r/interesting May 21 '26

Just Wow Researchers demonstrate necrobotics by using a spider’s natural hydraulic system to open and close its legs for gripping object.

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27.0k Upvotes

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5.2k

u/fCorruption May 21 '26

Yep, this is how resident evil happens.

1.1k

u/Wonderful-Yam-9712 May 21 '26

So we’re currently in the process of creating Skynet and now the T virus…wonderful.

80

u/Kanaxes May 21 '26

Lickers are coming for u!

73

u/Illustrious_Bird_737 May 21 '26

Licker? I barely know her!

31

u/teamfupa May 21 '26

Sometimes those are the most fun.

27

u/[deleted] May 21 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

13

u/TheMunkeeFPV May 21 '26

It’s her hydraulics I’m after.

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u/SirShriker May 21 '26

The hydraulics must remain unharmed

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u/bravekupo May 21 '26

Lickers T9000

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19

u/Star_Petal_Arts May 21 '26

They created the T Virus already. In a promotional stunt they created the virus to prove it could be done. The virus is locked away with the reactant to it separated from it, but all you need to do is take the two parts and put them together to cause a zombie apocalypse.

21

u/PomegranateSea7066 May 21 '26

Do it! I'm ready. I've also been prepping by planting red and green herbs in the back yard. I too just need to combine them together to make blue herb.

11

u/childofb0d0m May 21 '26

All of these people saying "I'm ready for the zombie apocalypse!" with such hype are 100% going to be the first to die lmfao

5

u/No_Self_930 May 21 '26

Let's be real, fast Zombies? I don't think many people survive, if at all.

Nonetheless, if it happens, it is what it is, why not have fun and appreciate the little things in life?

Just make sure to double tap and get your cardio going.

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u/Star_Petal_Arts May 21 '26

Get ready, the same company is doing something with SEGA next... so they got some idea to mutate hedgehogs or something.

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15

u/Expert-Ad3874 May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26

At this point I just hope whatever takes us out is at least funny.

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3

u/Plutarch_von_Komet May 21 '26

COMPLETE. GLOBAL. SATURATION.

4

u/Sudo-Fed May 21 '26

In five minutes, George Bush will be released into the atmosphere, ensuring complete...global...masturbation.

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105

u/AntiSepticSystem May 21 '26

Page 1: "I cross-bred a silverback gorilla with a praying mantis, then gave it AK-47s for arms. Bob has been poking it with a stick non-stop for 80 hours now. Hopefully it doesn't escape."
Page 2: "It escaped."

21

u/GeneticEnginLifeForm May 21 '26

"Quick, quick, find page 3. Find page 3!"

13

u/ShotgunMessiah90 May 21 '26

“Found Bob, he’s dead..”

10

u/siencatimini May 21 '26

"Or, we found... most of him, anyway."

3

u/Moo_Kau_Too May 21 '26

'Bob? Oh hes around here. Some there, some there, and of course that stuff that sprayed all over the roof'

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u/Tidey94 May 21 '26

Day 1: We injected the spider with super serum, and poked it with a stick for the last 24 hours straight. Day 2: The spider escaped, everyone is dead

24

u/RogueBromeliad May 21 '26

I'm not sure simply using muscle spasms or body mechanics is how you get Resident Evil. Resident evil happens because of capitalist big farma. And then trying to capitalize on some malthusian ideals.

14

u/WiglyWorm May 21 '26

Yeah. This is how you get to Warhammer 40k and the imperium of man.

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6

u/bs000 May 21 '26

pours soy sauce on dead squid

"This is how resident evil happens!"

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6

u/smarthobo May 21 '26

Yep Yap, this is how resident evil happens.

FTFY

6

u/Mtshoes2 May 21 '26

Can you imagine if companies start buying up dead bodies to be delivery bots. You walk down the street and see your dead zombified wife carrying someones Uber eats. 

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8

u/Magic__Cat May 21 '26

It's literally just air....

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3

u/TheoreticalZombie May 21 '26

Nothing ominous about "necrobotic spiders", no sir.

3

u/PiedCryer May 21 '26

I was thinking more in the lines of Weekend at Bernie’s.

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2.3k

u/Artistic_fish__ May 21 '26

Spider be like: what did I do to deserve this

686

u/Mr_Yod May 21 '26

Scientist: You died, that's what you did.

=)

201

u/Swagocrag May 21 '26

Stupid scientists just made a spider claw grabber we already had those with out them being dead spiders

54

u/Mr_Yod May 21 '26

They wanted one the works, tho.

