Harvard's New Robot Can Grab Jellyfish Without Hurting Them

For many people, robots can be considered as hard and indelicate. They may not have problems moving boxes in a warehouse, but their inanimation can negatively affect soft marine creatures, such as jellyfish. Recently, researchers have found a solution to solve this problem. They have created a robotic hand that can grab and holds gently fragile jellyfish by using a "fettuccini-like silicon finger".  

Jellyfish contain up to 95 percent water and the remaining 5 percent are very soft parts. Today, most of the methods used to capture them in their living habitats are commonly found in the marine oil and gas industry. However, we often break them apart when trying to catch them. Contrary to this, the sophisticated silicon "fingers" are filled with water and use hydraulic pressure, making them softer. The researchers also said their invention causes less than one-tenth of the pressure that human eyelids affect the eye.

This invention was studied at the Wyss Institute at Harvard University and Baruch College at CUNY. The researchers presented their discovery on Science Robotics. They mentioned that jellyfish paved the way for important human discoveries, like the green fluorescent protein (GFP) for the study of gene expression, or even aging combat. 

Jellyfish may not prefer being captured by skillful fingers, but fortunately, they are not harmed during the process. Therefore, researchers have experimented with the capture of jellyfish using grippers, which could help to catch them with the dimension as small as golf balls, such as spotted jellies, jelly blubbers, and moon jellies. Results showed that the jellyfish demonstrate no signals of stress, and the grippers could open and close approximately 100 times before being worn.

This technology will be a potential solution that assists scientists in studying other marine creatures other and possibly enhance the development of other soft robots in the future. Many inventions are designed for space exploration or health care, carried out by heat and air pressure methods.