HOW SNAKE HEAT VISION IS BEING USED TO TRANSFORM ROBOTICS | Science - Inverse

Sarah Wells, Boston-based writer covering science and technology summarizes, IT'S THE STUFF OF NIGHTMARES: Stumbling through brush in the night, you hear the warning shake of a rattle snake's tail. You, blind in the dark, can't see it — but thanks to the snake's thermal vision, you know it can see you.

Not to be confused with their noses, vipers use their small "pit organ" to "see" heat signatures of prey.
Photo: Darbaniyan et al. /Matter

The power of heat vision sounds like something straight out of the Marvel Universe, but this evolutionary trait is alive and well in pit-viper snakes like rattlers and pythons. And while human technology can mimic it (infrared goggles, anyone?) scientists don't actually know how the snakes accomplish this incredible feat.

A new study published Wednesday in the journal Matter sheds some light on this mysterious snake power. In the study, a team of mathematicians and engineers attempt to recreate the way pit-vipers transform thermal heat energy into electric signals, enabling them to see in the dark. If humans can harness this power, then it could enable us to design flexible pyroelectric materials — essentially, easily manipulated materials that can generate electric charge from heat...

REVERSE ENGINEERING — Using the soft membrane of the viper's pit organ as inspiration, Sharma and his colleagues generated a mathematical model to explain how the organ was transforming heat information into electric signals — and in turn, how scientists could create materials that do the same thing.

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Source: Inverse