WEBVTT - Tentacle Technology 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.200 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:15.720 Forward Thinking. Hello, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the podcast 0:00:15.840 --> 0:00:17.919 that looks at the feature and says I'd like to 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:20.800 be under the sea. I'm Lauren bog Obama, and I'm 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:24.279 Joe McCormick. And our regular host Jonathan Strickland is not 0:00:24.360 --> 0:00:29.000 with us this week. He is at CS covering technology technologies. 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:33.000 We are also going to talk about some terrific tentacle 0:00:33.120 --> 0:00:36.720 technologies today. Yes, you heard Lauren right, We're going to 0:00:36.760 --> 0:00:40.560 be talking about tentacle technology today. Yeah. So we hope 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:43.199 that you like BioMedics podcasts real well, because those are 0:00:43.200 --> 0:00:46.040 basically our favorite things, I think, especially when Jonathan is 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:49.120 not in office to monitor us. Yeah, if you haven't 0:00:49.400 --> 0:00:52.600 been around for previous podcast episodes when Jonathan wasn't here, 0:00:52.680 --> 0:00:58.920 we did I think bees and some other kind of bugs. Ants. Yeah, no, 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:01.920 I think we did ants with Jonathan. Spiders, might have 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:04.600 done spiders without him. We did bugs ones for a 0:01:04.640 --> 0:01:08.160 long time, and and we kind of are running out 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:11.360 of bugs to talk about, which is weird because there's 0:01:11.400 --> 0:01:13.440 there's trillions of them there are there are Well, we 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:16.039 also did some some cockroach stuff a couple episodes ago. 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:18.360 But anyway, Yeah, so, so we decided to move on 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:22.600 to something else kind of creepy, and the tentacles and 0:01:22.880 --> 0:01:27.920 or arms would be a really good route. Well, you know, 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:31.199 when you picture the robots of the future, they've got 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:33.920 to have tentacles, right, They've got to have them, because 0:01:34.240 --> 0:01:37.600 tentacles are really the best kind of appendage. They're awesome. 0:01:37.680 --> 0:01:40.399 Humans would be better if we had them. I think 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:45.040 bears would be marginally improved with tentacles. They're pretty much 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:48.160 the best. They wouldn't be improved for my personal use, 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:50.520 I would prefer bears to not have tentacles, but I'm 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:53.360 sure bears would love to have them. I'm going to 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:56.080 go ahead and speak for bears definitively. I'm a supporter 0:01:56.200 --> 0:02:00.880 of the Second Amendment, the right to bear tentacles. Oh goodness, 0:02:00.960 --> 0:02:03.840 my gracious, I walked into that one so hard. Hold 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:07.600 on a second, what was that joke I just made? Well, 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:11.480 I'm playing on a little vocab disclaimer we need to make, 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:15.760 which is tentacles versus arms? Yes, which I kind of 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:18.840 mentioned a second ago. But um, alright, So so octopi 0:02:18.919 --> 0:02:22.520 or octopuses, whichever you prefer. I think it's octopuses. If 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:25.800 you don't want to sound like a jerk. Okay, that's 0:02:25.840 --> 0:02:28.919 never stopped us before here on forward thinking. Um, So, 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:33.799 so octopuses have arms. Yeah, octopuses have eight arms. These 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:36.760 are eight non retractable arms, and that's all they got, 0:02:36.919 --> 0:02:40.480 just the arms. Squid and cuttlefish, on the other hand, 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:43.640 they have those eight arms, those eight non retractable arms 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:47.640 going out, but they've also got two longer appendages that 0:02:47.680 --> 0:02:51.560 are technically tentacles tentacles. These are what a scientist would 0:02:51.600 --> 0:02:55.000 call a tentacle. It's what we can call tentacles as well. 0:02:55.040 --> 0:02:57.840 I mean really anyone can. But yes, the the official 0:02:57.919 --> 0:03:02.120 biological definition um is tentacles. And that's because they're a 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:06.160 little bit different. Um. Tentacles tend to end in in 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:08.679 what's term it's it's a club. Yeah, it's a sort 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:12.239 of leaf shaped swelling out at the end of the tentacle. 