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Robot Snakes – Discovering The Secrets On How Sidewinders Move

October 12, 2014 By Brian Galloway Leave a Comment

robot-snakes-teach-sidewinders-move

In the old Wild West movies, one often hears one cowboy call another cowboy a “sidewinder”. It’s a derogatory term for someone who is dishonest and sneaky. The name fits well with the namesake, a snake that moves sideways in order to get around.

People would often wonder how this reptile could move in such a way and now scientists are sure they’ve discovered their secret.

One physicist, Dr. Daniel I. Goldman from Georgia Tech actually studies animal motion and with teaming up with some biologists and robotics experts they studied the way this unusual snake’s unique locomotion.

Dr. Goldman says he’s been interested in the way animals move on sand. The granular makeup of the sand as well as the mechanics of moving on it he’s even studied the sandfish, a wee lizard that appears to swim in sand. A desert dweller really got the doctor’s attention and with his team from Carnegie Mellon and Zoo Atlanta they brought in some live sidewinders and around 400 pounds of sand from the Arizona deserts then built an experimental incline slope and included an air system to keep the sand even after each experiment.

Using high speed videotape the scientists then analyzed the way the sidewinders moved. Their first observation was that the creature didn’t dig deeper even if the incline on the slopes was increased. The snake maintains a greater amount of its body while in contact with the sand as it proceeds by lifting other parts. To see this the researchers built a model of the snake’s movements. They observed two waves, staggered, that ran from head to tail. One wave goes horizontal and parallel to the ground and one vertical like an ocean’s ave. In unison these motions lift the snake’s body to propel it forward. Then the team did the amazing thing by creating and programming a robot to mimic the sidewinder’s locomotion.

The final results were published in the journal Science.

The researchers now see how this form of traveling can assist robots or other mechanisms when moving across sand.

They also found out that not all snakes can do the sidewinder when they tested 13 different types of snakes and only one could make it.

Filed Under: Tech & Science Tagged With: Robot, robot snake sidewinders, robot snakes, secrets, secrets of sidewinders, sidewinders, snake

Oceans Reveal Their Secrets To Satellites

October 3, 2014 By Rebecca McGhee Leave a Comment

oceans-reveal-secrets-of-satellites

The journal Science has published an astonishing study that shows how the oceans had far more mountains, thousands of them than anyone had expected. Not only mountains but basins, tectonic ridges, and other spectacular geophysical features.

The data came from both existing maps and two satellites that were already in orbit doing other assignments. Thee satellites now provided far more better resolution of the secrets of the ocean depths. The research was done by California’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) and as well as several other institutions in allegiance with SIO.

There is a lot of science that went into this discovery and not just one source or technology. These teams of researchers piled on whatever they could use to get the best imaging possible and that meant satellites, sonar, computer software, existing maps and more. This was a collaborative effort to finally see if they could get a better idea of the makeup of the ocean floor. To their surprise they were able to find thousands of active, dormant, and long dead volcanoes. Mountain ranges are formed by either volcanoes like Mt. Kilimanjaro in eastern Africa and Mt. St. Helens in the Pacific Northwest of the US, or by compression like the Himalayan Mountains that formed when the Indian subcontinent tectonic plate crushed into the greater Asian land mass.

Using these technologies to study the ocean floor scientists can now determine the dynamics of the geographical phenomena we wouldn’t have seen or didn’t know about before. These topographical data will be used by just about every scientist on the planet from biology, to fluid dynamics, and meteorology. Seeing how the ridges that form the tectonic plates that formed the continents, scientists will get a glimpse of history going back untold millions of years. They’ll know where to send submersibles to collect samples and see what the rocks might have endured and when they were formed.

This and the other information gleaned from this research can well change the face of science across the board. Now we’re another step closer to understanding our oceans which was an area many complained about that we had neglected.

Filed Under: Tech & Science Tagged With: ocean, reveal, satellites, secrest to satellites. ocean reveal, secrets

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