insect

Sometimes real science sounds more like science fiction. Just the phrase "bionic bees" sounds like something out of an old paperback.

But that's the goal of a new project from two U.K. universities, the University of Sheffield and the University of Sussex. Engineers from the schools are planning to scan the brains of bees and upload the data into flying robots with the hope that the machines will fly and act like the real thing.

The goal of the project is to create the first robots able to act on instinct. Researchers hope to implant a honey bee's sense of smell and sight into the flying machines, allowing the robots to act as autonomously as an insect rather than relying on preprogrammed instructions.… Read more

Call it fate, or just pure luck. One insect species recently gained a scientific name due to an eagle-eyed taxonomist browsing images on Flickr.

Our short story begins with a simple upload: Amateur photographer Hock Ping Guek posted a series of close-up photos featuring a strange green lacewing insect to the photo-sharing service in May 2011. Guek, who observed the lacewing at a state park in the Malaysian state of Selangor, has a penchant for macro insect photography. … Read more

The next time you feel like swatting a bug, consider whether it might be packing military sensors that are gathering data about its surroundings. And maybe you, too.

Researchers at the University of Michigan are working on ways to generate power from insects' kinetic motion and body heat while bugging the bugs as well.

In a paper in the Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering, Khalil Najafi and collaborators created piezoelectric generators that harvest small amounts of electricity from the movements of the green June beetle.

The power could be used to charge a bug-board battery for sensors that would relay … Read more

Ant Smasher is an addictive, fast-paced game that tests your screen-tapping reflexes with onslaughts of elusive insects. As the different insects make their way across your screen, your only job is to tap and smash them all as fast as possible. Let too many escape your screen, or accidentally tap a bee, and the game is over. It's super simple.

Because Ant Smasher requires only quick reflexes and almost no thinking, we think it's a great pick-up-and-play type of download. We also think it would be perfect for very young children who may not be able to grasp … Read more

Sometimes it's truly curious who or what inspires us to achieve our best.

There are those sports teams who, sadly, sing "Wonderwall" by Oasis before entering the arena.

There are artists whose muses turn out to be more Pamela Anderson than Laurie Anderson.

And now, according to the Telegraph, some rather honest scientists from Wake Forest University confess that they have been inspired to create rather progressive cybersecurity software by staring at ants for a very long time.

I've never realized this when I've stood on a few hundred of them heading for my kitchen … Read more

For insect-phobes, the only thing scarier than a big, hairy tarantula would be a big, hairy tarantula tricked out with brass gears and looking like it had crawled straight out of a sci-fi horror fest. But rest assured, this spider won't bite--or crawl over your face in the middle of the night. Nor will any of Mike Libby's other cybugs.

Libby, a Portland, Maine, artist, customizes real insect specimens with antique watch parts and other technological components, and the results are generally more cool than creepy. He has shown his work around the country, most recently at the … Read more

Here's the perfect answer to your prankster friend and his RC tarantula or that irritating co-worker who won't stop playing with the toy bug bot or "Solar Cricket" on his desk.

Relish the look on their loaf-of-bread faces when you summon all 44 pounds of the "Halluc II" beast-roach. Developed by Japanese scientists, this 32-inch, eight-legged robotic bug runs on Linux software and an 800MHz AMD processor, technology that Engadget says allows it to "walk or roll via a simple rotation of its jointed appendages." What's unclear to us is why … Read more

There's nothing we hate more on the face of the planet than cockroaches--the mere thought of them can send us into a skin-crawling fit. So we think that the geniuses at Bandai Japan who invented the "Hex Bug" should be shot or, better yet, ordered to serve a life sentence in a gigantic Roach Motel.

Just reading Technabob's description of the $16 bug-bots makes us twitch: "The Hex Bug series of miniature insect robots scurry along on six legs, just like real bugs," and will "change direction when you clap in their vicinity.&… Read more

We still don't understand the overwhelming popularity of remote-controlled mini-choppers, mosquitos and other annoying flying objects. But if you absolutely must have one, we say go all the way.

The "Four-Motor Remote Control UFO" by Hammacher Schlemmer has a lightweight carbon fiber frame and a "gyro-stabilization system" that allows "precise control through hairpin turns, rolls, pitches, and hovering, in addition to yaw and throttle." And with a 300-foot range and nearly 2 feet in diameter, this UFO will squash those flying insects like, well, bugs.

That is, until the "Flytech Dragonfly" … Read more