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In August 1908, a white mob attacked Springfield, Illinois’s Black community, destroying homes and businesses and lynching two Black men. National outrage over the violence helped spur the movement that created the NAACP the following year.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
Necrobotics is the practice of using biotic materials (or dead organisms) as robotic components.[1] Necrobotics can serve as an alternative to mechanical components that are difficult to manufacture by using biological components designed by natural selection in order to exploit the highly developed selective design implemented in biological lifeforms via the process of evolution.
In July 2022, researchers in the Preston Innovation Lab at Rice University in Houston, Texas, published a paper in Advanced Science introducing the concept and demonstrating its capability by repurposing dead spiders as robotic grippers and applying pressurized air to activate their gripping arms.[1][2][3][4][5]
In April 2025, researchers at Shinshu University created a “bio-hybrid drone” using silk-worm moth antennae to detect the source of a smell.
In November 2025, researchers at McGill University demonstrated the use of a mosquito proboscis as a fine nozzle in experimental 3D printing.
Necrobotics utilizes the spider's organic hydraulic system and their compact legs to create an efficient and simple gripper system. The necrobotic spider gripper is capable of lifting small and light objects, thereby serving as an alternative to complex and costly small mechanical grippers.[6]
The main appeal of the spider's body in necrobotics is its compact leg mechanism and use of hydraulic pressure.[7][8] The spider's anatomy utilizes a simple hydraulic (fluid) pressure system. Spider legs have flexor muscles that naturally constrict their legs when relaxed.[1][8] A force is required to straighten and extend their legs, which spiders accomplish by pumping hemolymph fluid (blood) through their joints as a means of hydraulic pressure.[6][8] It takes no external power to curl their legs due to their flexor muscles' natural curled state.[1]
In July 2022, researchers in the Preston Innovation Lab at Rice University published a paper detailing their experiments with the gripper. Although dead spiders no longer produce hemolymph, Te Faye Yap (lead author and mechanical engineering graduate) found that pumping air through a needle into the spider's cephalothorax (main body) accomplishes the same results as hemolymph.[1] The original hydraulic (fluid) system is essentially converted into a pneumatic (air) system.
The typical pressure in a resting spider's legs ranges from 4 kPa to 6.1 kPa. Researchers extended the legs by increasing the spider's internal pressure to 5.5 kPa.[1] Pumping air into the body increases the internal pressure, causing the legs to expand. Pumping air out of the body decreases internal pressure, causing the legs to contract due to their flexor leg muscles. When the internal pressure decreases to 0 kPa, the gripper would be fully closed, allowing for the gripper to grasp objects. This action demonstrates that as internal pressure decreases, the gripping force increases. Inversely, when internal pressure increases, the gripping force decreases.[1] By gripping individual weighted acetate beads, it is found that the necrobotic gripper achieves a maximum gripping force of 0.35 millinewtons.[1][6]
To estimate the gripping forces of smaller and larger spiders, researchers created a plot to predict the gripping force relative to the size of the spider. The wolf spider's body weight is relatively equal to the gripping force of its legs.[1] The mass of the gripper is 33.5 mg and can lift 1.3 times its body weight (43.6 mg or 0.35 mN).[1] However, with larger spiders, the gripping force relative to body weight decreases. For example, a 200-gram goliath birdeater is predicted to lift 10% of its weight (20 grams or 196 mN).[1][6] Though there is an inverse relationship between spider mass and gripping force, larger spiders exert greater gripping forces than smaller spiders.
The necrobotic gripper's functionality is entirely reliant on the structural integrity of the spider. If the spider were to break down easily and frequently, the gripper would not be practical. Using cyclic testing, a series of repeated actions, it is found that the necrobotic gripper can actuate 700 to 1000 times.[6] After 1000 cycles, cracks begin forming on the membrane of the leg joints due to dehydration.[1] Weakened and decomposing joints lead to frequent breakage and replacement, thereby serving as an obstacle in applying necrobotics to real-world scenarios.
One theorized fix to this issue is applying beeswax or a lubricant to the joints. Researchers found that over 10 days, the mass of an uncoated spider decreased 17 times more than the mass of a spider coated with beeswax.[1] Lubricating joints combats dehydration and slows the loss of organic material.
 | This section may contain original research. (September 2024) |
With the usage of organic material, there is a higher chance of the component decomposing and breaking down as opposed to traditional mechanical systems. There may be additional work and management required to replace these grippers if they fail. Additionally, organic inconsistencies with the spiders will yield inaccurate results. Not all wolf spiders develop the same, so gripping force and leg contraction can vary between grippers.