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:15.480 And yeah, it's called a club. And the tentacles, i 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:19.200 think typically are used more often specifically for catching prey, 0:03:19.240 --> 0:03:21.960 whereas the arms of a squid or an octopus they 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:24.160 can grab things, they can catch prey, but they can 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:27.799 also be used for swimming and walking around and clinging 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:31.480 to surfaces and picking things up there. They're more all purpose, 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:36.960 right right. And also, arms are usually covered entirely in 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:41.080 uh suckers or section cups on the undersides, yet on 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:44.160 the underside is correct, whereas tentacles will only have those 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:48.960 section cups on that club end. Yes, arms also may 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:53.280 have a siri or or palps, which are these uh 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:56.560 kind of kind of worm like things that come off 0:03:56.600 --> 0:04:01.240 of them in order to do stuff that sound beautiful nature, y'all. 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:05.120 And arms have one more feature. They sometimes will have hooks, 0:04:05.200 --> 0:04:08.720 which are a kind of modified suction cup, which is 0:04:09.160 --> 0:04:11.800 for hooking. I suppose, yeah, I think some species have 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:16.600 well hooks, they're they're just hooks. That's cool. I I 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:20.839 like I like hooks. I like captain hook. I like pirates. 0:04:21.560 --> 0:04:24.159 Both arms and tentacles are what you would call a 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:28.040 muscular hydrostat which is a muscle that doesn't need to 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:31.080 move a bone. It does its work all on its own. 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:32.800 So it would be a muscle kind of like your 0:04:32.880 --> 0:04:37.080 tongue or like an elephant's trunk. And so there is 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:40.680 a scientific distinction between arms and tentacles in a creature 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:43.080 like a squid. But we're going to kind of go 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:46.880 with the common usage today where to the average person, 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:50.839 those eight things on an octopus, they're all tentacles. Yeah, 0:04:50.920 --> 0:04:53.520 well we'll we'll refer to them as tentacles. Yeah yeah, 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:57.200 we we respect the biological difference, but tentacles is a 0:04:57.240 --> 0:05:00.600 lot funnier to say. It is a funnier word. So 0:05:00.720 --> 0:05:03.360 let's get into some of these biomemetics, because, as we've 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:06.000 seen on this podcast many times before, a lot of 0:05:06.040 --> 0:05:09.679 scientists and engineers love to look to nature to figure 0:05:09.720 --> 0:05:12.640 out draw inspiration. Yeah right, how to build their robots 0:05:12.760 --> 0:05:16.680 or their tiny nano machines or create new materials. Is 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:20.000 just there's a lot of research that's already gone into nature, 0:05:20.080 --> 0:05:23.200 that's been done by evolution. Let's just steal their work. 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:27.279 Yeah yeah, just just plagiarize all of that and send 0:05:27.320 --> 0:05:32.160 it into space. What, yes, tentacle robots in space. Okay, 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:35.960 so we're talking about tentacle limbs to go on robots 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:40.320 for grasping, Yes, tell me about it. Well, one of 0:05:40.360 --> 0:05:42.520 the classic robot problems that we talked about a lot 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:46.159 on this show is is flexibility, um and and that's 0:05:46.480 --> 0:05:49.280 you know, most robot arms are are really rigid and 0:05:49.360 --> 0:05:52.279 kind of unforgiving. You don't want to put a baby 0:05:52.320 --> 0:05:56.240 next to it. Um, they're bad at at dealing with 0:05:56.440 --> 0:06:00.279 different kinds of materials and especially with unknown material reels. 