6 ms·

Insect Has Gears in Its Legs (2013)

95 points by jensgk 6y ago

king_magic 6y ago
Immediately stopped reading & flagged this after the “enter your email address to keep reading” dark pattern pop up appeared. Nothing will ever change if we keep rewarding this kind of behavior.
- StavrosK 6y ago
  Holy hell, their consent popup has "accept all" and "learn more", if you click the latter you see some checkboxes and an "accept all" button, but no "confirm" or "reject all". Only after you try to close the popup with the X does the "confirm" button appear. Fuck this site, it should be fined.
- ufmace 6y ago
  Ditto. It's crazy that once-trusted names like National Geographic are doing these kinds of things.
- 1000mA 6y ago
  I also stopped reading at email prompt
merricksb 6y ago
https://archive.md/ytYYX https://archive.md/ytYYX
mikewarot 6y ago
Duplicate of this thread (subject wise) 31 days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26174135 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26174135
melenaboija 6y ago
It seems to me there is still so much to learn from nature. Something that is impressive to me is how insects manage energy, tiny things moving or flying around and processing information for hours with I don't know what source and storage for it. I am obviously a total ignorant in physics and biology.
- tibbydudeza 6y ago
  ATP synthase. It is a protein that has a stator like in a motor that rotates in phases when it combines ADP and phosphate to make ATP. Amazing.
  - mushishi 6y ago
    I was coming to say the same thing. Here's a short animated video about it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXpzp4RDGJI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXpzp4RDGJI
- agumonkey 6y ago
  Whenever you're into microelectronics and robotics you cannot not be amazed by insects, those things are so ridiculously fantastic yet completely mundane (or annoying) for most of the world.
- eointierney 6y ago
  You might enjoy "There's plenty of room at the bottom" by Feynman.
- csomar 6y ago
  Actually it's the human bodies that are quite wasteful (so are humans themselves). Many big animals can keep going without food for months. And it's not just their oily fat reserves, they are much more efficient with energy.
  - chmod775 6y ago
    Humans are just better at other things. Like problem solving. A big brain takes a lot of energy. Plus human bodies aren't all that terrible: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Persistence_hunting https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Persistence_hunting
    - cosmodisk 6y ago
      Also at hunting. We have no competition in this area.
surround 6y ago
The article requires you to enter an email address to continue reading. Submitting a fake address works just fine.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- miked85 6y ago
  I am unable to do that, possibly because I am using an adblocker/pihole. Sites like this are toxic.
- wallacoloo 6y ago
  Just use your browser’s “reader mode”. Seems to get around this style of popup pretty easily (at least on safari and usually Firefox too).
  - miked85 6y ago
    Normally I do that - in this case, pictures are useful though.
    - brundolf 6y ago
      Usually pictures remain visible in reader mode
xwdv 6y ago
I wonder if it’s possible for a creature to have axles and some kind of differential?
- tootie 6y ago
  This is video is really aimed at kids but gives some good explanation of why it's likely impossible: https://youtu.be/YkS1U5lfSRw https://youtu.be/YkS1U5lfSRw The "gears" on this insect are basically intersecting teeth on two otherwise normal leg parts. Evolving an axle or any other free spinning part would require disconnected parts. The external parts would be cut off from any metabolic functions of the main body. Nothing remotely like that has ever evolved before so it would be nigh impossible.
  - Conlectus 6y ago
    It seems to me this "impossibility" might be an artifact of definition: if some system contains disjoint parts, we no longer call it "an animal". Colonial animals are the edge case here. Most would be hesitant to say an ant colony is "an animal", but are happy to refer to a Portuguese Man 'o' War as such, despite also being a colony.
    - curryst 6y ago
      All members of a colonial animal are genetically identical, which I believe is why a man of war is an animal but an ant colony is a society. I don't think ants are genetically identical, although I'm not certain. Man o Wars are also not disjoint. They have specialized cells, but I believe share nutrition among the non-feeding cells. A truly disjoint creature would need a metabolic system on both sides of the disjoint, a separate nervous system, and perhaps most difficult, a way to pass messages across the disjoint quickly enough to be useful (aka electric impulse). At a certain point, I think it starts becoming dubious whether it's a single creature. Even if they're genetically identical, they start to look more like twins than a colonial creature.
      - throwanem 6y ago
jhncls 6y ago
M.C. Escher already knew about a curl-up beetle as documented in 1951. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curl-up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curl-up [1]: https://www.instructables.com/Articulated-MC-Escher-Curl-up-Model/ https://www.instructables.com/Articulated-MC-Escher-Curl-up-...
jeffgreco 6y ago
> Wait! It gets better. These gears are training wheels! This is very cool, helps the young bugs coordinate both legs for jumping before letting them lose the bumps and graduate to precision jumping.
yawaworht1978 6y ago
Yes it has gears, but not a multi speed gear box.
teddyh 6y ago
Phenomenon discussed here on HN 8 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6376191 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6376191 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8212984 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8212984
salgernon 6y ago
This[1] fascinating page was posted about a year ago[2]: [1] https://ciechanow.ski/gears/ https://ciechanow.ski/gears/ [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22310813 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22310813
mindfulplay 6y ago
Truly fascinating. It makes me wonder how such a thing could be encoded inside a DNA. As in, is there a field of study similar to computer science/information theory on certain fundamental biological "laws of transformation"? Say, we have six billion or so pairs in the DNA. How could a series of transformations from those pairs with other proteins produce this complexity especially ones that requires a particular 3d shape, time based mechanisms and reactions all tied together efficiently and passed from generation to generation? Obviously perhaps not a "designed by some magical entity", but six billion pairs/nibbles seem quite magical to encode this complexity... It is certainly hard to study this even over many decades, but I wonder if there are certain fundamental laws or units or theories that help provide pathways to understand such transformations.
- core-questions 6y ago
  I think we're still a generation or so away from getting to this level. Fundamentally, though, it doesn't seem to be too wild of a suggestion that DNA is going to end up looking like an incredibly complex, incredibly hacky computer program, utilizing every last potential possibility of its mechanical substrate. Think about demoscene or 80s video game programming, tight little assembly routines by developers that did not care anywhere near as much about simple and clear code, security, portability, or anything else as they did about raw performance. Analyzing some of these after the fact (not that I've done it, but I've read the stories of people doing it) seems to be every bit as difficult as being able to do it in the first place. And this is something that _is_ the product of intelligent design; when raw evolution is responsible for the work, it's even less liable to make some kind of logical sense when viewed at the lowest level. The emergent effect of random change (and its impact on reproductive fitness) is the only thing that matters. Now, consider this: scientists analyzing a simple processor can't even tell you how it works, using modern equipment: https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005268 https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/jo... > we take a classical microprocessor as a model organism, and use our ability to perform arbitrary experiments on it to see if popular data analysis methods from neuroscience can elucidate the way it processes information. Microprocessors are among those artificial information processing systems that are both complex and that we understand at all levels, from the overall logical flow, via logical gates, to the dynamics of transistors. We show that the approaches reveal interesting structure in the data but do not meaningfully describe the hierarchy of information processing in the microprocessor. This suggests current analytic approaches in neuroscience may fall short of producing meaningful understanding of neural systems, regardless of the amount of data. What do we take from that? It seems to me that our current understanding of DNA is extremely crude, and that we're still a few breakthroughs away from understanding any moderate to large scale 'logical structure' in it.

