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Wily Octopi Walk on Two Arms
lousyd writes "Offering hope for new forms of ambulatory robots, biologist Christine L. Huffard, at UC Berkeley, has caught individual octopi sneaking away from predators by using two of their arms as legs. They use the other six arms to make themselves look like coconuts or algae. The research is being done as part of a project on robotics. This reminds me of the Far Side cartoon where the cows drop to all fours when humans come around, but resume standing on two legs otherwise." And I for one welcome our new mollusk overlords.
Mind you, a large clump of reddish flesh walking along a sandy seabed with greenish water as a background is not what I would call camoflauged.
What better way to ring in the opening of the Hardware section than with... invertebrate biology? Wait, WTF?
Despite the fact that the tube was much smaller than the octopus, the animal was able to move between the chambers at will.
Feed it a diet of Cheetos and TV, and THEN see it fit thru.
Table-ized A.I.
Cthulhu fhtagn, Cthulhu fhtagn! Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!
SIERRA TANGO FOXTROT UNIFORM
Always nice to have solid ammunition for arguments in bars.
Well, what sort of bars do you go to?
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
Just make sure they don't get their tentacles on any firearms.
In related news, the babylonians have attacked the greeks, and the roman empire's power is waning.
hardware.slashdot.org? Where's the slashdot announcement? And why are octopi in the hardware section? Do they run linux or something?
Without a proper flamewar, Anonymous was undecided on what shell to run.
I didn't know coconuts 'sneaked' away from predators away? What do they do, roll away innocently whistling?
Squid can kill anyone they want! Squid cut off heads ALL the time and don't even think twice about it. These creatures are so crazy and awesome that they flip out ALL the time. I heard that there was this squid who was swiming along. And when some dude dropped a spoon the squid killed him. My friend Mark said that he saw a squid totally uppercut some kid just because the kid opened a window.
And that's what I call REAL Ultimate Power!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I laugh at your claim of the existence of an "automobile". Surely anyone inventing such a device would be educated enough to know that it should be called either an "ipsomobile" or an "autokineticon."
My amazing wife - Artist, Author, Philosopher - Laurie M
Cue half of /. clicking on parent link...
Predictive text is shiv!
Crap, I hope the sharks over there don't have internet access or these octopi are in some serious trouble.
And that, my friends, is how to kill an interesting thread with lots of interesting stories...
Credit due to realultimatepower.net.
Octopus are much more mild mannered
;-)
Or smart enough not to leave witnesses
You can't take the sky from me...