2020-12-01 Discover

SCIENTIST
INTOYLAND

BY STEPHEN ORNES

FROM MEDICINE TO SPACE TRAVEL, CHUCK HOBERMAN’S SHAPE-SHIFTING
IS EXPANDING SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH.

It’s easy to pin labels on Chuck Hoberman, but hard to stick
with just one. He’s an inventor, an artist, a tinkerer. He’s a
designer, an engineer, a transformer. He’s a toymaker — the
brains behind the colorful, expanding Hoberman sphere,

which you and your kids have been playing with interior. It has triangular sides, now it has octahedral BACKGROUND: NEW LINE/SHUTTERSTOCK. RIGHT: YANA PASKOVA
since the early 1990s (and which earned a place in sides, and now it’s collapsed, flat. “There are underlying
the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection). geometric principles that let them move the way they
Thematically, Hoberman’s work lands him at the do,” he says, turning the structure inside out, “and that’s
intersection of art, architecture, design and playthings. my usual starting point. I work from a kind of geometric
Physically, he works sometimes from an airy room on lexicon.” He always seems to be fidgeting, as though the
the second floor of a house-turned-office-suite near only way to talk about shapeshifters is to stay in motion.
Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Hoberman is dressed in black — jacket, shirts, pants,
The Cambridge office is tidy, with white walls and glasses — with white hair combed straight back. His
plenty of light. The surfaces are usually cleared, but long face is both skeptical and serious. He lays a ruler on
today they’re cluttered with the material expressions of one of the tables. The models on the right side, he says,
his geometric dreams: Models made of two-dimensional represent the past: Decades of evolved geometric ideas.
pieces, hinged together to form 3D structures that These designs don’t look like toys, per se, but rather like
deform, bend or otherwise fold in prescribed ways. They the Platonic forms of playthings, toys reduced to their
are made out of whatever material Hoberman had at purest elements of movement, form and mathematics.
hand when inspiration struck — paper, precisely cut in
regular polyhedra with tape linkages; folded cardboard; Transformation is their common denominator, and
laser-cut plywood; hard plastic sheeting. Larger models, he returns to that idea because it’s so readily obvious in
wrapped in paper and foam sheets, sit in big boxes on the world. “Basically, wherever you look, at the clouds
the floor. Some look like reconstructions of impossible or whatever, everything is transforming constantly and
objects from M.C. Escher-like visions. doing it in a fluid, smooth and continuous way,” he says.

He picks up a structure that looks like bulldozer He’s been obsessed with physical change since he
treads but is black on the outside and orange in the began experimenting with pulleys and levers during
his art school days in the 1970s. “I’m maniacal in being

48 DISCOVERMAGAZINE .COM

A sneak peek
at Hoberman’s
latest prototype:
a sphere that
transforms shape,
size and color
by turning itself
inside out.

Hoberman’s focused on this concept,” he says. His work is driven by medical centers during disease outbreaks, for example,
sphere graces big, roomy questions: How does one shape turn into or using them in a wall to make a room soundproof.
a vineyard in another? The engineers who enlist his help ask that
France (above). question differently: How can a device — at any scale, “Chuck spans all the disciplines: art, science and
Both it and the from origami organs up to a building — be designed so toys,” says MIT computer scientist and renowned
fabric dome that it smoothly deforms from one thing into another? origami expert Erik Demaine. He first met Hoberman
exhibition piece Hoberman’s expertise makes him particularly appeal- when both of them contributed pieces to a 2008 show
(below) expand ing to researchers interested in machine intelligence at the Museum of Modern Art, in New York. In 2013,
just like his of a sort — not the kind that requires writing better together with MIT engineer and soft robot pioneer
famous toy. At algorithms, necessarily, but the kind built into the
Stony Brook physical structure itself, an intentional motion.
University,
his dynamic Which brings us back to that ruler and the objects
windows project to the left. They’re the future: An entirely new taxa of
(right) is both inflatable, origami-based structures that he’s asked
artistic and me not to describe in detail, partly because they’re
functional as a not published or patented yet, and partly because
piece of shading. they’re not his alone. They’re the kernels of wild
design projects with engineers, roboticists, computer
scientists, an origami expert, mathematicians and even
biologists. They run the gamut from soft robotics (how
can we fold up bots that can help people in disaster
areas anywhere?) to collapsible habitats (how can I
pack an origami house into my backpack, and take it
to the moon as a place to live?) to printable, inflatable,
replaceable organs (how can I pack the most blood
vessels into the least surface area?).

