On the heels of yesterday’s musings about machine/flesh in the context of my Carbon nanotubes, neurons, and spinal cords … posting, there’s a new Spotlight essay (on Nanowerk) by Michael Berger titled, Robotic Venus flytrap aids artificial muscle research. From the essay,

Mohsen Shahinpoor, Richard C. Hill Professor & Chairman Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Maine, has created a robotic replica of the carnivorous Venus flytrap with nanosensors and a thin, pliable metal composite material that he invented as part of his ongoing artificial muscle research. The device offers promise in the development of electrically stimulated artificial muscle that could be implanted in people to help overcome muscular disease or paralysis.

It’s the Venus flytrap’s (Dionaea muscipula) trigger sensitivity to movement (when the plant feels movement along certain hairs, it snaps shut within milliseconds to trap its prey). Here’s an image from the Botanical Society of America’s Mysterious Venus Flytrap webpage which illustrates the hairs (cilia) that act as triggers,

Venus flytrap trigger hairs

I have briefly glanced at the research paper, Biomimetic robotic Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula Ellis) made with ionic polymer metal  composites (open access PDF), published by IOP Publishers in its Bioinspiration & Biomimetics journal (vol. 6, no. 4). The introduction, the conclusion, and the images are the most accessible for someone (like me) who doesn’t have a background in electrical engineering. Here’s a bit from the introduction (Note: I have removed the bibiographic notes),

The rapid closure of the VFT lobes in about hundreds of milliseconds is one of the fastest nastic movements in higher plants. Darwin described the VFT plant as ‘one of the most wonderful plants in the world’. Mechanical stimulation of trigger hairs in the lobes of the VFT by a prey causes the traps to close rapidly. The reader is referred to a number of studies on the mechanism of closing of lobes of the VFT as described in … Note that Batalin was the first to propose a possible mechanism for such nastic movements in higher plants. Sibaoka discussed the physiology of rapid movements in higher plants.

…

Here, we propose that the mechanisms of sensing of the prey wiggling in its lobes by the trigger hairs and the trap closing of VFT are very similar to sensing and actuation mechanisms in IPMCs and thus one can design, fabricate and operate a biomimetic robotic VFT equipped with IPMCs [ionic polymeric metal composite].

The researchers don’t mention any applications (none I could find in the paper) for these progenitors to artificial muscles but Berger notes at the end of his essay,

The development of artificial muscles is one of the key areas for bionic enhancements or replacements. Artificial muscles like these could find applications in the medical field or for engineering applications.

I suppose you can’t call the possible integration in medical applications of these artificial muscles machine/flesh so much as they are plant/machine/flesh.