There’s this new bee species with a dog-like snout, and then Beewise’s BeeHome 4, an AI-powered robotic home for bees. Unlike normal beehives, the BeeHome 4 is capable of detecting fatal threats to a honeybee colony including pesticides and then immediately defend against them in real-time, with almost no human intervention.
Photo credit: Juan Carlos Sanchez-Nivicela
While not as tiny as Brachycephalus Brunneus, Hyloscirtus Tolkikieni, a new stream frog species, was named after English author and Lord of the Rings creator J.R.R. Tolkien. It was discovered in Ecuador hiding around the streams of Río Negro-Sopladora National Park and measures 2.5-inches (63.5 millimeters) long.
Unlike the Pokemon-playing fish, this 319-million-year-old fossilized fish skull was discovered in a coal mine in England more than century ago. It’s one of the most well-preserved vertebrate brains found to date, and a CT scan revealed that the brain as well as its cranial nerves are roughly an inch long, belonging to an extinct bluegill-size fish.
There are robotic arms with realistic artificial muscles, and then this biohybrid robot that uses real mouse muscle tissue and LEDs for real-time control. Technically speaking, it utilizes mouse muscle cells overlaid on soft 3D-printed scaffolds and wireless LED chips for remote control. The light emitted from the LEDs stimulate the mouse tissue, which begins moving the scaffolding.
Popular YouTuber ‘Mutekimaru Channel’ built a special Nintendo Switch controller for their pet fish to let it play games during livestreams, but little did they know that it would lead to credit card fraud of sorts. How does the controller work? Button inputs are registered as the fish swims across specific points on the controller.
While not as bizarre as this AI-powered human washing machine, two divers managed to capture rare footage of a live giant squid off Japan’s west coast. Yosuke Tanaka and his wife Miki run a diving operation in Toyooka city. They received a tip from a local fisherman who spotted the giant squid in a bay, so the couple set off to find it.
Photo credit: Aerovironment
This innovative MEDUSA drone can fly and land on water, while future drones could have flapping wings, thanks to engineers at Lund University. They are developing a biohybrid robotic wing that is partly built from real feathers, with more advanced kinematic capabilities than previous robotic wings and similar to those of a real bird.
Frogs at Chernobyl are turning black, while translucent glass frogs have always had the ability to hide their blood when sleeping to camouflage themselves from predators. How so? When these tiny amphibians are sleeping, they hide nearly 90% of their red blood cells in their liver and also shrink most of their organs inside their body.
Think of Bird Buddy as Pokémon Go, but with real animals, or hummingbirds in this case. It uses artificial intelligence to help identify 350 different hummingbird species and then capture photos or videos of them when the motion sensor is triggered. Not just blurry photos, Bird Buddy is capable of capturing wing speeds of up to 60 mph, thanks to its high-quality camera.
It’s no PHRACTYL Macrobat, but the autonomous P-Flap robot bird by researchers in Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne does have a talon-like claw mechanism that enables it to land safely on a perch. This Perching Flapping-Wing Robot (P-Flap) boasts a 59-inch (1.5-meter) wingspan and its carbon fiber claw requires no external power source to stay open or closed, as it’s directly connected to the robot’s under-body.