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:02.919 It's really tough to to teach a robot how to 0:06:02.960 --> 0:06:06.160 pick something up when it's never seen that thing before. Yeah, 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:08.720 and it might not know how delicate it is. And 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:12.080 there are all these different variables that go into the 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:15.560 sort of unconscious calculations your body does when you pick 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:18.440 up a foreign object. Sure, sure it sounds really simple, 0:06:18.440 --> 0:06:20.479 but if you go to pick up a cup, your 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:22.719 your fingers are giving you a lot of feedback about 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:25.800 how squishable that cup is and how heavy it is, 0:06:25.920 --> 0:06:27.880 and what you need to do there for in order 0:06:27.920 --> 0:06:29.960 to get a good grip on it and not you know, 0:06:30.040 --> 0:06:35.960 spill its contents all over yourself. Okay, so uh, tentacles 0:06:36.000 --> 0:06:39.640 better at doing this than rigid arms, really, yes, well, 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:42.400 because you know they can conform to an object and 0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:44.599 kind of grip it as tightly as they need to 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:48.039 without hope, hopefully without you know, hulking and just just 0:06:48.080 --> 0:06:51.800 spilling everything everywhere. Um. I assume that people I love 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:54.800 the cup metaphor, but there the cup example. But I 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:57.400 assume that robots pick up things other than cups pretty 0:06:57.400 --> 0:07:02.560 frequently anyway. Um, some researchers and roboticists like Ian Walker 0:07:02.560 --> 0:07:08.080 of Clemson University are working on creating creepy, wonderful robotic tentacles. 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:11.360 Um and yes, inspired by stuff like octopus arms and 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:15.080 elephant trunks and giraffe tongues and climbing vines and all 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:18.080 that good kind of stuff. Um, they they have been 0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:21.520 building these robotic arms that are capable of twisting around 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:26.560 and grasping objects of varying shapes and materials, like, for example, 0:07:26.880 --> 0:07:32.840 the oct arm Lauren O C T A r M 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:36.560 oct arm. I like the sound of that. It's pretty great. Um. 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:39.080 It's a pneumatic robot arm. And it came out of 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:42.120 a DARPA funded project from two thousand three to two 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:45.080 thousand and seven. And since Jonathan is not here, I'll 0:07:45.120 --> 0:07:48.120 go ahead and say it DARPA. That's the US Defense 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:51.800 Advanced Research Projects Agency. Why I've never heard of that before. 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:56.000 We shall call it DARPA from now on. And according 0:07:56.120 --> 0:07:59.600 to Ian Walker via space dot Com, this thing, this, 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:03.320 this arm can grab and stack cones of varying sizes, 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:07.400 explore tunnel like environments, and manipulate objects it had never 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:12.240 encountered before while submerged in water. Um, I'm not sure 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:13.920 if I can do all of those things every day. 