Scientists have literally reanimated dead spiders to do their bidding. In a new field dubbed necrobotics, researchers converted the corpses of wolf spiders into grippers that can manipulate objects. All the team had to do was stab a syringe into a dead spider’s back and superglue it in place. Pushing fluid in and out of the cadaver made its legs clench open and shut. The team first tried putting dead wolf spiders in a double boiler, hoping that the wet heat would make the spiders expand and push their legs outward. That didn’t work.
But when the researchers injected fluid straight into a spider corpse, they found that they could control its grip well enough to pull wires from a circuit board and pick up other dead spiders. Only after hundreds of uses did the necrobots start to become dehydrated and show signs of wear. In the future, the researchers will coat spiders with a sealant to hold off that decline. But the next big step is to control the spiders’ legs individually, and in the process, figure out more about how spiders work. Then they could translate their understanding into better designs for other robots.
More information:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/dead-wolf-spiders-robots-necrobots