6 ms·

Functioning ‘mechanical gears’ seen in nature (2013)

110 points by coloneltcb 9y ago

DrScump 9y ago
Issus was included in a recent episode of "Nature" on PBS: http://www.pbs.org/video/natures-miniature-miracles-c7il7p/ http://www.pbs.org/video/natures-miniature-miracles-c7il7p/
whyenot 9y ago
This is not a new finding. The title needs a (2013) in it.
- dang 9y ago
  Thanks. Added.
alimw 9y ago
This precedes Justin Bieber's video for "Where Are Ü Now" by a couple of years.
- alimw 9y ago
  Please no more downvotes by people who clearly haven't watched this film all the way through, or who somehow avoided ever seeing Justin Bieber's.
  - majewsky 9y ago
    > Please no more downvotes when you cannot even understand how irrelevant this comment is. FTFY
    - alimw 9y ago
      I was not warned that the entire second half of the film, about an art project, would be considered off-topic.
      - majewsky 9y ago
        You also didn't explain why it was on-topic. If you respond to a science article with a reference to a music artist which as far as I can see is entirely unrelated, without explaining what's going on, you shouldn't be surprised about downvotes.
pottspotts 9y ago
This is very interesting. It is important to remember that "man-made" and "natural" are on the same continuum. We are a part of nature, and vice-versa. This discovery is stunning, but not surprising, given the other incredible inventions by mother nature in the history of evolution.
- stormking 9y ago
  On the one hand, you're right: Humans are a part of nature. On the other hand, the definition of "natural" is "untouched by humans".
  - decorator 9y ago
    I heard someone use 'Nature' as untouched-by-humans. With the use of a capital. They didn't give any rationale. Maybe once Nature has been corrupted by humans it ceases to be such. Woe is human -- with our ontological flagellation. (We grant the existence of Nature only to turn it back on ourselves.)
    - SiempreViernes 9y ago
      Man, it’s just a useful label for something that occurs independently of human presence. No need to break out the vogon poetry for that.
      - decorator 9y ago
        Sure, super useful.
      - decorator 9y ago
        Just looked up the Vogons. From Wikipedia: > Vogon poetry is described as "the third worst poetry in the Universe" That's quite a good insult, really. Well, if what I had done was poetry. So a good insult in a different situation.
        9y ago
bdz 9y ago
That reminds me to the Oklo natural fission reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reacto...
aetherspawn 9y ago
This was featured in the August 2015 Awake magazine [1] on the back cover. A copy of the article is here [2]. [1] The Awake magazine is widely distributed for free by Jehovah’s Witnesses as a religious evangelising work that is now banned in a few countries including Russia. [2] https://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/g201508/issus-leafhopper/ https://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/g201508/issus-l...
- ComputerGuru 9y ago
  Ok, and this was published two years earlier in 2013. What’s the point?
  - aetherspawn 9y ago
    The point is, the mentioned magazine (and its sister) holds the world record for 1st and 2nd most distributed magazine in the world as well as most widely translated magazine. 41 million copies of this article was distributed in hundreds of languages, so many people have already seen this.
agumonkey 9y ago
Another not man made thing. I have to say I'm surprised I thought it would be to inefficient to grow something like this for an organism.. ps: that said, it seems hidden enough to keep a little bit of credit to our ancestors brains I guess :)
tofuFarmer 9y ago
This is almost as impressive as the Pistol Shrimp who uses a sonic weapon to incapacitate it's prey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XC6I8iPiHT8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XC6I8iPiHT8 Or for that matter the much more commonly known electric eel.
randomdrake 9y ago
Study: Interacting Gears Synchronize Propulsive Leg Movements in a Jumping Insect Citation: Malcolm Burrows, Gregory Sutton. Science. 13 Sep 2013: Vol. 341, Issue 6151, pp. 1254-1256. Link: https://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1240284 https://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1240284 DOI: 10.1126/science.1240284 Abstract: Gears are found rarely in animals and have never been reported to intermesh and rotate functionally like mechanical gears. We now demonstrate functional gears in the ballistic jumping movements of the flightless planthopper insect Issus. The nymphs, but not adults, have a row of cuticular gear (cog) teeth around the curved medial surfaces of their two hindleg trochantera. The gear teeth on one trochanter engaged with and sequentially moved past those on the other trochanter during the preparatory cocking and the propulsive phases of jumping. Close registration between the gears ensured that both hindlegs moved at the same angular velocities to propel the body without yaw rotation. At the final molt to adulthood, this synchronization mechanism is jettisoned.
inspector-g 9y ago
While not quite a gear structure in the strictest sense, don't forget about the amazing flagellar motor[1] in bacteria! [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagellum#Motor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagellum#Motor
- devenson 9y ago
  I was amazed when I first learned of this, finally finding something like an axle and wheel in a living organism.
louprado 9y ago
This video involving insects and children made me reflect on my childhood passion and the day it ended. Like most children, I loved insects. In 2nd grade I wrote a poem about insects that so impressed my teacher that I was promoted from the “slow” 2nd grade class to the “advanced” 2nd grade class. It’s my first memory of experiencing pride. But I didn’t actually love insects, I loved studying them. To the young mind these are just animated toys which you could freely disassemble and experiment. When I was around 9, I recall taking my collection of insects and using my saliva as to perform a pre-selection test to determine which insects in the collection could potentially be amphibious. The next step was to take the ones that performed well and increase the severity of the experiment in hopes of discovering an amphibious insect. My father was in our yard at the time and, for some reason, I paused to ask, “is it OK if I kill these bugs”. To which he replied “you can kill them, but don’t let them suffer”. I don’t recall if I proceeded with my full water immersion experiment. But I do recall the use of the word “suffer” had implications that would soon end all my research. Kill is used metaphorically in mechanical systems, you “kill” an engine, but it comes back to life later. But there is no creative interpretation of the word suffer. Years later I had the similar experience my first year in EE grad school. I wanted to research/improve cochlear implants as aiding the disabled is a noble pursuit of study. But then I went to meet a friend of mine, a PhD candidate, in the lab, he was literally eating a sandwich, talking to me, while operating on auditory system of a chinchilla. Maybe it was a cadaver, it was a really healthy-looking one if it was and I didn’t ask. I just wanted to leave so he could focus on his patient and so that I could reconsider what else I could study. To be clear, my comment is not a criticism of biological research and I am grateful for the resulting knowledge and benefits. It is Sunday morning and I just felt compelled to write.

