Hasta La Gadget!

One of medicine’s future goals is to develop methods and devices to be used for non-invasive keyhole surgeries. Designers have borrowed numerous elements from nature to make prototypes of tools such as snake-like robots before. Another one that stemmed from biomimicry is a wasp-like probe that is theorized to make keyhole surgeries safer. Apparently, female wood wasps of the Siricidae family have two dovetailed shafts with backwards-facing teeth that they use to deposit eggs into pine trees. The wasp bores into the wood by oscillating the shafts back and forth, with the teeth holding the needle-like body part in place within the wood.

The same mechanism is designed on a robot by Ferdinando Rodriguez y Baena of the Imperial College of London. This robot is designed with two shafts, each with 50-micrometer-long teeth to mimic the wasp’s movement. The device is flexible and can avoid high-risk areas during operation, going straight to its goal. The current prototype has successfully been tested on pig muscle tissue and proved to be able to crawl across brain-like gel without damage, according to New Scientist.