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Inspired by the external skeleton of a spider, the robot leg is more flexible than conventional robots.


A small robot that resembles a spider’s leg has been developed by engineers at the University of Tartu. Inspired by nature, the fingernail-long leg is more flexible than conventional robots.

Its dexterous movements are expected to help people rescued from rubble and other danger zones in the future.

The robot leg modeled after the leg of a cucumber spider was created by researchers from the Institute of Technology of the University of Tartu and the Italian Institute of Technology. In the near future, it’s expected to move where humans cannot.

A team of engineers and planetary scientists at Western University’s Institute for Earth and Space Exploration, in Canada, has found that it might be possible to produce food for space travelers by feeding bacteria asteroid material, resulting in the growth of an edible biomass.

In their paper published in the International Journal of Astrobiology, the group describes how they tested the idea by calculating how much asteroid material would be needed and what they found.

Prior research has shown that future spacecraft traveling to remote parts of the solar system or beyond could not possibly hold enough food to sustain astronauts. Such craft could not support the growth of enough food onboard, either.