His partners say Hoberman brings the vision to
design shapeshifters for which change is not only
intentional, but also necessary, inevitable and critical
to some function or device. Though it’s largely up to
them to find that function; they explore the ways to put
his elemental shapes to work. That includes mapping
out geometric and mechanical properties, but also
employing them for things like pop-up emergency

50 DISCOVERMAG A ZINE .COM

Daniela Rus, they co-taught a class at MIT on invention In 2017, Hoberman was part of an interdisciplinary THEY ARE
and design. “He’s definitely the expert in transformable project group, including Johannes Overvelde (now at THE FUTURE,
structure design,” says Demaine. “He founded it.” AMOLF, a government lab in the Netherlands) and WILD DESIGN
Harvard engineer Katia Bertoldi, that introduced a PROJECTS
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS family of reconfigurable structures based on repeat- THAT RUN THE
Most of Hoberman’s early achievements — the ing mathematical patterns called tessellations. In an GAMUT FROM
toy-building, a stage set for U2, and a host of other editorial in Nature, a roboticist called the paper “an SOFT ROBOTICS
projects — were largely solo gigs. Not so anymore: He algorithm for architectural origami,” noting that such TO PRINTABLE
has become a go-to expert for researchers in search an approach could lead to reconfigurable devices that ORGANS.
of smart, built-in design. In 2018, he worked with a transform to fit their environments. Nerds around the
COURTESY HOBERMAN ASSOCIATES, HOBERMAN.COM (3) student and marine biologists to develop a netlike world might celebrate them as “origami robots.”
contraption that unfolds itself in the deep ocean and
traps fragile sea creatures without harming them. “It wouldn’t have happened without Chuck,” says
In 2019, engineers at Columbia University adapted Bertoldi, a frequent collaborator. “We wouldn’t have
the Hoberman Flight Ring, another toy, as the basis explored these territories without being influenced by
for “particle robots,” a swarm of devices that remain his spirit, and style, and creativity.”
useless and stationary on their own but can move
and complete tasks when they work together. A 2019 About once a month, Hoberman packs up some
exhibit at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design models from the future side of the ruler and walks a
Museum in New York featured an “origami mem- few blocks north to visit Bertoldi in her office across
brane” for a 3D-printed, engineered organ, designed the street from Harvard’s Museum of Natural History.
by Hoberman and colleagues at Harvard’s Wyss A tall bookcase displays shelf upon shelf of geometric
Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. designs and structures. They look like cousins of
Hoberman’s designs — they’re similarly built to change
— but instead of being made from cardboard, most