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:16.320 So that's so, that's pretty rap. I can do almost 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:19.120 nothing while submerged in water because I never figured out 0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:23.440 how to open my eyes underwater. It's it's rough. It stings, man. Um, 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:26.680 goggles are great, it's this new technology we might we 0:08:26.800 --> 0:08:29.200 could talk about later. Um. But but so robots like 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:31.920 this aren't even expensive to build, but they are tricky 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:34.120 to program, is the only probably, Yeah, I can see 0:08:34.120 --> 0:08:36.720 how that would be. Yeah. Um, but there are other 0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:40.319 octopus inspired robot arms. Yeah yeah, well not just octopus, 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:44.040 but I guess all kinds of tentacle, cephalopod arm whatever 0:08:44.120 --> 0:08:48.240 you call these grasping, swiggly things. One of them, that's 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:50.440 a recent one I just read about today was the 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:54.440 m I T Soft Rubber Robot Arms. So at m 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:57.280 I T s c Sale, that's the Computer Science and 0:08:57.360 --> 0:09:01.720 Artificial Intelligence Lab under the direction of daniellow Rouse. And 0:09:01.800 --> 0:09:03.760 her name should be familiar to you if you've listened 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:05.800 to this podcast for a while, because I keep seeing 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:10.880 her associated with weird awesome stuff that comes up here. Uh. So, 0:09:11.080 --> 0:09:13.760 that lab has turned out some really cool robots, and 0:09:13.800 --> 0:09:16.079 a recent one which I read about in an M 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:19.840 I T press release from septemb is a soft rubber 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:23.640 robotic arm that can move around by sort of writhing 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:27.520 and slithering. Some descriptions compared it to a slithering snake, 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:31.880 but the press release actually stipulated that was inspired by 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:35.880 an octopus arm. It's made of silicone and that's sort 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:39.160 of for the soft touch with three D printed molds. 0:09:39.200 --> 0:09:41.880 And if you watch the video that they released of 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:45.040 this thing, you can see how it controls its slithering motion, 0:09:45.080 --> 0:09:48.640 which is through tension and release of the soft silicone 0:09:48.679 --> 0:09:54.200 parts by inflating and contracting gas sacs and it looks 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:57.160 really cool. If you had a robot with real arms 0:09:57.200 --> 0:09:59.280 like this, ideally it would be able to sort of 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:02.080 reach down on into a crack or a hole or 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:07.440 a pipe or you know, any kind of chasm, anything 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:09.360 that you wouldn't want to put your arm down into 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:13.640 my eye socket. I don't know. Whatever it is, it 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:16.760 can reach down with a sort of grasping manipulator that 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:20.640 would be quote as soft as chewing gum, which is 0:10:20.679 --> 0:10:25.000 so sweet because, again, as you mentioned, most robots are hard. 0:10:25.080 --> 0:10:28.640 They're not. They're not soft and cuddly and nice. Yeah. No, again, 0:10:28.880 --> 0:10:31.520 it's the baby test, like if like, like, would you 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:34.240 want to put this on your baby? Right, like, if 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:36.800 your baby fell down a pipe, you'd want a soft 0:10:36.920 --> 0:10:39.480 arm that could go and wrap it up and pull 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:43.240 it back out, back out gently. That would be much preferable. Yes, um, 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:47.760 I'm sure, and there are. Obviously, these are not the 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:53.080 only grasping robot arms inspired by cephalopod arms and tentacles. Yes, 0:10:53.120 --> 0:10:55.080 and we will talk about a few more of them 0:10:55.400 --> 0:10:59.959 later on in the podcast. But first, let's talk more 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:03.040 about motion. Yeah, let's let's go a little bit deeper 0:11:03.120 --> 0:11:07.320 into your dreams slash nightmares. Okay, so we've already got 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:10.920 robots that are getting toward being able to grasp things 0:11:11.000 --> 0:11:15.160 and manipulate them like an octopus or a squid. What 0:11:15.240 --> 0:11:19.320 about the way octopuses? Was that the plural we agreed 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:23.319 on octopuses? Yeah? What about the way octopuses and squids move? 