: , , , , , , , , ,

2009-06-07

Radio-controlled Live Beetle

clipped from www.pcformat.co.uk

Radio-controlled Rhino beetles are cool

Rhino beetle

US University Shows Radio-controlled Live Beetle


The University of California, Berkeley succeeded in the experiment of controlling a live rhinoceros beetle by radio and disclosed the video of the experiment at the MEMS 2009 academic conference taking place in Sorrento, Italy.

Images of a radio-controlled beetle
Technology Review - Published By MIT
The Army's Remote-Controlled Beetle

The insect's flight path can be wirelessly controlled via a neural implant.

Cyborg beetle: Shown here is a giant flower beetle carrying a microprocessor, radio receiver, and microbattery and implanted with several electrodes. To control the insect’s flight, scientists wirelessly deliver signals to the payload, which sends electrical signals through the electrode to the brain and flight muscles.
Credit: Michel Maharbiz
clipped from www.youtube.com
clipped from www.greenpacks.org

UC Berkeley Succeeds in Radio Controlling Live Beetle for Military Purposes? Cyborgs?

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the US funds the research making the experiment something intended for military purposes.

The university says that the technology can be utilized for peaceful purposes as well. Haven’t we heard this kind of argument before?

Radio-controlled beetles can be useful in places that are too narrow or dangerous for a human to enter. That makes sense. But what’s a beetle going to do there? Pirates used to send their parrots in to undesirable places, too.



blog it

Sources:
  1. Radio-controlled Rhino beetles are cool | PC Format
  2. US University Shows Radio-controlled Live Beetle -- Tech-On!
  3. Technology Review: The Army's Remote-Controlled Beetle
  4. YouTube - remote controlled beetle by DARPA
  5. UC Berkeley Succeeds in Radio Controlling Live Beetle for Military Purposes? Cyborgs?
Related:
  1. Pentagon’s Cyborg Beetle Spies Take Off | Danger Room | Wired.com
  2. HI-MEMS: Cyborg Beetle Microsystem: Science Fiction in the News
  3. Radio-controlled live flying beetle demonstrated by US researchers - SlashGear
  4. The cyborg animal spies hatching in the lab - tech - 06 March 2008 - New Scientist
  5. YouTube - Cyborg insects
Labels: , , , , , , ,

2008-04-30

Below – aboveground insect interactions

clipped from www.textually.org

Insects Use Plant Like a "Telephone"

resize.jpeg

Dutch ecologist Roxina Soler and her colleagues have discovered that
subterranean and aboveground herbivorous insects can communicate with each other by using plants as telephones. Subterranean insects issue chemical warning signals via the leaves of the plant. This way, aboveground insects are alerted that the plant is already 'occupied’.

clipped from www.nioo.knaw.nl
to the homepage of the NIOO-KNAW
Roxina Soler Gamborena

Linking interactions between above- and below-ground herbivores and the performance of parasitoids and hyperparasitoids (NWO)


blog it
Labels: , , , ,

2008-01-22

The Most Horrifying Bugs in the World

clipped from www.cracked.com

The 5 Most Horrifying Bugs in the World

Japanese Giant Hornet (vespa mandarinia japonica)

It's the size of your thumb and it can spray flesh-melting poison.
Bullet Ant (Paraponera clavata)

It's a full inch long, it lives in trees and thus can and will fall on you to scare you away from its hive--the one you didn't know was there, because it's in a fucking tree. Before it does this, it shrieks at you.
Africanized Honey Bee (Apis mellifera scutellata)
They give you half a second of being too close before they decide it is time to completely fuck your shit up and empty the entire hive--tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of angry, angry bees.
Army or Soldier Ant (Eciton burchellii)
There are reports of animals the size of horses being overwhelmed and shredded by them.
Bot Fly (family oestridae, genus and species varies)
The larvae can grow anywhere in your body, it just depends on where the eggs wind up.

blog it
Labels: , , , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Comments (Atom)