06-08-2012, 07:54 PM
What will they think of next.
[url "http://news.discovery.com/tech/fish-follow-robot-impostor-120608.html#mkcpgn=rssnws1"]NEWS LINK[/url]
This latest robotic fish is about six inches long and painted to look like a zebrafish, with a mechanical tail that mimicks the motions of the real deal.
Besides being bigger than a real one (zebrafish are about half that size), the mechanical fish was given a rounded shape so that it looked like a pregnant female, which zebrafish of both sexes prefer to be around.
The researchers used a tank separated into three sections. In the middle section they put the living zebrafish, sometimes in shoals of 10 and other times as singletons. In the outside sections, the researchers experimented with 16 different combinations of using the robotic fish or live fish as a way of getting the attention of the fish in the middle section. Sometimes, they tried nothing at all.
They found that while zebrafish prefer to move towards other zebrafish, the robot fish also stimulated the fish to move towards it. This was true of both shoals of fish and singletons. In addition, the movement of the robot is important; fish were less attracted to a robot that was still. Tests were also run in the dark to see if the stimulus was non-visual. (It wasn't).
[inline RoboFish.jpg]
[url "http://news.discovery.com/tech/fish-follow-robot-impostor-120608.html#mkcpgn=rssnws1"]NEWS LINK[/url]
This latest robotic fish is about six inches long and painted to look like a zebrafish, with a mechanical tail that mimicks the motions of the real deal.
Besides being bigger than a real one (zebrafish are about half that size), the mechanical fish was given a rounded shape so that it looked like a pregnant female, which zebrafish of both sexes prefer to be around.
The researchers used a tank separated into three sections. In the middle section they put the living zebrafish, sometimes in shoals of 10 and other times as singletons. In the outside sections, the researchers experimented with 16 different combinations of using the robotic fish or live fish as a way of getting the attention of the fish in the middle section. Sometimes, they tried nothing at all.
They found that while zebrafish prefer to move towards other zebrafish, the robot fish also stimulated the fish to move towards it. This was true of both shoals of fish and singletons. In addition, the movement of the robot is important; fish were less attracted to a robot that was still. Tests were also run in the dark to see if the stimulus was non-visual. (It wasn't).
[inline RoboFish.jpg]