DECEMBER 2020 . DISCOVER 51

Hoberman are either 3D printed, laser cut, or cast out of plastic or to each other by small gears at the tips of their arms. ART INSTALLATION AND TOY: COURTESY HOBERMAN ASSOCIATES, HOBERMAN.COM
(right) created more flexible polymers. It’s a compact sphere, but when you twist the Xs, the
art installation thing expands in your hands, mechanically tripling its
“Ten Degrees” I visited Bertoldi at her office in fall 2019, on a day volume to become a much bigger sphere, now with the
(above) in she usually meets with Hoberman and often Demaine Xs serving as a skeletal scaffolding. To the U.S. Patent
Cambridge, to exchange ideas, to give updates on projects and Office, the toy is a “reversibly expandable doubly-
Mass., which to fidget together. To my dismay, Hoberman had curved truss structure,” but try selling that to a kid.
allows visitors cancelled on account of me. “Twist-O” was easier to market.
to move
sculptures Like Hoberman, Bertoldi fidgets, all the time, with In 2011, a friend of Bertoldi’s went to New York City
weighing her mind as well as her hands. She takes down a plastic, for a weekend with his girlfriend, and the pair returned
several 3D printed, gridlike matrix that, with a quick move- with a gift: A cheap knockoff of a Twist-O. She’d never
hundred ment of her wrist, collapses to two dimensions, then heard of Hoberman. (“I knew the toys, but I didn’t
pounds as pops back into three. She’s an engineer, not an inventor, know him,” Bertoldi says.) But the timing was seren-
easily as and her research focuses on structures that get their dipitous because she had been thinking about how to
they might properties from the way they’re put together. She calls print three-dimensional structures that can collapse in
manipulate them “architected materials,” but that’s her engineer predefined ways, and then un-collapse. That idea could
his famous toy side talking; others refer to them as “metamaterials.” be useful, for example, if you wanted to build a joint for
(bottom right). a robot made out of only one piece, or you wanted to
She tells me the story of how she and Hoberman construct a building with collapsible walls.
met. “It’s funny in all directions,” she begins.
The Twist-O does exactly that, in a way. Its
It starts with the Twist-O, a fantastic plastic
contraption made of a bunch of colorful Xs fastened

52 DISCOVERMAG A Z I N E .COM

expansions and contractions feel almost involuntary Wyss Institute, saw Bertoldi’s work and insisted that PROJECTS
because that’s how Hoberman built it. Anyone from she meet Hoberman, who had just begun teaching DON’T ALWAYS
ages 2 to 102 can make it happen, and the secret to its at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. So the two PAN OUT.
ability for delight is built into its structure. However, talked, and fidgeted and played with toys, and brought THERE’S A
Bertoldi observed that it was discrete, which means in Overvelde or Demaine for brainstorming sessions. LOT OF TRIAL
it was made of many parts. She instead wanted a AND ERROR.
continuous version of the same idea, one made of one Bertoldi says all of their designs begin with intu- BUT THEY’RE
piece of material. So, that’s what she created. ition, which to her engineering sensibility “is kind of NEVER AT
scary.” To come up with new mechanisms, she says, A LOSS
Where a Twist-O has 26 Xs and 48 hinges, Bertoldi’s they first need a geometric concept, a kind of mechani- FOR IDEAS.
creation was an inflatable plastic sphere with 24 cal hypothesis, which is abstract. Those concepts often
dimples and a small nozzle, like the hole used to begin with folding paper, or laser-cutting plastic, or
insert an air pump needle into a basketball. When she making hinges. From there, they try to figure out how
used a syringe to remove the air from her creation, it to encode some mechanism — buckling, folding,
crumpled in a specific way to form a shape known as growing, changing dimension, inflating — into the
a rhombicuboctahedron — a solid that has 24 vertices structure of the material itself.
where three squares and a triangle come together.
Because it buckled, and because the shape reminded Their contraptions don’t always pan out. “There’s
Bertoldi of a buckyball, she christened it “buckliball.” a lot of trial and error,” says Bertoldi. But at the same
time, they’re never at a loss for ideas. “We get
Don Ingber, a pioneer in the field of biologically inspired by the structure that you see
inspired design and the founding director of Harvard’s out in the world, in nature,” she says.
“We always have to keep our eyes
wide open.”

TOP RIGHT: YANA PASKOVA THE ONLY CONSTANT
It’s tempting to trace Hoberman’s
evolution as an inventor through
his works. As a student at Cooper
Union, an art school on the edge
of Manhattan’s East Village, he built