There are moral implications behind euthanizing spiders for robotics.[according to whom?] The ethical boundaries that necrobotics push in the pursuit of biohybrid systems raise concerns, as opponents say it may lead to the hybridization of mammals and is intrusive to nature.[9] Proponents respond that repurposing dead animals has been human practice for millennia and that necrobotics should be pursued to advance science.[9]
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Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
Necrobotics is the practice of using biotic materials (or dead organisms) as robotic components. Necrobotics can serve as an alternative to mechanical components that are difficult to manufacture by using biological components designed by natural selection in order to exploit the highly developed selective design implemented in biological lifeforms via the process of evolution. In July 2022, researchers in the Preston Innovation Lab at Rice University in Houston, Texas, published a paper in Advanced Science introducing the concept and demonstrating its capability by repurposing dead spiders as robotic grippers and applying pressurized air to activate their gripping arms. In April 2025, researchers at Shinshu University created a “bio-hybrid drone” using silk-worm moth antennae to detect the source of a smell. In November 2025, researchers at McGill University demonstrated the use of a mosquito proboscis as a fine nozzle in experimental 3D printing. Necrobotics utilizes the spider's organic hydraulic system and their compact legs to create an efficient and simple gripper system. The necrobotic spider gripper is capable of lifting small and light objects, thereby serving as an alternative to complex and costly small mechanical grippers.
Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, mainly by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machines. Automation has been achieved by various means including mechanical, hydraulic, pneumatic, electrical, electronic devices, and computers, usually in combination. Complicated systems, such as modern factories, airplanes, and ships typically use combinations of all of these techniques. The benefits of automation includes labor savings, reducing waste, savings in electricity costs, savings in material costs, and improvements to quality, accuracy, and precision. Automation includes the use of various equipment and control systems such as machinery, processes in factories, boilers, and heat-treating ovens, switching on telephone networks, steering, stabilization of ships, aircraft and other applications and vehicles with reduced human intervention. Examples range from a household thermostat controlling a boiler to a large industrial control system with tens of thousands of input measurements and output control signals. In the simplest type of an automatic control loop, a controller compares a measured value of a process with a desired set value and processes the resulting error signal to change some input to the process, in such a way that the process stays at its set point despite disturbances. This closed-loop control is an application of negative feedback to a system. The mathematical basis of control theory began in the 18th century and advanced rapidly in the 20th. The term automation, inspired by the earlier word automatic (coming from automaton), was not widely used before 1947, when Ford established an automation department. It was during this time that the industry was rapidly adopting feedback controllers, technological advancements introduced in the 1930s revolutionized various industries significantly. The World Bank's World Development Report of 2019 shows evidence that the new industries and jobs in the technology sector outweigh the economic effects of workers being displaced by automation. Job losses and downward mobility blamed on automation have been cited as one of many factors in the resurgence of nationalist, protectionist and populist politics in the US, UK and France, among other countries since the 2010s.
Wolf spiders are members of the family Lycosidae (from Ancient Greek λύκος (lúkos) 'wolf'), named for their robust and agile hunting skills and excellent eyesight. They live mostly in solitude, hunt alone, and usually do not spin webs. Some are opportunistic hunters, pouncing upon prey as they find it or chasing it over short distances; others wait for passing prey in or near the mouth of a burrow. Wolf spiders resemble nursery web spiders (family Pisauridae), but wolf spiders carry their egg sacs by attaching them to their spinnerets, while the Pisauridae carry their egg sacs with their chelicerae and pedipalps. Two of the wolf spider's eight eyes are large and prominent; this distinguishes them from nursery web spiders, whose eyes are all of roughly equal size. This can also help distinguish them from the similar-looking grass spiders.
Remote control animals are animals that are controlled remotely by humans. Some applications require electrodes to be implanted in the animal's nervous system connected to a receiver which is usually carried on the animal's back. The animals are controlled by the use of radio signals. The electrodes do not move the animal directly, as if controlling a robot; rather, they signal a direction or action desired by the human operator and then stimulate the animal's reward centres if the animal complies. These are sometimes called bio-robots or robo-animals. They can be considered to be cyborgs as they combine electronic devices with an organic life form and hence are sometimes also called cyborg-animals or cyborg-insects. Because of the surgery required, and the moral and ethical issues involved, there has been criticism aimed at the use of remote control animals, especially regarding animal welfare and animal rights, especially when relatively intelligent complex animals are used. Non-invasive applications may include stimulation of the brain with ultrasound to control the animal. Some applications (used primarily for dogs) use vibrations or sound to control the movements of the animals. Several species of animals have been successfully controlled remotely. These include moths, beetles, cockroaches, rats, dogfish sharks, mice and pigeons. Remote control animals can be directed and used as working animals for search and rescue operations, covert reconnaissance, data-gathering in hazardous areas, or various other uses.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →The Greenwood District.
