Trick: Bringing the dead back to life with this week’s zombie issue.

Treat: Win a $25 Amazon gift card by telling me what prizes you want from a referral program.

How it works: Answer 2 questions about stuff you like for a chance of winning a $25 Amazon gift card. (One winner for every 25 entries before 11/6/22)

Take the survey, win $$$

-Steve

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Necrobotics

Scientists figured out how to grab objects using dead arachnids. Dubbed “necrobotics”, an air syringe simulates the prosoma chamber, aka the thing that controls spider legs.

• Prosoma chamber = hydraulic pressure control pumping blood to legs

• Spider-claws make ~1,000 grabs before degrading

• Lifts 130% of the spider’s body weight

Researchers hope these biodegradable claw machines provide another option for microelectronic assembly. They're currently experimenting with various coatings to slow degradation. This Halloween is going to be wild.

Itsy bitsy necromancer

Necrorgans

Dead pig organs can come back to life functionality. Researchers using OrganEx restored partial function to pig organs an hour after death.

• OrganEx = machine and fluid

• Machine: acts as a heartbeat

• Fluid: blood substitute containing anti-clotting drugs that mix w/pig's blood

Results showed OrganEx reliably revived molecular and cellular processes in several vital organs. Extending organ's post-death window could save countless lives on donor lists. Plus, we can all breathe a sigh of relief that they didn’t call it “Organ+”.

Oink +

Necrogenomics

Coming to an outback near you: thylacines (aka Tasmanian tigers). Colossal, the company trying to revive mammoths, set its sights on the recently extinct marsupial.

• Colossal and University of Melbourne are collaborating on TIGRR

• TIGRR: Thylacine Integrated Genomic Restoration Research

• Compared to mammoths, thylacine samples are relatively abundant

IF researchers generate embryos via stem cell editing, the rest is “simple”. Compared to mammals, marsupials are born earlier in development, with lower risk. Thylacines could be raised in pouches of foster-parents, or very caring newsletter writers.

Imagine Tigger with an Australian accent

Clickables

• Win $25 by telling me what prizes you want

• Real jumping spider dressed as a water drop

• Headless blood suckers: Mosquito larvae launch noggins as weapons

• Rise of lab-grown zombie fungus

• Shape-shifting mouse goes almost anywhere you do

st3v on site

Claws v Clause

Thanks to necrobotics, Spider Claws is favored to win the costume contest this year.

But Spider Clause wants to know what prizes you’d like, and he’s handing out $25 gift cards!

Thank you for reading!

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