DECEMBER 2020 . DISCOVER 53

Mercedes-Benz terrifically complicated kinematic sculptures — big with Honeybee to design a collapsible habitat that
Stadium, home installations with moving parts that, if the studio could be deployed to space and possibly attach to the
to the Atlanta were dark enough, would look like looming torture International Space Station (which hadn’t launched
Falcons and the devices. He shows me videos of an experimental at that point but was nearly complete). NASA never
Atlanta United people-tilter. One person turns a crank, which pulls planned to build the module, but the agency wanted a
FC soccer a rope, which threads a system of pulleys, which proof-of-concept project that hinted at the possibili-
team, opened — pivots two wooden platforms, each supporting an art ties for space architecture. “They had this giant space
literally — in 2017 student, between standing and prone configurations. frame and were trying to figure out how to build huge
with a twisting, structures in space,” he says. Honeybee has gone on
retractable roof “I didn’t yet have this concept of transformation,” to design some of the robotic arms and tools used
that Hoberman he says. “I was thinking, OK, art is supposed to change to collect and analyze soil from the surface of Mars,
helped design. your viewpoints. Let’s literally change your viewpoint.” among other robots. And last year, Hoberman was
part of a team who received another NASA grant to
Fast forward a few years, and Hoberman found develop space habitats. COURTESY HOBERMAN ASSOCIATES, HOBERMAN.COM
himself designing a home for outer space. After
art school — and graduate school at Columbia, in Design by design, Hoberman continued to advance
mechanical engineering — he joined Honeybee his ideas about how structure and design can be
Robotics, a small industrial robot outfit then work- used to infuse an intentional motion into a material.
ing out of SoHo. At the time, Honeybee focused on He didn’t always need pulleys, ropes and platforms;
mechanisms for quick-connect hardware systems for he realized that he could achieve transformation in
automated robots; Hoberman’s inventive spirit fit with design through the careful planning of linkages. The
the company’s focus on pushing design forward. “I’d right mechanism — the right hinge, or connection,
found something where I can cut up paper and tape it or pivot — could elegantly obviate the need for more
and make money and discover new things,” he says. cumbersome, clunkier, moving parts.

With a grant from NASA, Hoberman worked

54 DISCOVERMAGA ZINE .COM

Then, 1990 brought the Hoberman Sphere, which a tic-tac-toe board extended into three dimensions. JUST ONE OF
puts that idea into practice: The plastic ribs of the If you nudge it slightly on one side it falls flat, but it’s THOSE THINGS:
sphere join together at precisely calculated junctures so easy to refigure into its three-dimensional form. This ALL OF A
that, as they expand, they form straight lines radiating was one of his first experiments. It began with a dream SUDDEN,
outward from the center. hypothesis — not a hypothesis in the usual sense of YOU’RE
“educated guess,” but a vague notion, materialized WORKING
Fast forward again, this time into the early 21st visually but not in words or formulas, about how a FOR U2,
century. For the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake certain design would move in space. DESIGNING
City, Hoberman designed a giant aluminum arch A FEAT OF
that opened and shut like an iris over the medal “I woke up in the morning and thought, ‘I have an EXTREME
stage. It had a diameter of 72 feet and more than idea,’ and I cut up a box and made this thing,” he says, ENGINEERING.
15,000 pounds of moving parts. In 2008, he was flipping it between states.
COURTESY HOBERMAN ASSOCIATES, HOBERMAN.COM (2) approached by the band U2 to design the giant
assemblage of transformable video screens that would I realize — for the first time during our conversa-
be part of the “claw” stage, the centerpiece of their tions — that as the toymaker began to collaborate
360° World Tour. The claw was a monster that stood with others, he also began designing forms that can
more than 150 feet high. combine with others. Hoberman calls them “prismatic
structures,” and they’re like macroscopic facsimiles of
“It was just one of those things where it felt like you the regular, repeating geometries found, for example,
were sort of picked out of your normal life and then, all in the molecular structure of crystals. And it’s in these
of a sudden, you’re working for Bono,” Hoberman says. repeating configurations, these geometric collabora-
“It was an absolute feat of extreme engineering, and it tions, that the structure gets its ability to deform,
was my baby.” change and perform its inevitable function. Intentional
motion, or that unusual stripe of machine intelligence,
When the Mercedes-Benz Stadium — home to the can arise from collaboration.
Atlanta Falcons and the Atlanta United FC soccer
team —opened in 2017, it wore as its crown a giant, I look again at the future side of the ruler. Unlike the
retractable roof that Hoberman helped design. The prismatic structures, these inflatables have nozzles,
action of twisting, and opening, and changing, is and are sealed, and change from one thing into
unmistakably Hoberman. another if you blow into them. Hoberman picks one up
to demonstrate, and as he blows, a three-dimensional,
A FLASH BETWEEN TWO LONG NIGHTS right-angled structure unfolds itself from a flat plastic
Back in Hoberman’s office, he points out design sheet. It’s as though he and his co-conspirators have
prototypes that are incomplete and says that many, if reinvented the bellows — for decidedly 21st century
not most, of his geometric thought experiments don’t uses — like space houses, or robots that can explore
work in the real world. disaster areas, or organs.

