Gizmodo: slime

MIT Professor Studies Snail Slime to Create Go-Anywhere, Anytime Robots of the Future

Jack Loftus — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 17:00:00 EDT

Forget legs or treads or wheels, everyone, because tomorrow's robots will traverse the earth on a thin film of slime, just like the humble snail. At least, that's MIT associate professor Anette Hosoi's vision of our robot future, and she has the "Robosnail" prototype to prove it. Since 2003, Hosoi and a revolving cadre of students have studied her terrarium full of more than 200 snails in an attempt to recreate their slimy way of locomotion in a robot. They've since got a working model together that can climb tree bark, walls, and—coming soon—perform invasive surgery procedures near you!

The Robosnail moves along various surfaces using moveable segments that ripple along a synthetic slime. Because the slime allows the robot to traverse vertical surfaces and even ceilings, Hosoi hopes to be able to deploy similar robots to adverse environments in the near future. It would be kind of like the slowest bomb sniffing or exploratory robot of all time, that can go anywhere, eventually.

Now, this sounds cool and you can call me shallow all you want, folks, but I don't think Tricia Helfer would be *quite* as hot slithering around the universe on a trail of slime instead of those long legs of hers. Just an opinion. [CNN]

Shocking Sick Puppy is "Operation" for a New Generation

AddyDugdale — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 04:55:00 EDT

Japanese game manufacturer Mega House has come up with a winner. Biri Biri Kaze Hiki Wanko (which, translated, means Shocking Sick Puppy) is a cross between seminal kids' game Operation, where you had to remove various parts of a patient's anatomy with a pair of wired-up tweezers, without ~~letting on to your parents that you'd swallowed the best part of a bottle of bourbon the night before~~ touching the sides, and that equally seminal '70s plaything, Slime. A fearsome mess of green snot and drool emerges from the dog's mouth and nose, and you have to pick out plastic "germs" embedded in the ectoplasm. Trouble is, if the metal tweezers touch the slime, you get an electric shock. Out in Japan this August, Shocking Sick Puppy needs a worldwide release if it is to realize its full genius potential. [Trends in Japan]

Sewer Slime Can Fix Bridges and Form Your Clothing

Wilson Rothman — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 10:21:12 EDT

Imagine one day waking up, showering then coating yourself with a slime normally found in the sewers of England, which immediately takes the shape of your pants and shirt. It might sound like Spiderman 3—or just totally freakin' disgusting—but an industrial designer is taking the concept seriously, studying something called "biofilms" for use in self-repairing structures like bridges, buildings or textiles.

There is a catch though: "The National Institutes of Health estimate that biofilms account for more than 80 percent of microbial infections in the human body."

According to the Wired piece:

Biofilms...are three-dimensional colonies of bacteria that secrete a starchy covering that protects the tiny creatures from predators, UV radiation and antibiotics.

You wouldn't want your brand new T-shirt protecting a virulent strain of killer virus from your body's normal defenses, would you?

David Bramston, a industrial design lecturer at the UK's University of Lincoln, partnered with Ron Dixon, head of forensic and biomedical sciences at the same university, to study a particular slime that grows on pipes in the sewers of England. By studying the material—slag—where the slime grows, Bramston thinks he can figure out a way to grow it for industrial purposes.

The flipside is that, through this research, Bramston and Dixon will find ways of preventing the growth of slime as well, so that, in lieu of making you a more dapper dresser, your clothes won't go all Venom and end up trying to kill you. [Wired Science; Venom parody source image]

Riot Goo

Jason Chen — Thu, 04 May 2006 01:05:59 EDT

Researchers at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas are apparently huge fans of The Ghostbusters. A recent patent filed by them shows a tank of goo carried backpack-like by riot police.

A hose extends from the tank to a nozzle, which when shot, combines a jet of water with a jet of dry powder into a single powerful stream of splurge that causes everybody in the area to fall down. Even cars are not immune as they go sliding faster than a Japanese drifter.

Any invention that calls for less bean bags shot to our face is a good one in our book.

Riot slimer [NewScientist]

Youve Been Slimed. Now Get Back on the Road

Charlie White — Sun, 12 Feb 2006 14:16:05 EST

The company that should consider a new name for itself, Slime, is offering Mini Smart Spair, a palm-sized microcompressor that can pump up your tire after you've sealed it with Slime, a special substance that the company says is made of environmentally friendly fibers, binders, polymers and proprietary congealing agents that inter-twine and clot to seal punctures up to 1/4 of an inch.

The micro-compressor plugs into your 12-volt car battery. Once you perform that roadside repair, then you can make your way to a place where you can fix that tire properly. The kit includes eight ounces of the legendary Slime, ready to seal up anything that might spring a leak.

Smart Tire Repair [Red Ferret]