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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.
That's just DISGUSTING.
Now worksafe? It's Not VOMIT safe.
What it is: Naked woman in doggiestyle position with an octopus in her vagina.
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.
Ah, but you need to understand the properties of color in sea water. There is considerable color filtering of light as it passes down through the column of water rendering red objects as dark olive or dark colored objects. Blue light penetrates very well as do certain wavelengths of green (why the Navy is so keen on blue and blue/green lasers). Most of the pictures you see of organisms in the ocean are with artificial light rendering them as they would appear to our eyes on the surface.
One other point: Our eyes are fairly poor at discriminating colors compared with most fish. We only have three color channels with which to process color, whereas many fish have four, five, six or more channels to see a much richer world than we could ever appreciate.
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Obligatory Far Side cartoon
"The newly born animals are then whisked off for a quick run through a giant baking oven." --heard on Food Network
NPR did a story on this today. You can get audio of the story as well as video of the octopi walking at:
y Id=4561136
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?stor
Sure.
Subclass: Coleoidea
Superorder: Octopodiformes
Order: Octopoda
Assume I was drunk when I posted this.
So everyone is speaking Greek when they talk about an octopus? I don't think so. Greeks don't say octopus when they want to talk about eight-armed cephalopods with no tentacles and no shell.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus#Plural
The word 'octopus' is derived from the Greek oktopous - okto, "eight," and pous, "foot." The Greek plural of pous is podes. Since it is best to use a Greek plural for a Greek root that means the most proper plural for octopus IS octopodes like you said. However, practically no one uses this term, not even the scientists who study the animals.
The word octopi is still the least correct of our options. That usage mistakes the "us" on the end of octopus as a Latin suffix, and applies a Latin plural to it. You shouldn't put a Latin plural on the end of a Greek root.
This leaves us with octopuses, which isn't as technically correct as octopodes, but conforms to the rule for English plurals.
Still, Webster's gives both octopuses and octopi as plurals for octopus.
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
English is not Greek, and, like it or not, "octopuses" and "octopi" are both listed in dictionaries of the English language, but "octopodes" are not.
:)
Octopi here, but no octopodes.
Or to put it another way, I'm sympathetic to your argument, but I still disagree with you.
The New(er) version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, the classic Disney movie, which I saw again recently. Go rent it. It's got a CRAZY documentary on the Humbolt Squid, which I think they said reaches 12 feet. These suckers (Pardon the pun) are fierce. They bash heads.
It's also just a good movie in general, but it is worth seeing the DVD for the short (8-10 minute) documentary on the Humbolt Squid, which was the inspiration for the Giant squid in the movie.
Don't you mean.. BIZZARO!
Click here for the story and streaming video clip.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I actually saw a talk by one of the people involved in the work being done at Berkeley on this very subject Thursday. His names Robert J. Full and he's with the Biology dept at Berkeley. His and his students work have inspired an entire host of materials engineering and robotics applications. For instance his work with geckos has lead to work being done on producing nanoscale nonsticky adhesives which are based on van der Waal forces. Also based on his studies of the cockroach(and again his students) we're seeing some robots which are capable of climbing up walls and transversing really really rough terrain. Definitely someone to keep track of if you're interested in biological inspiration for engineering.
I don't care what you say, all I need is my Wumpabet soup.
Natural muscle tissue doesn't use torque to generate torque.
So why are we still using torque to generate torque in robots?
Massively parallel, flexible linear actuators, either attached to a hinged, rigid structure, or using its own internal pressure to provide rigidity, seems to be the key.
The plural of "octopus" is "octopuses."
"Octopi" as a plural started as an ignorant mistake.
Read more about it here.
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Those are the Humboldt Squid, not an Octopus. Like I said above
Octopus are much more mild mannered
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"