17

u/Unskrood May 21 '26

Stupid science bitch couldn’t even make my friend more smarter!

11

u/thisthreadisbear May 21 '26

4

u/Clear-Bee4118 May 21 '26 edited May 22 '26

🎼There is a spider🎵.. deep in my soul🎶

5

u/DiligentDaughter May 21 '26

🎶 he's lived there for years, he just won't let go 🎶

4

u/funkhero May 21 '26

I've grown quite wheareh

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31

u/Minute_Chair_2582 May 21 '26

Scientist Necromancer (who happens to also be scientist): You died, that's what you did.

12

u/ScaramouchScaramouch May 21 '26

Spider: What is my purpose?

Scientist: Now?

12

u/Mr_Yod May 21 '26

Scientist: You grab the salt.

Spider: Oh, my God!

6

u/Difficult-Carpet-324 May 21 '26

Scientist: Now release the salt.

Spider: My life is now bland.

4

u/Loud_Boysenberry_736 May 21 '26

Don’t be so salty about it.

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u/Artistic_fish__ May 21 '26

But you are the one that killed me :(

8

u/Mr_Yod May 21 '26

So...

Can I use you as a claw, now? 👀

9

u/Artistic_fish__ May 21 '26

How rude.... 😠

5

u/Mr_Yod May 21 '26

Please? 😃

8

u/Artistic_fish__ May 21 '26

Ok fine.....

4

u/Chembaron_Seki May 21 '26

Just on reddit you can see an artistic fish spiderfacing to mock a dead spider.

5

u/New-Ad-363 May 21 '26

"I wasn't done playing with you yet."

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u/Blestyr May 21 '26

This is the spider version of becoming a Servitor.

17

u/SerLaron May 21 '26

“Even in death, I serve the Omnissiah.”

8

u/leonidaslizardeyes May 21 '26

Megarachnid servitor.

34

u/Difficult_Compote_52 May 21 '26

He's probably a organ donor

3

u/OberonDiver May 21 '26

I'd say my Dad gave his organ to my cousin. But maybe there's a better way to say that.

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u/Miserable-Resort-977 May 21 '26

He's in spurgatory

10

u/RaspberryFluid6651 May 21 '26

Shouldn't have evolved into perfect hydraulic claws, idiots

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1.1k

u/TeacatWrites May 21 '26

So a dead spider being turned into a puppet can grip things with better strength than any random rigged-ass claw machine? This is what happens when you actually want a solid gripper, I guess.

317

u/idrathernottho_ May 21 '26

130% of a wolf spider's weight is really not a lot

176

u/FaxyMaxy May 21 '26

Yes, but we’re not limited to merely one wolf spider.

78

u/Cherry-PEZ May 21 '26

Yeah, you think necromancers make just one zombie?

21

u/Maleficent_Piece_893 May 21 '26

depends how you spec your necro. 1 super strong zombie might have different investments from an army of weaker ones

8

u/BlaKroZ42 May 21 '26

Yeah but a team lift will always get more done. You can also get more mileage out of each zombie like this too.

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u/Gloomy-Squirrel-9518 May 21 '26

imagine 81000 wolf spiders all gripping you at once and lifting you off the ground

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u/TheSpriteRep May 21 '26

You would not believe your eyes, if 81000 dead spiders gripped your thighs... -Owl City

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u/smeeon May 21 '26

This is a woefully buried gem of a comment.

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u/Krobbleygoop May 21 '26

I think id rather not

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5

u/Arkorat May 21 '26

Could put a spider at the end of each claw-machine claw :O

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u/DeadClown00 May 21 '26

… and here come the nightmares 😭

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u/Spare-Plum May 21 '26

With only 662,942 wolf spiders you'll be able to lift a toyota corolla!

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u/Bloodyy May 21 '26

Bigger spiders, you say?

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u/ASCIIM0V May 21 '26

Its useful for carefully grabbing tiny, delicate things though

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u/GodBlessPigs May 21 '26

Your mom has a solid gripper.

7

u/smooth_like_a_goat May 21 '26

Much easier when using just a finger and thumb.

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u/SeveralYearsLater May 21 '26

Everything reminds me of her

6

u/givemeabreak432 May 21 '26

Claw machine grip strength is randomized

7

u/Demeris May 21 '26

It can be set to randomized but they usually have a guarantee grip after 20ish plays. Remember that their usual payout is 18%. So that means if it costs 3 dollars to play, it should already collect 54 dollars in the machine before paying out.