I look closer at the ones on hand: Structures made It’s impossible to predict the future, but it is tempt-
of squares, rectangles, triangles and other polygons, ing to poke these hard, balloonlike structures and
meticulously numbered and taped. I pick one up and imagine a time when things like inflatable organs and
flip it between states and ask him where the ideas collapsible, foldable buildings aren’t only possible but
come from. surprisingly, astonishingly simple and even humdrum.
As in, why didn’t we think of those sooner? D
“Thought is only a flash between two long nights,”
Hoberman says, quoting Henri Poincaré from his 1905 Stephen Ornes lives in Nashville, Tennessee, and is the author
book, The Value of Science, “but this flash is every- of Math Art: Truth, Beauty, and Equations.
thing.” He picks up one of his models that looks like

DECEMBER 2020 . DISCOVER 55

56 DISCOVERMAG A ZINE .COM

THETalk to
HAND

We’re more than just opposable thumbs — our hands
gave us tools, new skills and better communication.

BY MADELAINE BÖHME, RÜDIGER BRAUN AND
FLORIAN BREIER • ILLUSTRATIONS BY TERRI FIELD

TAKE A
MOMENT
TO PAY
ATTENTION
TO YOUR
HANDS. IT WILL BE TIME WELL SPENT, BECAUSE THEY ARE

EVOLUTIONARY MARVELS. HOLD ONE UP AND EXAMINE IT. OPEN
AND CLOSE IT. PLAY WITH YOUR FINGERS. TOUCH THE TIPS OF
YOUR FOUR FINGERS WITH YOUR THUMB. ROTATE YOUR WRIST.
YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO TURN IT 180 DEGREES WITH EASE. BALL
YOUR HAND UP INTO A FIST UNTIL YOUR THUMB LIES ON TOP
OF AND LENDS SUPPORT TO YOUR INDEX, MIDDLE AND RING
FINGERS. THAT IS SOMETHING NO APE CAN DO.

“WE CAN It is not only the flexibility granted by the fully gathering material to build a shelter or holding
opposable thumb that makes the human hand so objects in one hand and manipulating them with the
DETECT special, but also its extraordinary ability to feel and other to carry out specific tasks.
UNEVEN to touch. It operates almost like an independent
SURFACES sensory organ. We use it to feel the temperature of The more skilled our ancestors were with their
WITH OUR a breeze and of water. With its help we are able to hands, the more successful they were and, therefore,
FINGERS fit a key directly into a lock, even in the dark. We the higher the survival rate of their offspring. And
THAT WE can detect uneven surfaces with our fingers that we so advantageous adaptations in hand structure
CANNOT cannot see with our naked eye. With a little bit of prevailed as natural selection took its course. The
SEE WITH practice, we can use our fingers to tell real silk from evolution of our brain and our anatomy advanced in
OUR NAKED synthetic silk or real leather from fake leather, even lockstep. The balance between hand bones, tendons,
EYE. with our eyes closed. muscles and nerves was constantly being refined,
as were the hand’s increasingly sensitive sense
Our fingers can even replace our eyes as ways of touch and the brain’s ever-more sophisticated
to perceive the world, as the Dutch paleontologist oversight of motor coordination. The result is a
Geerat Vermeij, who has been blind since the age multi-faceted tool that has helped us build, hunt, eat
of 3, can attest. A specialist famous for his work on and communicate.
marine mussels and their ecosystems, he has never
seen a fossil. Out in the field, he feels the complex GRASPING THE ORIGINS
morphological structures of mussels and of the We can trace the evolution of our hands back to
rocks in which they are found. With his fingers, he the very beginning of the primate ancestral chart
“sees” details many sighted scientists miss. There over 70 million years ago. The development of the
is no doubt about it: Our hands are an exceptional primate hand probably started with small ancestors
development in the history of evolution. that lived on the ground and gradually conquered
the tree canopy as their new home. Those that could
But how did a precision tool like the human hand, grasp small objects clearly had the advantage.
a tool that seems to have been at least as important
for the process of becoming human as our upright For a long time, scientists thought that the early
gait, develop? The evolutionary ball started rolling, members of the genus Homo started out equipped
of course, when walking on two feet meant the with a hand anatomically similar to the hand of
hands were no longer needed for locomotion. a modern human. This notion can be traced back
They could then be used for a wide range of tasks: to a few spectacular fossil finds in Africa from the
transporting food or offspring, scooping up water, early 1960s.

