Robots That Bounce on Water 137
inghamb87 writes "The way water striders walk on water was discovered years ago. The insect uses its long legs to help evenly distribute its tiny body weight. The weight is distributed over a large area so that the fragile skin formed by surface tension supports the bug on the water. However, the ability of water striders to jump onto water without sinking has baffled scientists, until now." If nothing less, you need to see the picture: it's awesome.
Re:The Picture Might Be Worth It... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Grammar!!! (Score:5, Informative)
Telegraph.co.uk article [telegraph.co.uk]
ENN article [enn.com]
Re:Move along, nothing to see here... (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/?p=592&strip=1 [google.com]
Baffles science? (Score:5, Informative)
This one is erroneous in at least one way. It suggests that tiny bubbles trapped in hairs on the bug's legs make it float. Tosh! The bubbles are too small to make it boyant. What the bubbles do is increase the surface area which, in turn, increases the amount of surface tension "skin" that the bug walks on and therefore the carrying capacity.
As most fly fishermen would tell you, surface tension is far stronger than you'd think. Hatching bugs struggle to get through the surface tension which keeps them under the surface. Once they break through they are able to sit and walk quite easily.
Re:I for one... (Score:5, Informative)
I'm gonna take a guess to say that you learned this from Mr. Wizard [mrwizardstudios.com]?
I remember this episode well - it is a simple but very awe-inspiring (at least from a geek's perspective) experiment. It goes like this:
1) Fill a cookie tray with water
2) Pepper the top of the water in order to *see* the movements of the surface tension
3) Carefully place a small amount of soap in the center of the tray
4) Watch the pepper scatter to the edges of the pan as the tension breaks
If you have a kid, then you need to go do this experiment with them NOW!
RIP Don Herbert [npr.org] - you are one of the main reasons that I am a geek today.
Re:My Life IS RUINED! (Score:5, Informative)
This is a crock of shit (Score:4, Informative)
The "robot" spreads its weight out using the whole length of its legs in contact with the water. That is nothing like a water strider.
A water strider walks on the **ends** of its legs (feet, if you will). For a far better description see http://www.livescience.com/animals/041103_water_strider.html [livescience.com].
The only similarity is that they both use surface tension.
Mirror / Additional Content (Score:2, Informative)
http://aycu05.webshots.com.nyud.net:8090/image/34684/2000802596361707173_rs.jpg [nyud.net]
The article also links to this one, which has a different water walking robot overlord picture.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/12/07/sciwater107.xml [telegraph.co.uk]
Re:Link not working. (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.enn.com/sci-tech/article/26913
Re:Forget the mirror.. Use the source! (Score:3, Informative)
http://nanolab.me.cmu.edu/projects/waterstrider/ [cmu.edu]
Here is the actual project including how it works (Pizo) photos of both prototypes, the light and dark one, and detail on the robotics in it.
It includes 3 videos including the walking on water video.
Bigger version of the "awesome" picture (Score:4, Informative)
http://nanolab.me.cmu.edu/projects/waterstrider/STRIDE_water_strider_big.jpg [cmu.edu]
It is part of the work of the NanoRobotics Labaratory [cmu.edu] at CMU.
Re:My Life IS RUINED! (Score:2, Informative)
- Sitelutions Team
Re:Jesus (Score:3, Informative)
Sorry for the totally off topic post but that kinda drives me crazy when Christians blame the Jews for killing Jesus. Of course they killed him because they were ALL Jewish - including Jesus. The Jewish leaders had him killed for sacrelige, very much like the Christian leaders in the dark ages had fellow Christians killed for similar reasons.
Not saying you are saying this but when Christians blame the Jews for killing Christ as some sort of conspiracy against the Christians, they are completely forgetting that the religion known as Christianity did not come until long after Jesus was dead. In his time and shortly after, it was simply a sect variation of Judaism.