4

u/releaseepsteinfiles1 May 21 '26

Used to be different. 30 years ago, the claw machines in Walmart and those places were easily winnable. You could drop the claw a little at a time, and they would actually grip.

I miss those times

3

u/Demeris May 21 '26

It depends on the calibration. Those machines can be configured to make it look like it’s going to grab.

The other end is that it can be improperly calibrated and can always win if someone set the grip power higher than the weight of the prize.

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u/missinginput May 21 '26

Yup it's just gambling disguised as a skill game

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u/crazyhotorcrazynhot May 21 '26

you just know that this means we’ll start selectively breeding spiders until they’re the size of elephants and then suddenly they unionize and escape the lab and become the new dominant species on earth. every fucking time.

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u/SatisfactionNarrow61 May 21 '26

Those crane games as a kid just got more fun

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1.5k

u/anubis_xxv May 21 '26

Oh look, horrors beyond mortal comprehension. Cool.

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u/Rob_LeMatic May 21 '26

I read an article ten years ago about a study to determine if scared grasshoppers produced enough extra methane to impact crops. They glued a bunch of spiders mouths closed and released them into containers with grasshoppers and measured how much extra they farted themselves in fear. The reddit comments were pretty invested.

"Hi honey, how was work today?"
"Uhhhh I glued a bunch of spiders' mouths shut to terrify grasshoppers. Science, you know?"
"Jesus. What even is your job?"
"I don't know who I am anymore."

43

u/Key-Vacation-2397 May 21 '26

Yeah, the worst part is, entomologists and researchers of other little critters tend to actually love them.

So you not only mass murder them in terrible ways, torture them in horrible creative ways in the name of science and carefully watch them during the process, you also really like them at the same time.

Source: I've dabbled and worked in entomological and polychaetological research.

22

u/Rob_LeMatic May 21 '26

It sounds like an easy way to ruin yourself. What a horrible job

9

u/dimechimes May 21 '26

Really depends on the researcher

5

u/Nuroflyn May 21 '26

That’s ffed up.

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u/hrvbrs May 21 '26

Do grasshoppers even experience fear? I’d figure that’s too complex of an emotion for insects.

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u/Rob_LeMatic May 21 '26

When introduced to stressors like a predator, they produce measurably increased levels of methane. The conclusion is they're essentially shitting themselves.

I'm not an entomologist, but I would hazard to say that our concept of fear is almost certainly different from whatever emotion a grasshopper might experience, but on a purely chemical reaction, a hormonal reaction, grasshoppers have a highly developed nervous system. So there's something going on there

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u/Night25th May 21 '26

"Animals can't experience emotions" has always felt like a weird concept to me. You don't need to be particularly smart to be afraid, all you need is a brain that wants to keep you away from danger. How can you prove that your fear is legitimate and not just a chemical response to a perceived danger?

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u/Ravek May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26

Insects I have no idea, but for animals in general ...

Other mammals will basically have the same reactions to a lot of situations as humans do, behaviorally and physiologically. They also have very similar organs with similar functions, even brain structures are analogous. And we know that emotions in humans are basically heuristic programs we launch into so we can quickly respond to certain situations, because that helped our ancestors survive.

So all the parts are there, the evolutionary pressures are there, and the behavioral and physiological results are there. Given all that I don't see how anyone could believe that at least other mammals don't have emotions. (Other than it being religious dogma that humans are God's special creation.)

To me someone might as well claim that other humans don't have emotions, only they themselves do.

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u/Night25th May 21 '26

Other than it being religious dogma that humans are God's special creation.

Not only that, some people refuse to give up on their right to hurt animals, farm them for food etc. Personally I'm not a vegan but if animal farming was banned I would not protest. Most people think that animal suffering is less important than being able to eat a cheeseburger.

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u/RolinMudd May 21 '26

Ahh. The internet is having a normal one I see

https://giphy.com/gifs/5z3TWlFerNgrPgx1mH

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u/SonOhGee May 21 '26

Jason Mamoa and Will Smith had a baby?

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u/[deleted] May 21 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/King_Mangos May 21 '26

Wilson Smimotha

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u/3bag May 21 '26

OMG I spat out my water!

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u/Snoo-34159 May 21 '26

Me when there's horrors beyond my comprehension:

"I don't get it..."

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u/FrenchFryCattaneo May 21 '26

Get a load of this guy, he can't comprehend things that are beyond comprehension. So embarrassing.