110 points by coloneltcb 9y ago

Issus was included in a recent episode of "Nature" on PBS: http://www.pbs.org/video/natures-miniature-miracles-c7il7p/ http://www.pbs.org/video/natures-miniature-miracles-c7il7p/

whyenot 9y ago

This is not a new finding. The title needs a (2013) in it.

dang 9y ago
Thanks. Added.

alimw 9y ago

This precedes Justin Bieber's video for "Where Are Ü Now" by a couple of years.

alimw 9y ago
Please no more downvotes by people who clearly haven't watched this film all the way through, or who somehow avoided ever seeing Justin Bieber's.
- majewsky 9y ago
  > Please no more downvotes when you cannot even understand how irrelevant this comment is. FTFY
  - alimw 9y ago
    I was not warned that the entire second half of the film, about an art project, would be considered off-topic.
    - majewsky 9y ago
      You also didn't explain why it was on-topic. If you respond to a science article with a reference to a music artist which as far as I can see is entirely unrelated, without explaining what's going on, you shouldn't be surprised about downvotes.

pottspotts 9y ago

This is very interesting. It is important to remember that "man-made" and "natural" are on the same continuum. We are a part of nature, and vice-versa. This discovery is stunning, but not surprising, given the other incredible inventions by mother nature in the history of evolution.

stormking 9y ago
On the one hand, you're right: Humans are a part of nature. On the other hand, the definition of "natural" is "untouched by humans".
- decorator 9y ago
  I heard someone use 'Nature' as untouched-by-humans. With the use of a capital. They didn't give any rationale. Maybe once Nature has been corrupted by humans it ceases to be such. Woe is human -- with our ontological flagellation. (We grant the existence of Nature only to turn it back on ourselves.)
  - SiempreViernes 9y ago
    Man, it’s just a useful label for something that occurs independently of human presence. No need to break out the vogon poetry for that.
    - decorator 9y ago
      Sure, super useful.
    - decorator 9y ago
      Just looked up the Vogons. From Wikipedia: > Vogon poetry is described as "the third worst poetry in the Universe" That's quite a good insult, really. Well, if what I had done was poetry. So a good insult in a different situation.
      - 9y ago

bdz 9y ago

That reminds me to the Oklo natural fission reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reacto...

aetherspawn 9y ago

This was featured in the August 2015 Awake magazine [1] on the back cover. A copy of the article is here [2]. [1] The Awake magazine is widely distributed for free by Jehovah’s Witnesses as a religious evangelising work that is now banned in a few countries including Russia. [2] https://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/g201508/issus-leafhopper/ https://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/g201508/issus-l...

