Serpentine robots o er advantages over traditional mobile robots and robot arms because they have enhanced exibility and reachability, especially in convoluted environments. These robots are well suited to inspect large space-fairing truss structures such as the future space station and can also be used to inspect the Space Shuttle cargo bay before launch. Serpentine mechanisms o er unique capa...

Robots that mimic the natural motions of animals have long been of interest in science and engineering. The primary engineering interest in such robots is in having them conduct tasks that require complicated locomotion and cognition. Designating an outdoor mobile robot is more challenging work than the indoor mobile robot because it has the capability of operation at all weather condition and ...

Natural habitats vary in the degree to which they are invaded by exotic species, but it is unclear whether they differ in the mechanisms underlying the spatial spread of a given exotic species. To compare the dynamics of invasion in highly invaded nonserpentine oak woodlands and less-invaded serpentine habitats, we used an historical ‘‘experiment’’ consisting of the introduction of several nonn...

Apical extracellular matrix filling the lumen controls the morphology and geometry of epithelial tubes during development, yet the regulation of luminal protein composition and its role in tube morphogenesis are not well understood. Here we show that an endosomal-retrieval machinery consisting of Rab9, retromer and actin nucleator WASH (Wiskott-Aldrich Syndrome Protein and SCAR Homolog) regulat...

Machine locomotion using wheels, tracks or legs is common where as generating locomotion in a limbless, wheelless system is more challenging. Wheeled locomotion and legged locomotion have already been studied by many researchers in detail. On the contrary the limbless locomotion has drawn very limited degree of interest. In limbless locomotion (of a serpent) the cyclic changes in the body shape...

In many MEMS devices, the mechanical suspension method usually creates a problem of how it should be suspended versus the design area and structure complexity. Simple designs may be able to keep complexity level down, however they do not usually hit the targeted specifications. Serpentine suspension proves to be very useful in such cases. In this paper, three serpentine suspensions are discusse...

Streptanthus is a genus of ca. 35 species in the tribe Thelypodieae (Brassicaceae) that has remarkable morphological and ecological diversity, a large number of species in the group being edaphic specialists endemic to unusual soils such as serpentine. While ecological research has shed some light on adaptation to serpentine in Streptanthus, there have been few insights on the origins and evolu...