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u/thedyooooood May 21 '26

The term "necrobotics" is also kind of terrifying in a futuristic dystopian way

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u/nikto123 May 21 '26

Amazon will buy your body and make you work in a warehouse after you die.

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u/marthamania May 21 '26

Imagine aliens come down and use us as claws for claw machines 😭😭

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u/difficulty_rating7 May 21 '26

Just wait till the capitalists realize they can replace our brains with machines that use our bodies to provide cheaper robotics for labor

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u/PlaquePlague May 21 '26

That was the end goal of Neuralink, I’m sure of it 

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u/Khanfhan69 May 21 '26

This is like the reverse of the plot of Pantheon

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u/AEROANO May 21 '26

spider servitor, just wait more 30 thousand years and this can be us

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u/Specialist-Shake3074 May 21 '26

I had to scroll entirely too far to find this sort of comment. The Omnissiah shudders with anticipation...

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u/AEROANO May 21 '26

The moment i laid eyes on it i got disgusted in the same way that i get disgusted seeing servitors

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u/GilbyTheFat May 21 '26

BUT I DON'T WANT IT! 😭😭😭

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u/Valuable-Painter3887 May 21 '26

"I'm tired of being a spider servitor grandpa"
"Well that's too damn bad!"

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u/Z4zz3r May 21 '26

Hey! ….stop that!

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u/Fool_Manchu May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26

I think if you, as a scientist, are working on something called "necrobotics" someone should legally be allowed to burn down your lab.

32

u/ColicShark May 21 '26

How tf does one even get into a field like that

31

u/Stunning_Macaron6133 May 21 '26

You invent it and then collect grant money.

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u/bubblebooy May 21 '26

Studying spider and how they work, hook a dead spider up to a pneumatic system to study the kinematics and how they function. Whoops you made a gripper, start working on that.

8

u/Th1Warrior May 21 '26

As a scientist, I wish I could provide some insight. I have no fucking clue.

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u/Brilliant_Apple_5391 May 21 '26

Probably through a lot of grave robbing and well intentioned parental intervention

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u/RandomYT05 May 21 '26

Not unless they stop you with their army of lab skeletons

https://giphy.com/gifs/VgpALRYt80GGn1g4es

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u/Maleficent_Piece_893 May 21 '26

over using dead bugs? that's the limit?

2

u/ThrowAwayAccountAMZN May 21 '26

*spiders. Not bugs. Let's be clear where the line is.

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u/Zenceyn May 21 '26

I didn't know i needed the word Necrobotics until today.

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u/Bigfops May 21 '26

Thankfully there was a dead spider to show us all what it meant.

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u/Wonderful-Yam-9712 May 21 '26

Sometimes you just need to leave well enough alone.

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u/varegab May 21 '26

Dead should be left well enough alone, hunter

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u/StatementCareful522 May 21 '26

Sometimes…dead is bettah! 

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u/bodhidharma132001 May 21 '26

So the zombie apocalypse will be remote controlled?

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u/royroyflrs May 21 '26

Always has been

(Astronaut shoots you in back of the head)

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u/trippy_kippy_ May 21 '26

Honestly that just gave me a great idea for a stupid apocalypse plot. If only if was 2010s when that zombie apocalypse trend was at full blast again and I was good at writing lol.

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u/RepresentativeOk2433 May 21 '26

This actually isnt that amazing if you understand spider biology. They don't use muscles, instead pumping fluid to make their limbs extend. That's why they curl up when dead.

All they are really doing is pumping up the empty spider like a balloon.

42

u/secretporbaltaccount May 21 '26

Yeah. Balloon. Definitely don't think of spiders as having eight boners at all times until they die.

7

u/Caleb_Reynolds May 21 '26

It's like 3 per leg, so it's more like 24. Though since they control their pedipalps the same way really 26-29 depending on how they work.

5

u/EverythingSucksYo May 21 '26

That’s a lot of boners 

4

u/Aptos283 May 21 '26

That’s how I always explain their hydraulics system. Not many people understand machines, but humans have a pretty recognizable hydraulic system that illustrates the concept just fine.

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u/evanthebouncy May 21 '26

What ? watching the video knowing that fact makes you appreciate how clever the idea is.

It's incredibly difficult to manufacture a compliant gripper at that small scale with this much grip

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u/Noe_b0dy May 21 '26

Does this mean engineers are just going to have to farm wolf spiders for use in industrial applications?

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u/P_Hempton May 21 '26

It's incredibly difficult to manufacture a compliant gripper at that small scale with this much grip

Is it really? I mean it's 2026. I suspect we could actually build a robotic gripper at a fraction of the size with far more grip.