58 DISCOVERMAGA ZINE .COM



As humans evolved to walk upright, freeing up the hands for other uses, our early ancestors created handheld tools to hunt and forage.
These inventions added a crucial, protein-rich ingredient to their diets: meat.

“THERE There was great excitement in May 1964 when human in appearance, with a relatively long, quite
primate researcher John Russell Napier, along with flexible thumb.
IS SOME paleoanthropologists Phillip Tobias and Louis
INDICATION Leakey, reported that over the course of many years ADDING MEAT TO THE MENU
THAT THE of working in the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, they Despite all the debate around Homo habilis, its
EVOLUTION had found remains, including many hand bones, relatively sophisticated hand shape was a good fit
OF THE of the first humans to make tools. “The hand bones with the pebble tools of a similar age found in the
HAND HAD A resemble those of Homo sapiens sapiens,” they wrote; Olduvai Gorge. Whether Homo habilis was a handy
SIGNIFICANT from the individual fragments, they had recon- early human or a handy early hominin, there was no
INFLUENCE structed a hand that had especially powerful joints doubt that nearly 2 million years ago, the inhabitants
ON THE at the base of the fingers and a prominent thumb. of Olduvai had taken a hammerstone in one hand
DEVELOP- At the time, news of a humanlike hand that was and struck it against another stone to manufacture
MENT OF 1.8 million years old caused a firestorm of interest. a stone tool with a sharp cutting edge. The brains
SPEECH. of these gorge dwellers were approximately half the
The hand fragments were one of the main reasons size of ours and the functional potential of their
the researchers attributed the bone finds to an early hands was not yet developed, but their hands were
human, standing no more than 4 feet tall, that they definitely no longer the hands of an ape.
called Homo habilis (Handy Man). That is contro-
versial to this day, because a row of teeth found at Flexible hands and simple stone blades allowed
the same time are a match for an early hominin of the gorge dwellers to occupy a new ecological niche
the genus Australopithecus. What is not in dispute in the savannah-like landscape they called home:
is the special nature of the hand bones, which show that of carrion eater. There were numerous large
clear evidence of a hand that was already strikingly mammals grazing on the extensive grasslands, and

