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"Science fiction is what scientists would do if they could - if they had enough grant money, enough time, and enough brains to do the wonderful things they would like to do."
- Greg Bear
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| Chemotactic Artificial Jellyfish | ||
| Artificial device modeled on jellyfish capable of seeking specific components of liquid. |
Tug is a dedicated student of jellyfish. He creates increasingly accurate models of jellyfish on his computer, and then manufactures small models using piezoplastic microbeads sintered by laser beams. Finally, the discovery of a new material lets him create an artificial jellyfish.
| "...about the size of a deflated football. I dropped it in my swimmin' pool. It was floatin' there, kinda rippling and pulsing, for about two days. Didn't you say that sucker would run for weeks? Forty-eight hours and it was gone!..."
"No way," protested Tug, intensely. "It must have slipped out a crack in the side of your pool. I built that model to last three weeks for sure! It was my best prototype. It was a chemotactic artificial jellyfish designed to slither into undersea vents and find its way to underground oil beds..." [Tug] "My jellyfish didn't send back information because I didn't put a tracer chip in it... I don't think oil prospecting is a very honorable application. I'd really rather see the California Water Authority using my jellies to trace leaks in irrigation and sewage lines." |
| Technovelgy from Big Jelly,
by Rudy Rucker (w/B. Sterling). Published by Four Walls Eight Windows in 1994 Additional resources -
|
"Chemotaxis" refers to the ability of an organism to move in the direction corresponding to a gradient of decreasing or increasing concentration of a substance.
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More Ideas
and Technology from Big Jelly
More Ideas
and Technology by Rudy Rucker (w/B. Sterling)
Tech news articles related to Big Jelly
Tech news articles related to works by Rudy Rucker (w/B. Sterling)
Chemotactic Artificial Jellyfish-related
news articles:
- Cybernetic Jellyfish Evolve
- Artificial Jellyfish Swims On Its Own
- Festo's AquaJellies 2.0
- Squid-Like Robots Soon To Be 3D Printable
- Underwater Robot Moves Like A Jellyfish
| Hybrid Wind Solar Devices |
| BeamBike Solar Power Canopy For Electric Bikes |
| REALLY Remote Control Excavators |
| Your Solar Electric Paint Is Ready, Larry Niven |
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'...the rocket’s landing-arms automatically unfolded.'
'...points and patches of light... sliding all over their faces in a programmed manner that had been designed to foil facial recognition systems.'
'...the combined Wind-Suncatcher, like a spray of tulips mounted fanwise.'
'I went to the control room where the three other men were manipulating their mechanical men.'
'The low-slung monorail car, straddling its single track, bored through the shadows on a slowly rising course.'
'It was a smooth ovoid floating a few inches from the floor...'
'... he thrust in his charging arm to replenish his store of energy.'
'...the terrible Jovian gravity that made each movement an effort.'