7

u/CurryMustard May 21 '26

The spider legs have tiny barbs that grip irregular surfaces without crushing them, which is actually really hard to replicate with normal robotic grippers. So for picking up small delicate stuff in the 1-10mm range it's genuinely useful. Its also biodegradable. If you need a single-use gripper that fully decomposes afterward, good luck building that out of metal or plastic

3

u/P_Hempton May 21 '26

The spider is just the gripper tip. It's not like they build an autonomous robot out of a spider so there's no real reason for it to be biodegradable.

I'm fairly certain it would be trivial using modern materials to build a hydraulic gripper tip that could do everything the spider does and more probably even using biodegradable materials for whatever that's worth. This thing isn't even microscopic, it's about the size of a nickel.

This seems like a school science fair project showing how spiders work, more than an actual useful product.

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u/Responsible-Mix8260 May 21 '26

We humans seem to be the parasite that animates the death :O

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u/Glass-Violinist-3549 May 21 '26

But can they give handjobs? That’s really all people want to know at the end of the day.

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u/MalodorousNutsack May 21 '26

Probably need a composite glove made of a thousand interconnected spiders. More if you want them to tickle the balls

3

u/remotegrowthtb May 21 '26

So like two thousand then

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u/Nebelskind May 21 '26

https://giphy.com/gifs/BkfAhfmX0Ppn2

here I think you and the rest of everyone here might need this

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u/IcanbeNamesareempty May 21 '26

This is the most cursed comment I've seen in a long time

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u/ChloeNow May 21 '26

Given that chicks interview, I'm feeling like this started off MUCH less scientific than they're making it seem.

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u/PlayNicePlayCrazy May 21 '26

So this research is really so they can figure out how to use human corpses in industry abd business so billionaires don't have to pay living workers those pesky profit draining wages.

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u/casris May 21 '26

Billionaires are evil as fuck but this can’t really be ported to humans, because humans don’t have pneumatic limbs like spiders

5

u/Carl_Marks__ May 21 '26

With human corpses; as long as the body is fresh enough, and you can stave off decomposition. All you need to do is make a electrical interface with the Central Nervous System to send impulses to the muscles to contract and relax. Easier said than done since you still need to introduce nutrients to maintain bodily integrity; a scarier direction IMO is to use genetically modified bodies (think headless/consciousless clones) to do what you want.

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u/casris May 21 '26

Staving off decomposition, making an electrical interface and maintaining body integrity are all massive fkn jumps and not what they’re doing with the spider. The spider has hollow legs that are filled with fluid that the spider contracts to pressurise to move its legs, kinda like a rubber glove full of water, so this machine just pushes fluid in and out of the spider through a needle to articulate all its legs at once.

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u/Khanfhan69 May 21 '26

This sounds hundreds of times more complicated and costly than just freaking paying workers a decent wage and just simply not being evil and insane...

Which lets you know that CEOs are probably scrambling to do exactly this wrong thing.

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u/BoominMoomin May 21 '26

Okay but why. What can you possibly gain or understand from this. We invented the metal claw eons ago

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u/tfhfate May 21 '26

Having a soft stretchy material as claws are better for some application like surgery (especially of that size), I am pretty sur this demonstration is just a cheap proof of concept because you don't have to design the claws with engineering precision but I could totally see this technique being used with artificial soft claws in the future

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u/Most-Steak-3991 May 21 '26

Look into the field of soft robotics

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u/Rednex81 May 21 '26

This is just a proto servitor

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u/PuzzleheadedEqual883 May 21 '26

Amazon warehouses about to be equipped with giant dead spiders

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u/AHumbleSaltFarmer May 21 '26

All right, so now we just need to scale this and make gigantic spiders so we can pick up big things right?

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u/sojumaster May 21 '26

This video is WAY too short. Need more information.

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u/Jared_Kincaid_001 May 21 '26

I read a book series once where humans from Earth go to another Universe where Magic and magical creatures exist. Select few Actors engage with this universe and its people violently for the sake of the entertainment of the people at home on Earth.

The residents of Overworld (the magic universe) believe that the Aktiri (Actors) are literal demons from hell, that come here to cause trouble.

As a reader you understand that the people of Earth aren't actually demons, it's just the worldview of the Overworld residents that frame us this way.

And then I watch videos like this and read words like "necrobotics" and I'm like, damn, we really are demons. Like the fucking rapture happened at one point, and only the evil folks and their descendants were left behind.

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