I keep saying build Skinner boxes and enslave animals to production lines to cut down on automation costs and use the weak AI that nature has given us but noooo everyone I talk to about it thinks its "amoral" or "unethical" even though we holocaust them on a daily basis.
Fuck, now someone is going to engineer headcrabs...
At least we were all disciples of Lamarr.
How the fuck have both articles neglected to explain how they trained a spider to jump on demand? They say they bought multiple but this one is the only one that does it.
The idea of training a spider is a far bigger scientific breakthrough than watching it jump, what a ridiculous title.
I'd assume the scientists would train the spider in the first place in order to get the metrics they were after.
It seems strange to me that they question whether they jump using muscles or hydraulics when spiders are basically hydraulic organisms to begin with. They pump blood into their limbs to move them, that's why they curl up when they die. It's almost like they tried to study how the spider moves, without actually studying how a spider moves.
Yes, but they want to know if the springing force is derived mostly from muscle flexion or a rapid increase in leg blood pressure beyond what occurs in normal walking.
Where does this opinion come from?
im absolutely terrified of spiders but this is cool as fuck
just please dont train the big ol fuckers to do this because they're already terrifying enough
We've known how to condition animals forever. This might be a creative example but skinner boxes aren't exactly bleeding edge science. I'm pretty sure the actual breakthroughs here are to do with biomechanics and robotics. If we learn how exactly the spider's body moves we can let nature do the heavy lifting in designing robots to do similar tasks. It's the same sort of principles that Boston Dynamics was using to make big bulky humanoids do backflips and correct their movement when the mean engineer man kicks it in the leg
Sweet, now i can train my army of spiders.
The bit about the safety line spiders attach to the surface they're about to leap from is very cool.
Jumping spiders don't have any special muscles for their jumps, we've known this for ages now. Plus they're straight-up hydraulic.
It could be that their valves evolved to withstand higher pressures, or their hearts for improved blood-flow, but they don't use muscles to walk, per-se.
There has to be a way to get leaf cutter ants to fill cute little biofuel machines.
Future backwards spoderman?
If you could show me an example of any time scientists trained a spider to do anything I will retract my statement. Spiders are primitive as fuck and only respond to stimuli on instinct as far as I am aware, they have no higher level of intelligence that is needed for something as complex as training.
Ive said it before and I'll say it again we should breed jumpers to be as big as taratntulas, they would make MUCH better pets.
That part where she jumps and the rearmost legs and abdomen hit the platform made me cringe tbh looks painful
Jumping spiders can be more intelligent than you think.
It may seem anecdotal, but I once had a jumping spider on my book-case that I got to chase a laser dot for a while, but after a while it seemed to realize that it couldn't catch it, so it stopped trying.
Waited about 5 minutes, put the dot behind it and it whipped around, front-legs up as if to say "AHA-Oh it's that thing again" and it completely ignored it after that.
So at least on that observation, the spider seemed to be smarter than my cat.
There's also this incredible specimen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDtlvZGmHYk
You're talking out of your ass right now.
Why the hell would anyone want to fund a project headed by a group known as the Spiders Attack Team?
True, but they're not quite as cute as jumpers are.
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