95 points by jensgk 6y ago

Immediately stopped reading & flagged this after the “enter your email address to keep reading” dark pattern pop up appeared. Nothing will ever change if we keep rewarding this kind of behavior.

StavrosK 6y ago
Holy hell, their consent popup has "accept all" and "learn more", if you click the latter you see some checkboxes and an "accept all" button, but no "confirm" or "reject all". Only after you try to close the popup with the X does the "confirm" button appear. Fuck this site, it should be fined.
ufmace 6y ago
Ditto. It's crazy that once-trusted names like National Geographic are doing these kinds of things.
1000mA 6y ago
I also stopped reading at email prompt

merricksb 6y ago

https://archive.md/ytYYX https://archive.md/ytYYX

mikewarot 6y ago

Duplicate of this thread (subject wise) 31 days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26174135 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26174135

melenaboija 6y ago

It seems to me there is still so much to learn from nature. Something that is impressive to me is how insects manage energy, tiny things moving or flying around and processing information for hours with I don't know what source and storage for it. I am obviously a total ignorant in physics and biology.

tibbydudeza 6y ago
ATP synthase. It is a protein that has a stator like in a motor that rotates in phases when it combines ADP and phosphate to make ATP. Amazing.
- mushishi 6y ago
  I was coming to say the same thing. Here's a short animated video about it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXpzp4RDGJI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXpzp4RDGJI
agumonkey 6y ago
Whenever you're into microelectronics and robotics you cannot not be amazed by insects, those things are so ridiculously fantastic yet completely mundane (or annoying) for most of the world.
eointierney 6y ago
You might enjoy "There's plenty of room at the bottom" by Feynman.
csomar 6y ago
Actually it's the human bodies that are quite wasteful (so are humans themselves). Many big animals can keep going without food for months. And it's not just their oily fat reserves, they are much more efficient with energy.
- chmod775 6y ago
  Humans are just better at other things. Like problem solving. A big brain takes a lot of energy. Plus human bodies aren't all that terrible: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Persistence_hunting https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Persistence_hunting
  - cosmodisk 6y ago
    Also at hunting. We have no competition in this area.

