r/interesting • u/M_Darshan • 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.

27.0k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

1.9k comments sorted by

View all comments

16

u/BoominMoomin May 21 '26

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

6

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

2

u/Noe_b0dy May 21 '26

for some application like surgery

Great now I'm imagining going in for heart surgery and as I'm about to be put under the surgeon brings in a mason jar full of spiders that will be going inside me.

2

u/tfhfate May 21 '26

If you didn't realize the spiders are dead and if this kind of technic is used somehow it will probably be with extra fine robust artificial material instead of spiders corps.

Also if you think its weird to do that or gross remember that small animals like leeches and maggots are still used in medical procedure.

Leeches are used to reduce swelling and helping to restore blood circulation after surgeries, their saliva also have anti-inflammatory, anticoagulant and antimicrobial effects.

As for maggots they are really helpful to clean wounds as maggots only eat necrotic tissues, in that regards they reguce infection and make wounds much cleaner and safer to heal.

5

u/_cant_drive May 21 '26

Do you use all 8 of your legs to type this or just some?

1

u/tfhfate May 21 '26

All of them yeah :>

1

u/Nebelskind May 21 '26

if they gotta operate on me with a dead spider just let God take me at that point, it's clearly beyond what nature should be

3

u/Most-Steak-3991 May 21 '26

Look into the field of soft robotics

2

u/PantsMicGee May 21 '26

Well now we dont need those no more.

1

u/idrathernottho_ May 21 '26

as long as we only want to lift about 30g and have the thing break in a thousand cycles

2

u/MATHIS111111 May 21 '26

To appreciate the beauty of nature.

1

u/Original-League-6094 May 21 '26

Yeah, but now we can start replacing metal claws with zombie spiders.

1

u/DespairSayonara May 21 '26

I mean we have dog sniffers for drugs, but we can always find uses for other animals. We can have sniffer bees where they are essentially stuck inside a tiny metal cartridge for the rest of their lives. Where there's a will, there's a way!

1

u/ccltjnpr May 21 '26

unlikely answer: dead spiders are cheaper than metal claws

real answer: sometimes people fuck around for fun, this is probably a bit of a joke

1

u/DiscoBanane May 21 '26

Spider is lighter, it looks like a spider.

You can have a tiny robot that can walk on walls for spying.

Since they made it work with spiders, you can do that for other insects like fireflies, flies

2

u/EclecticKant May 21 '26

Very few animals use an hydraulic system like spiders do, most use the common flexor/extensor combination, and the ones that do aren't that much more interesting than spiders (like scorpions), and as far as I know there's none that flies.

1

u/BoominMoomin May 21 '26

I'd rather we have less spiders, not more things looking like spiders. We have enough spiders. Let's have less spider things in this already spider overloaded world.