The spider’s story is somewhat similar to an environmental success story. A success she owes in part to her painting. Researchers have now successfully untangled their complex structures at the micron scale. To translate them into rhythms and melodies. Music which, if not particularly beautiful to our ears, could allow us in the future to talk to spiders.
A few years ago, researchers suggested they were inspired by cobwebs to imagine the structures capable of us Noise isolation. At the beginning of the week, prof Team Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA), on the occasion of the American Society of Chemistry (ACS) spring meeting, on the contrary, they translated the structure of the spider’s web into rhythms and melodies. Perhaps a way to be able, in the future, to communicate with these little eight-legged monsters. And more realistically, to improve our 3D printing technologies.
Because spiders appear as mistresses Thing from Construction Three-dimensional. There are more than 47,000 different species to testify to the effectiveness of their actions in protecting them and serving as their home and prey. Understanding how spiders build their webs in space can help engineers understand their technologies more effectively3D impression.
But the idea came to them mainly from the fact that spiders live in environments “Vibrating ropes”. “Spiders can’t see well. They feel the world through Vibrations Which occurs, for example, when they pull a strand of silk while building their web or when a fly becomes trapped in it.Markus Buller, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at A. ACS press release.
A startling new example of sonication
With his team, he scanned a file world Wide Web Using a laser to make two-dimensional wounds. Then a computer algorithm enabled him to reconstruct the network’s complexity in 3D. Then he assigned different filament frequencies to the board. Take inspiration from what happens with guitar strings. Until the tones appended to the structure of the plate were created, they became melodies. With the help of an instrument resembling a harp, researchers then played it.
Researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States) classified spider web. They transformed its various strands into sounds that, connected to the structure of the painting, formed rhythms and melodies. © Marcus Buller, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
To go a little further, MIT researchers imagined an environment in Virtual Reality Literally letting in the canvas by capturing the sounds emanating from its structural properties. “By hearing it and seeing it, you can begin to truly understand the environment in which the spider lives.”Marcus Buller reassured.
Researchers also worked on the canvas building phase. By scanning the web his spider is building, they convert every move into music with different sounds. It is this work in particular that gives them hope for improving the design of 3D printers in the future. “The way a spider“ prints ”the web is wonderful, because it doesn’t Material No support is used, as is often required in current 3D printing methods.Markus Buhler confirms.
As mentioned in the introduction, the team now also hopes to learn to communicate with spiders. On their property language. To do this, the researchers recorded the web vibrations caused by the various activities of the spider. And now they’re trying to generate synthetic signals that look like them. “If we expose the spider to these signals, can we influence its behavior and start talking to it?” The question is excitingMarcus Buller concludes.
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