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:27.439 So a topic we often come back to is robot locomotion, 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:30.760 because getting from one place to another isn't always as 0:11:30.800 --> 0:11:33.400 easy as it would seem. Yeah, Yeah, that's that's one 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:36.320 of those other classic problems. Yeah, especially for machines, so 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:40.000 wheels are pretty dependable. At this point. You can make 0:11:40.040 --> 0:11:42.920 a self driving car that if it stays on the road, 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:46.520 works pretty well, but that won't work everywhere. What if 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:49.959 your robot needs to climb a tree or a rocky hillside, 0:11:50.120 --> 0:11:55.640 or descend into a crevice or swim in the ocean. Okay, 0:11:56.160 --> 0:11:58.400 you're gonna have to deal with this now. A group 0:11:58.440 --> 0:12:01.800 of researchers in Europe have working on creating and studying 0:12:01.840 --> 0:12:06.920 a species of robot octopus that can swim. Robot octopus, 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:12.679 robot octopus that can swim. We're we're creating swimming robot octopuses. Now. Now, 0:12:12.720 --> 0:12:15.800 what I've seen is not a full octopus with like 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:19.160 you know, an octopus soul and octopus eyes. It was 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:23.840 more just kind of a tentacle. This would be arms technically, 0:12:23.880 --> 0:12:26.800 but we've said before they're sort of interchangeable, as we're 0:12:26.920 --> 0:12:33.400 using a sort of arm tentacle motion simulator. In May, 0:12:33.559 --> 0:12:37.800 at the i Tripoli International Conference on Robotics and Automation 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:41.320 and Karl's Rue Germany, a team of researchers who I 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:45.800 think we're all from Greece gave a presentation entitled octopus 0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:51.520 inspired eight arm robotics swimming by sculling movements. That's another 0:12:51.600 --> 0:12:54.280 verb I like. I'll explain that in just a minute. Uh. 0:12:54.720 --> 0:12:57.280 Before I get into that, I found a background explanation 0:12:57.400 --> 0:13:01.600 where Dr Dimitris sarkia Us, who is one of the researchers, 0:13:02.040 --> 0:13:06.240 explains why you might want something like a robotic octopus. 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:08.800 So we want to have robots that can move around 0:13:08.800 --> 0:13:11.600 freely underwater, and this is important for a lot of 0:13:11.640 --> 0:13:16.040 different applications. Imagine you need to do industrial maintenance on 0:13:16.080 --> 0:13:20.160 an underwater structure, or you need to do remote research 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:23.679 in an underwater cave, or search and rescue on a shipwreck, 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:26.199 like where the ship has become submerged, but there might 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:29.400 be survivors trapped in air pockets inside. I don't know 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:32.240 if you ever read any of those stories, but they're terrifying. 0:13:32.520 --> 0:13:35.559 I do not read them because they are terrifying. Yeah, 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:37.880 or search and rescue, and say even something like a 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:40.440 flooded urban area. You know, maybe there's a flood and 0:13:40.440 --> 0:13:43.840 their basements and things like that. Anyway, it's important for 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:46.920 these kind of robots to be highly mobile, but it's 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:50.400 also important for them to be highly dextrous, so they 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:53.520 can open doors, pick up objects, move things around, or 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:56.679 you know, even gently hugged the torso of a live human. 0:13:57.400 --> 0:13:59.800 So you could try to accomplish that by pairing to 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:03.760 other different elements. So you have propellers for motion, and 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:07.080 then you have some kind of protruding robotic claw arms 0:14:07.240 --> 0:14:11.240 or whatever kind of manipulator you want for the limbs. 