ComputerGuru 9y ago
Ok, and this was published two years earlier in 2013. What’s the point?
- aetherspawn 9y ago
  The point is, the mentioned magazine (and its sister) holds the world record for 1st and 2nd most distributed magazine in the world as well as most widely translated magazine. 41 million copies of this article was distributed in hundreds of languages, so many people have already seen this.

agumonkey 9y ago

Another not man made thing. I have to say I'm surprised I thought it would be to inefficient to grow something like this for an organism.. ps: that said, it seems hidden enough to keep a little bit of credit to our ancestors brains I guess :)

tofuFarmer 9y ago

This is almost as impressive as the Pistol Shrimp who uses a sonic weapon to incapacitate it's prey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XC6I8iPiHT8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XC6I8iPiHT8 Or for that matter the much more commonly known electric eel.

randomdrake 9y ago

Study: Interacting Gears Synchronize Propulsive Leg Movements in a Jumping Insect Citation: Malcolm Burrows, Gregory Sutton. Science. 13 Sep 2013: Vol. 341, Issue 6151, pp. 1254-1256. Link: https://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1240284 https://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1240284 DOI: 10.1126/science.1240284 Abstract: Gears are found rarely in animals and have never been reported to intermesh and rotate functionally like mechanical gears. We now demonstrate functional gears in the ballistic jumping movements of the flightless planthopper insect Issus. The nymphs, but not adults, have a row of cuticular gear (cog) teeth around the curved medial surfaces of their two hindleg trochantera. The gear teeth on one trochanter engaged with and sequentially moved past those on the other trochanter during the preparatory cocking and the propulsive phases of jumping. Close registration between the gears ensured that both hindlegs moved at the same angular velocities to propel the body without yaw rotation. At the final molt to adulthood, this synchronization mechanism is jettisoned.

inspector-g 9y ago

While not quite a gear structure in the strictest sense, don't forget about the amazing flagellar motor[1] in bacteria! [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagellum#Motor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagellum#Motor

devenson 9y ago
I was amazed when I first learned of this, finally finding something like an axle and wheel in a living organism.

louprado 9y ago

This video involving insects and children made me reflect on my childhood passion and the day it ended. Like most children, I loved insects. In 2nd grade I wrote a poem about insects that so impressed my teacher that I was promoted from the “slow” 2nd grade class to the “advanced” 2nd grade class. It’s my first memory of experiencing pride. But I didn’t actually love insects, I loved studying them. To the young mind these are just animated toys which you could freely disassemble and experiment. When I was around 9, I recall taking my collection of insects and using my saliva as to perform a pre-selection test to determine which insects in the collection could potentially be amphibious. The next step was to take the ones that performed well and increase the severity of the experiment in hopes of discovering an amphibious insect. My father was in our yard at the time and, for some reason, I paused to ask, “is it OK if I kill these bugs”. To which he replied “you can kill them, but don’t let them suffer”. I don’t recall if I proceeded with my full water immersion experiment. But I do recall the use of the word “suffer” had implications that would soon end all my research. Kill is used metaphorically in mechanical systems, you “kill” an engine, but it comes back to life later. But there is no creative interpretation of the word suffer. Years later I had the similar experience my first year in EE grad school. I wanted to research/improve cochlear implants as aiding the disabled is a noble pursuit of study. But then I went to meet a friend of mine, a PhD candidate, in the lab, he was literally eating a sandwich, talking to me, while operating on auditory system of a chinchilla. Maybe it was a cadaver, it was a really healthy-looking one if it was and I didn’t ask. I just wanted to leave so he could focus on his patient and so that I could reconsider what else I could study. To be clear, my comment is not a criticism of biological research and I am grateful for the resulting knowledge and benefits. It is Sunday morning and I just felt compelled to write.