60 DISCOVERMAGA ZINE .COM

they often fell victim to big cats. After the carnivores The researchers found that chimpanzees, gorillas and
helped themselves, there was usually nutritious meat orangutans not only used most of these gestures but
left over that could be quickly cut and scraped from also used them in the same way. Humans may appear
the bones with sharp-edged stone tools — preferably to use gestures in a similar manner, but how we use our
before the hyenas or vultures arrived. hands to talk has a lot more to do with social context
and language cues.
In the early 1990s, two American archaeologists,
Kathy Schick and Nicholas Toth, did field tests in the TALKING WITH OUR HANDS
East African savannah to see how well this would
have worked. They tried cutting and scraping dozens Michael Tomasello and his team from the Max Planck
of carcasses, including two elephants, using primitive
stone tools. “We were amazed,” they wrote, “as a small Institute in Leipzig have been searching for the origins
lava flake sliced through the steel gray skin, about
one inch thick, exposing enormous quantities of rich, of language for the past two decades. In numerous
red elephant meat inside. After breaching this critical
barrier, removing flesh proved to be reasonably simple, experiments in which they compared human behavior
although the enormous bones and muscles of these
animals have very tough, thick tendons and ligaments, with the behavior of apes, they observed
another challenge met successfully by our stone tools.”
that human gestures went far beyond
When these primitive tools were wielded by modern
humans, it was clearly a quick and easy job to use them the simple orders given by apes.
to cut meat. Adding meat to the menu was a crucial
step on the way to becoming human — up until then Apes indicate things that are useful
early hominins had likely mostly eaten plants. The
increased protein intake must have led to better health to them at that moment. Human Excerpted from:
overall and, in the long term, helped increase the size gestures often have a social context.
of the brain. And in the process, our hands were not
only used for eating, crafting, throwing or fighting, but They indicate things that might be
also for communication.
of use to others or express emotions
FROM GRABBING TO GESTURING
There is some indication that the evolution of the and attitudes that are relevant to the
hand had a significant influence on the development
of speech. No direct evidence, of course, but you can community.
deduce this indirectly by observing our closest rela-
tives, the great apes, or by watching small children as It seems it all started with gestures
they acquire language, using hand gestures to indicate
what they want long before they say their first words. centered around self-interest and

For humans, gestures are an important component then, sometime in the story of
of expression. They both precede and accompany
speech. They emphasize what is said and convey becoming human — it is difficult to
emotion. They can signal dismissal or acceptance.
They can threaten, or they can express, elicit and offer say exactly when — gestures were
sympathy. In the sign language used by those who
cannot hear, gestures almost completely replace words. added to share experiences, inten-
Many scientists assume that gestures and sounds
developed together over many millions of years to tions, interests and rules. Tomasello
create increasingly complex forms of communication,
mutually supporting and supplementing each other. is convinced that communication

Chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans originated when early humans
are also capable of communicating with gestures —
although their repertoire is extremely limited. A field started pointing to things to show Ancient Bones: 
study carried out by British scientists in 2018 recorded
more than 2,000 separate observations and docu- them to others. For example, an Unearthing the
mented 33 different gestures. The vast majority were
simple orders, such as “Give me that!” “Come closer!” early hominin may have pointed Astonishing New
“Groom my fur!” “I want sex!” or “Stop that!” All
these gestures serve to start or stop a specific behavior. to a vulture that was circling over Story of How We

a recently killed animal, a place Became Human,

where nutritious roots were buried by Madelaine Böhme,

underground or a small child that Rüdiger Braun

had distanced themselves from the and Florian Breier

group as they went off to explore. (foreword by David

At first, pointing gestures would R. Begun). Available

have helped coordinate communal now from Greystone

activities such as hunting or child Books. Excerpted

minding. Later, they evolved into with permission of

more complex signs for concepts, the publisher.  

such as a fluttering movement to

indicate a bird or cradling the arms

to indicate a baby. According to

Tomasello, sounds were then added

to augment and expand this language

of gestures. This corresponds with the American

psycholinguist David McNeill’s idea that gestures

are basically nothing more than thoughts or mental

images translated into movement. Having the

hands free was a necessary part of the evolution of

speech — and integral to communication as we

know it today. D

DECEMBER 2020 . DISCOVER 61

TECH NOTE

BY RALEIGH MCELVERY

Cut the Clutter Bats can Bats navigate dense rainforests using FROM LEFT: FREISEIN/SHUTTERSTOCK; JOSEP MIQUEL UBALDE BAULO/DREAMSTIME
easily echolocation. Researchers are studying the
ROBOTS CAN USE ECHOES TO NAVIGATE, BUT THE extract plants that bounce those calls back.
CACOPHONY OF SOUND IS TOUGH TO SIFT THROUGH. meaning
WHAT CAN THEY LEARN FROM BATS? from a low-visibility environments where
volley of cameras might fail. However, surround-
One rainy night in March 2007, graduate student Ralph returning ing objects reflect a barrage of distracting
Simon found himself alone in the Cuban rainforest. echoes, signals, known as echo clutter, which can
He was following a hunch, based on a picture he’d seen but their be challenging for robots to sift through.
in a magazine. He was after a specific dish-shaped methods
leaf, which belonged to the native Marcgravia evenia vine. The are difficult By comparison, bats can easily extract
leaves looked like they’d be ideal for reflecting sound, and Simon to mimic. meaning from a volley of returning
suspected they would efficiently lure bat pollinators to their flow- echoes to map new environments in real
ers in the dark. His adviser was skeptical without proof, so there time. But their methods are difficult to
Simon was, sitting among the creepy crawlers with his infrared mimic, leaving researchers like Simon to
video camera and a stash of snacks, waiting for the bats to come. hunt for new ways to help robots better
And come they did, several times an hour, for the entire night. sort through that clutter.