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:15.160 But what if we maximize deficiency by pairing propulsion and 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:20.200 manipulation together into one machine feature. Yeah, because that's what 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:24.240 octopus is already do. Right, So the soft flexible arms 0:14:24.280 --> 0:14:27.880 of an octopus connect as swimming limbs, walking limbs, and 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:32.360 grasping limbs. Can we do that with a robot? Well, 0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:36.280 the conference presentation showed the results of a study of 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:40.720 octopus inspired swimming motion. As I said, uh so, the 0:14:40.800 --> 0:14:44.600 relevant type of octopus swimming is what you'd call sculling. 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:48.000 It's also sort of what those fancy Ivy League rowboat 0:14:48.120 --> 0:14:50.840 kids do. It's it's a type of rowing. So it's 0:14:50.840 --> 0:14:53.720 where you use multiple ores at once and you're pushing 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:57.520 through the water to propel yourself forward with oars. Yeah, 0:14:57.560 --> 0:15:00.720 they all push in synchronization to drive the main body 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:05.680 forward and the team study different octopus robots sculling motions 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:09.360 with dynamical models. So these were computer simulations. They did 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:14.400 simulations in software that try to simulate fluid dynamics to 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:19.120 predict the performance of different systems dealing with real world conditions. 0:15:19.400 --> 0:15:22.360 They also built three D prototypes and got them swimming 0:15:22.360 --> 0:15:25.120 around in a water tank. There is video of this 0:15:25.200 --> 0:15:28.280 on YouTube and it is beautiful. It's really weird. You 0:15:28.280 --> 0:15:32.040 should check it out. Yeah, so they tested different gates 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:34.120 what they called gates. You know, I guess the gate 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:38.240 for us would be like different ways of walking swimming gates. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:15:38.240 --> 0:15:40.520 so these would be swimming gates. The variations and gate 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:43.600 could be controlled by how much the little robotic arms 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:47.280 moved and and in what order. So should they all 0:15:47.320 --> 0:15:50.840 push in synchronization sort of like you'd often see with 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:53.360 an octopus trying to get away real fast? Yeah, yeah, 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:55.960 the way that it kind of pulsates, if that makes sense, 0:15:56.280 --> 0:15:59.720 or should they row in alternating patterns? There are some 0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:01.280 of the as you'll see in the video where it 0:16:01.320 --> 0:16:04.800 almost looks random. I don't think it is random, but they, uh, 0:16:05.440 --> 0:16:09.320 the tentacles, the little robotic tentacles just move at different times, 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:11.960 more kind of the way that say, a spider walks. 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:16.400 They also tested the difference between rigid arms and then 0:16:16.440 --> 0:16:20.040 these undulating, flexible arms that look more like a real 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:23.880 octopus's limb. And one of the interesting things they discovered 0:16:23.960 --> 0:16:28.080 is that sculling doesn't necessarily produce the best fluid motion underwater, 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:31.600 and some of the artificial gates made the robot move 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:35.040 through the fluid environment much more smoothly, which makes you 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:37.840 wonder why octopuses don't already do this. Now there could 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:42.920 be some compensating drawback or some anatomical limitation that prevents 0:16:42.960 --> 0:16:44.640 them from doing it. I don't know, but I thought 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:47.960 that was interesting. Yeah, yeah, that nature had not selected 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:52.960 for the more efficient But yeah, but maybe there's something 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:56.440 we don't know about this. Actually, maybe octopus is just preferred. 