{"id":7716,"date":"2011-11-29T08:01:08","date_gmt":"2011-11-29T16:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/?p=7716"},"modified":"2011-11-29T08:01:08","modified_gmt":"2011-11-29T16:01:08","slug":"the-amorphous-menace-creeps-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2011\/11\/29\/the-amorphous-menace-creeps-forward\/","title":{"rendered":"The Amorphous Menace Creeps Forward"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We here at Cosmic Variance have long been warning of the coming robot menace.  Not only are they gaining <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/2009\/05\/22\/another-step-toward-skynet\/\">consciousness<\/a>, they keep developing new and creepy <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/2009\/12\/10\/controllably-morphable\/\">ways to move<\/a>.  Along those lines, here&#8217;s a new robot from Harvard that <a href=\"http:\/\/spectrum.ieee.org\/automaton\/robotics\/military-robots\/freaky-boneless-robot-walks-on-soft-legs\">looks like an innocent piece of plastic<\/a>, but is actually a silent ninja with a variety of interesting gaits. (Via <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/mdichristina\/status\/141504651605446656\">Mariette DiChristina&#8217;s Twitter<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<div class=\"lyte-wrapper\" title=\"Soft Robot Walking and Crawling\" style=\"width:640px;max-width:100%;margin:5px;\"><div class=\"lyMe\" id=\"WYL_2DsbS9cMOAE\" itemprop=\"video\" itemscope itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/VideoObject\"><div><meta itemprop=\"thumbnailUrl\" content=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/2DsbS9cMOAE\/hqdefault.jpg\" \/><meta itemprop=\"embedURL\" content=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2DsbS9cMOAE\" \/><meta itemprop=\"duration\" content=\"PT1M52S\" \/><meta itemprop=\"uploadDate\" content=\"2011-11-29T12:45:15Z\" \/><\/div><div id=\"lyte_2DsbS9cMOAE\" data-src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/2DsbS9cMOAE\/hqdefault.jpg\" class=\"pL\"><div class=\"tC\"><div class=\"tT\" itemprop=\"name\">Soft Robot Walking and Crawling<\/div><\/div><div class=\"play\"><\/div><div class=\"ctrl\"><div class=\"Lctrl\"><\/div><div class=\"Rctrl\"><\/div><\/div><\/div><noscript><a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/2DsbS9cMOAE\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/2DsbS9cMOAE\/0.jpg\" alt=\"Soft Robot Walking and Crawling\" width=\"640\" height=\"340\" \/><br \/>Watch this video on YouTube<\/a><\/noscript><meta itemprop=\"description\" content=\"Harvard researchers have created a soft robot inspired by animals like starfish and worms. Read more: http:\/\/spectrum.ieee.org\/automaton\/robotics\/military-robots\/freaky-boneless-robot-walks-on-soft-legs\"><\/div><\/div><div class=\"lL\" style=\"max-width:100%;width:640px;margin:5px;\"><\/div><\/p>\n<p>Researchers at <a href=\"http:\/\/gmwgroup.harvard.edu\/\">George Whiteside&#8217;s lab<\/a> explain that the idea came from observing squid and worms.  Well, that&#8217;s comforting. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We here at Cosmic Variance have long been warning of the coming robot menace. Not only are they gaining consciousness, they keep developing new and creepy ways to move. Along those lines, here&#8217;s a new robot from Harvard that looks like an innocent piece of plastic, but is actually a silent ninja with a variety [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7716\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}