David Weild AP Bio, C-odd Current Event 23 4/30/18 “Why a Robot Can't Yet Outjump a Flea.” ScienceDaily, ScienceDaily, 26 Apr. 2018, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180426141515.htm.

David Weild

AP Bio, C-odd

Current Event 23

4/30/18

“Why a Robot Can't Yet Outjump a Flea.” ScienceDaily, ScienceDaily, 26 Apr. 2018, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180426141515.htm.

The article which I reviewed “Why a Robot Can't Yet Outjump a Flea.” by Science Daily was about creating a robot with the speed and power to possibly outjump a flea. The article starts off by saying “Take the smashing mantis shrimp, a small crustacean not much bigger than a thumb. Its hammer-like mouthparts can repeatedly deliver 69-mile-per-hour wallops more than 100 times faster than the blink of an eye to break open hard snail shells.” This sets the stage for science to raise the bar on mother nature. Before getting into the actual science, the article lists more animal features like “One of the fastest accelerations known on Earth is the hydra's sting. These soft-bodied aquatic creatures defend themselves with help from capsules along their tentacles that act like pressurized balloons. When triggered, they fire a barrage of microscopic poison spears that briefly accelerate 100 times faster than a bullet.” to build up suspense. A Umass scientist says “However, it's not clear how these mechanisms work together to enhance power.” To challenge mother nature the team "tries to develop a model that is equally generalizable to biological or engineered systems.” This team is doing trials to get closer and maybe actually completing their goal with different robots like the tested bugs. "If you have a particular size robot that you want to design, for example, it would allow you to better explore what kind of spring you want, what kind of motor you want, what kind of latch you need to get the best performance at that size scale, and understand the consequences of those design choices," Bergbreiter said. The article never concludes the experiment since it is ongoing but this is bound to be a big breakthrough for science once the team completes their goal.

This article was relevant because of the constant tests scientists are doing to be able to uncover the secrets of the animal kingdom. This will affect society by allowing us to use new and better technology for travel and just to plainly make life more simple. In addition, this will help scientists uncover new information by further exploration of this new technology.

This article was strong in the sense that it cited a lot of scientists doing the experiment. However, it was rather disappointing to not have a conclusion to the experiment. To improve this article, the author should update the article when the conclusion is found or should have just posted the article when the conclusion is found.