0:16:56.640 --> 0:16:58.520 Maybe they thought real hard about it and they all 0:16:58.560 --> 0:17:00.600 agreed that they just weren't going to that. It's a 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:05.159 style thing, Yeah exactly. It's like, you know, is strutting 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:10.679 really more efficient? No? But why wouldn't you strut? Okay, 0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:14.639 So we're working on robotic tentacles that can manipulate and grab, 0:17:15.520 --> 0:17:19.719 and we're working on robotic tentacles that can swim. So 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:22.719 we're pretty much getting both of the parts together. Right, 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:25.440 We're on the way to making a whole robot octopus. 0:17:25.680 --> 0:17:28.040 I don't know if anybody is actually planning on doing that, 0:17:28.320 --> 0:17:31.879 but the elements are coming together. Yeah, but that is 0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:36.399 not all that is going on with tentacle inspired technology. No. 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:38.280 In fact, you don't even have to look at the 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:42.320 octopus scale. You could shrink it way down. Yes, we 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:45.440 could be gripping things on a on a micro scale, 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:50.159 which is uh just as terrifying actually. Um So, so 0:17:50.240 --> 0:17:55.960 let's let's talk about jellyfish tentacles. They're awful. I mean, 0:17:56.000 --> 0:17:59.720 they're wonderful from a biological standpoint, but they creep me 0:17:59.840 --> 0:18:03.600 right out. Um. From from a passive position drifting in 0:18:03.640 --> 0:18:08.080 the water, jellyfish tentacles can can automatically ensnare prey. They're 0:18:08.080 --> 0:18:12.080 they're like living fly paper. Okay, and they're they're technically plankton, 0:18:12.359 --> 0:18:14.280 which is a thing that I always forget until I 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:17.400 learn it again. Um, they're just really really big plankton. Wait, 0:18:17.440 --> 0:18:20.680 hold on, jellyfish are jellyfish are planks? They're like plankton 0:18:20.760 --> 0:18:24.280 that got huge. Yeah, they are literally plankton that got huge. 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:28.359 That is what they are. They're nervous systems basically don't exist. 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:33.560 To quote you, that's awful. That's so awful. I typically 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:37.560 love all animals. I kind of hate jellyfish. That's not fair, 0:18:37.640 --> 0:18:42.760 but I'm kidding. I don't actually hate jellyfish. They're they're wonderful, 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:50.920 wonderful blobs of they're gorgeous. So their tentacles work like this, Uh, 0:18:50.960 --> 0:18:55.720 they're they're covered in thousands of specialized cells called nita blasts. 0:18:55.760 --> 0:18:58.280 That's spelled with the c N by the way um, 0:18:58.280 --> 0:19:00.800 which just reminds me of like cinabiite. Switch is great 0:19:00.960 --> 0:19:06.720 from you know hell razor actually pronounced I don't know, 0:19:08.200 --> 0:19:12.840 why would you have silences? Sorry latin um. So so 0:19:12.880 --> 0:19:15.960 these these night o blasts have these little hair like 0:19:16.320 --> 0:19:21.320 trigger follicles, okay um. And when something brushes up against 0:19:21.359 --> 0:19:24.120 the tentacle and hits one of these triggers on one 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:27.919 of these cells, the cell discharges a coil of this 0:19:28.040 --> 0:19:31.879 kind of fleshy thread that can either wrap around or 0:19:32.000 --> 0:19:38.560 or even penetrate a living thing, like like a dart um. 0:19:39.400 --> 0:19:42.520 And those those living things are are usually their prey um, 0:19:42.600 --> 0:19:46.960 anything from from algae and smaller plankton um to two 0:19:46.960 --> 0:19:50.360 crustaceans and fish. In the case of larger jellyfish, UM, 0:19:50.400 --> 0:19:53.520 the threads also contain neurotoxins that paralyze that prey and 0:19:53.600 --> 0:19:58.560 sting the heck out of humans. So jellyfish. UM. Okay, 0:19:58.880 --> 0:20:02.119 now let's talk camp there, and this is coming back 0:20:02.160 --> 0:20:05.159 to tentacles, I promise, Just bear with me. One of 0:20:05.160 --> 0:20:08.040 the most dangerous things about cancerous cells is that they 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:12.280 don't always stay put right. They can metastasize or break 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:16.040 off from their home site and move through your bloodstream 0:20:16.240 --> 0:20:18.440 to other parts of your body, where they can cause 0:20:18.480 --> 0:20:23.040 additional cancerous growth and damage bad times. UM. So, so 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:26.480 when a patient is receiving treatment for cancer, doctors might 0:20:26.560 --> 0:20:29.480 test their blood for cancer cells to determine the best 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:31.720 course of therapies, you know, to to see if the 0:20:31.760 --> 0:20:34.360 cancer is