surround 6y ago

The article requires you to enter an email address to continue reading. Submitting a fake address works just fine.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
miked85 6y ago
I am unable to do that, possibly because I am using an adblocker/pihole. Sites like this are toxic.
wallacoloo 6y ago
Just use your browser’s “reader mode”. Seems to get around this style of popup pretty easily (at least on safari and usually Firefox too).
- miked85 6y ago
  Normally I do that - in this case, pictures are useful though.
  - brundolf 6y ago
    Usually pictures remain visible in reader mode

xwdv 6y ago

I wonder if it’s possible for a creature to have axles and some kind of differential?

tootie 6y ago
This is video is really aimed at kids but gives some good explanation of why it's likely impossible: https://youtu.be/YkS1U5lfSRw https://youtu.be/YkS1U5lfSRw The "gears" on this insect are basically intersecting teeth on two otherwise normal leg parts. Evolving an axle or any other free spinning part would require disconnected parts. The external parts would be cut off from any metabolic functions of the main body. Nothing remotely like that has ever evolved before so it would be nigh impossible.
- Conlectus 6y ago
  It seems to me this "impossibility" might be an artifact of definition: if some system contains disjoint parts, we no longer call it "an animal". Colonial animals are the edge case here. Most would be hesitant to say an ant colony is "an animal", but are happy to refer to a Portuguese Man 'o' War as such, despite also being a colony.
  - curryst 6y ago
    All members of a colonial animal are genetically identical, which I believe is why a man of war is an animal but an ant colony is a society. I don't think ants are genetically identical, although I'm not certain. Man o Wars are also not disjoint. They have specialized cells, but I believe share nutrition among the non-feeding cells. A truly disjoint creature would need a metabolic system on both sides of the disjoint, a separate nervous system, and perhaps most difficult, a way to pass messages across the disjoint quickly enough to be useful (aka electric impulse). At a certain point, I think it starts becoming dubious whether it's a single creature. Even if they're genetically identical, they start to look more like twins than a colonial creature.
    - throwanem 6y ago

jhncls 6y ago

M.C. Escher already knew about a curl-up beetle as documented in 1951. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curl-up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curl-up [1]: https://www.instructables.com/Articulated-MC-Escher-Curl-up-Model/ https://www.instructables.com/Articulated-MC-Escher-Curl-up-...

jeffgreco 6y ago

> Wait! It gets better. These gears are training wheels! This is very cool, helps the young bugs coordinate both legs for jumping before letting them lose the bumps and graduate to precision jumping.

yawaworht1978 6y ago

Yes it has gears, but not a multi speed gear box.

teddyh 6y ago

Phenomenon discussed here on HN 8 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6376191 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6376191 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8212984 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8212984

salgernon 6y ago

This[1] fascinating page was posted about a year ago[2]: [1] https://ciechanow.ski/gears/ https://ciechanow.ski/gears/ [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22310813 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22310813

mindfulplay 6y ago

Truly fascinating. It makes me wonder how such a thing could be encoded inside a DNA. As in, is there a field of study similar to computer science/information theory on certain fundamental biological "laws of transformation"? Say, we have six billion or so pairs in the DNA. How could a series of transformations from those pairs with other proteins produce this complexity especially ones that requires a particular 3d shape, time based mechanisms and reactions all tied together efficiently and passed from generation to generation? Obviously perhaps not a "designed by some magical entity", but six billion pairs/nibbles seem quite magical to encode this complexity... It is certainly hard to study this even over many decades, but I wonder if there are certain fundamental laws or units or theories that help provide pathways to understand such transformations.

core-questions 6y ago
I think we're still a generation or so away from getting to this level. Fundamentally, though, it doesn't seem to be too wild of a suggestion that DNA is going to end up looking like an incredibly complex, incredibly hacky computer program, utilizing every last potential possibility of its mechanical substrate. Think about demoscene or 80s video game programming, tight little assembly routines by developers that did not care anywhere near as much about simple and clear code, security, portability, or anything else as they did about raw performance. Analyzing some of these after the fact (not that I've done it, but I've read the stories of people doing it) seems to be every bit as difficult as being able to do it in the first place. And this is something that _is_ the product of intelligent design; when raw evolution is responsible for the work, it's even less liable to make some kind of logical sense when viewed at the lowest level. The emergent effect of random change (and its impact on reproductive fitness) is the only thing that matters. Now, consider this: scientists analyzing a simple processor can't even tell you how it works, using modern equipment: https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005268 https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/jo... > we take a classical microprocessor as a model organism, and use our ability to perform arbitrary experiments on it to see if popular data analysis methods from neuroscience can elucidate the way it processes information. Microprocessors are among those artificial information processing systems that are both complex and that we understand at all levels, from the overall logical flow, via logical gates, to the dynamics of transistors. We show that the approaches reveal interesting structure in the data but do not meaningfully describe the hierarchy of information processing in the microprocessor. This suggests current analytic approaches in neuroscience may fall short of producing meaningful understanding of neural systems, regardless of the amount of data. What do we take from that? It seems to me that our current understanding of DNA is extremely crude, and that we're still a few breakthroughs away from understanding any moderate to large scale 'logical structure' in it.