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I've always been fascinated by the durability of certain pests, such as cockroaches. They have endured everything that humanity has thrown at them, and shown intense survivability despite each toxic chemical we try to wipe them out with. To be honest, I have always been fascinated with bugs in general, and have pondered if there could be a way to learn from them, or make them valuable to research so maybe people would (slightly) appreciate them more. As wiping out an entire species because 'ew they are gross' is a bad idea, for the multitude of reasons. This article shows possibilities.
The gif they start the article with, where it shows the cockroach slamming into a wall and then climbing up honestly surprised me when I first saw it. If a human was crawling at that speed and slammed into the wall, I'm fairly sure the concussion that they would get wouldn't let them climb up the walk, neither walk anywhere else. Researchers have found this ability to continue going even after crashing isn't done by the cockroach's brain, but rather it's body doing it instinctively. They have found this information useful in the possibility of engineering smaller and more capable of navigating even the most cluttered or uneven of environments.
The field of robotics have always fascinated me, and I do hope to see advancements mimicking things we see in natural world. And in doing so, perhaps we can learn to appreciate other beings and how they adapt to survival. Truthfully, when I encounter a cockroach in my house, I've always sat down to observe it a bit before releasing it. I just find such creatures fascinating and not entirely worth death and destruction, and certainly not extinction (I however may be in the minority in this one).
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