starting to move around, and figure out how 0:20:34.400 --> 0:20:38.359 best to treat the patient. Um. It's still coming back 0:20:38.400 --> 0:20:41.639 to tentacles, I promise. UM. One way to find rogue 0:20:41.680 --> 0:20:44.119 cancer cells in a blood sample is to pour it 0:20:44.160 --> 0:20:46.679 through a device that's been coated on the inside with 0:20:46.720 --> 0:20:50.800 antibodies that are designed to um or that naturally stick 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:54.000 to proteins found on the surface of cancer cells, but 0:20:54.040 --> 0:20:56.800 not on the surface of normal cells. So so the 0:20:56.800 --> 0:20:59.320 cancer cells will brush by these antibodies and stick to 0:20:59.400 --> 0:21:03.919 them clever. It is very clever. UM, But the antibodies 0:21:03.920 --> 0:21:06.160 don't have a really high success rate because they're so 0:21:06.200 --> 0:21:10.600 super tiny, just just a couple nanometers long, and um, 0:21:10.640 --> 0:21:13.159 these cells rushing past might be some like ten to 0:21:13.200 --> 0:21:17.120 thirty micrometers, like thousands of times bigger. Right, So it's 0:21:17.119 --> 0:21:19.800 like trying to catch a really big beach ball with 0:21:19.840 --> 0:21:24.480 the tip of a super glue tube. Um, It's it'll stick, 0:21:25.000 --> 0:21:28.320 but it's hard to get it to latch. But hey, 0:21:28.520 --> 0:21:30.520 remember how I said just a couple of seconds ago 0:21:30.720 --> 0:21:36.760 that jellyfish tentacles are super awesome passively capturing stuff. Inspired 0:21:36.800 --> 0:21:40.040 by this, a researcher by the name of Jeffrey Carp 0:21:40.200 --> 0:21:43.720 got a team together that designed tentacle like chains of 0:21:43.800 --> 0:21:47.360 d N A that stick to a protein found on 0:21:47.720 --> 0:21:51.119 cancer cells UM specific kinds of cancer cells. He was 0:21:51.320 --> 0:21:54.199 working with leukemia cells, lung cancer cells, and colon cancer 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:57.760 cells specifically. UM. But uh yeah, yeah that this team 0:21:57.800 --> 0:22:01.120 created a device with a kind of edged flow surface 0:22:01.280 --> 0:22:05.159 UM and lined it with these long, tentacle like DNA 0:22:05.320 --> 0:22:08.199 chains um and they report that it can catch up 0:22:08.200 --> 0:22:12.960 to eight of target cells that are pushed through the device. 0:22:13.200 --> 0:22:15.920 UM and since different chains of DNA can catch different 0:22:15.960 --> 0:22:19.840 kinds of protein, the devices are hypothetically customizable for detecting 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:22.880 different kinds of cancer cells. Oh it's it's so, it's 0:22:22.880 --> 0:22:25.760 so cool, it's and you know it is only for 0:22:25.760 --> 0:22:29.560 for blood testing purposes. Um. There were some reporters who 0:22:29.720 --> 0:22:33.119 I think kind of mistakenly got the idea that this 0:22:33.160 --> 0:22:37.560 could like go into your blood vessels and catch cancer 0:22:37.600 --> 0:22:39.320 cells as they were flowing through your body, and that 0:22:39.320 --> 0:22:42.280 that is not what this is for. If that ever happens, 0:22:42.359 --> 0:22:44.800 that would be pretty red But um, well, but I mean, 0:22:44.840 --> 0:22:48.840 detecting cancer is highly important to extremely important, especially early 0:22:48.880 --> 0:22:53.359 detection before these metastasized cells can start causing damage and 0:22:53.400 --> 0:22:59.960 other organs. So yeah, but let's talk about something even 0:23:00.040 --> 0:23:05.840 kind of squiak ear, which is uh, tentacle suckers. Okay, 0:23:07.880 --> 0:23:11.200 now that we've cured your cancer, we're going to look 0:23:11.320 --> 0:23:16.480 at cephalopod limbs again. Okay, So cephalopods, squid, octopuses, cuttlefish. 0:23:16.560 --> 0:23:19.280 If you've ever looked at a squid or octopus limb, 0:23:19.280 --> 0:23:22.480 you've probably seen them covered on the inside with big 0:23:22.520 --> 0:23:27.880 clusters of protruding concave rings. These are often called suction 0:23:27.920 --> 0:23:31.040 cups or suckers, and they held with gripping. So when 0:23:31.040 --> 0:23:33.680 a squid or an octopus wants to grab a delicious 0:23:33.720 --> 0:23:37.919 meal let's say it's a krill or you know, small fish, 0:23:38.359 --> 0:23:47.160 crustacean or chihuahua uh aqueous, and they want to shove 0:23:47.200 --> 0:23:51.800 it into the gaping beak of yummy nous, they latch 0:23:51.840 --> 0:23:56.080 onto the prey organism with the suction cups on their arms. Now, 0:23:56.600 --> 0:24:02.640 these suction cups are not the same on all right, right, Um, 0:24:02.720 --> 0:24:08.639 octopuses have very muscular section cups, which is how they function. Um. 0:24:08.680 --> 0:24:12.280 They have such complex muscular and nervous systems. Um, they've 0:24:12.320 --> 0:24:16.720 got separate controls for each arm. And and those arm 0:24:16.800 --> 0:24:20.160 controls can work independently of the brain. No, I think 0:24:20.160 --> 0:24:23.480