In the years since, Simon — now a sensory ecologist at the BUILDING BEACONS
University of Antwerp in Belgium — has returned to this same Several types of artificial landmarks
spot at least three more times to gather leaf specimens and test already help guide autonomous robots.
how sound ricochets off them to attract bats. These days, though, Underwater, for example, simple acous-
he’s using his knowledge to develop technologies that help robots tic reflectors direct aquatic robots that
navigate with sound. are equipped with sonar sensors. But few
research groups have investigated how to
Most autonomous mobile robots employ a suite of sophisti- make acoustic markers on land — cur-
cated sensors to maneuver. Sonar technology helps them avoid rently, none exist to help robots navigate
obstacles through echolocation — pulses of sound bouncing amid the clutter of above-ground echoes.
off the closest objects. It’s relatively inexpensive and useful in
Simon’s rainforest excursions have led
him to a new solution that could unlock
sonar’s navigational potential: 3D-printed
acoustic reflectors shaped like M. evenia
leaves. While some vegetation merely
returns a twinkle of sound, M. evenia’s
leaves reflect a consistent pattern of
echoes that entice bats to its flowers in
the darkness — like a blinking lighthouse
directing wayward ships.

In 2006, Simon and his research team

62 DISCOVERMAG A ZINE .COM



TECH NOTE

Simon studied several plants, including Rhododendron The M. lighthouses. Sounds bouncing off the plastic plates,
tomentosum (left) and M. evenia (right). The latter evenia however, rebounded chaotically, like lights glinting
inspired reflectors that help a robot (below) navigate. leaves off a spinning disco ball. But the robot was able to
were such discern the important echoes from the M. evenia-
demonstrated that changing the size of hollow, effective inspired reflectors and make out the navigational
hemispheric, leaflike structures altered their return- acoustic cues, despite the cacophony.
ing echoes, and that bats could discern these subtle beacons
variations. Five years later, the group found that that they Simon says the study demonstrates how basic
M. evenia was particularly effective at reflecting clear, cut their ecology research can advance navigational technol-
recognizable acoustic signals. The vine’s dish-shaped pollinators’ ogy. The reflectors could aid autonomous robots
leaves boomeranged a long-range echo with a search time in confined spaces, like dusty greenhouses or dark
unique signature that remained consistent regardless in half. mines, where visual systems are impaired.
of the bats’ direction of approach. The leaves were
such effective acoustic beacons that they cut their “Sonar sensors nowadays are only used mainly RALPH SIMON (3)
pollinators’ search time in half, despite the surround- for ranging,” he adds. “But they could also do
ing clutter. So, the team decided to create their own much more.”
reflectors of varying sizes to see if an autonomous
robot could use the same principles to navigate. According to Jan Steckel, electrical engineer at the
University of Antwerp and co-author of the study,
LEAVES IN THE LAB the simplicity and saliency of their reflectors has “cut
In a study published in January, Simon and his out the whole echo clutter problem.” The reflectors,
team made 3D-printed plastic leaves modeled after he says, contrast background distractions and stand
M. evenia. They tinkered with the shape and depth out like a red pebble against a sea of black stones.
to strengthen the echoes bouncing off the reflectors,
using several to direct a simple autonomous robot Despite these advances, a deeper mystery about
through an unfamiliar environment. They installed how sonar navigation really works in nature lurks
126 plastic leaves to create a cacophony of echoes behind Simon and Steckel’s research, and other
— simulating even more clutter than
autonomous machines experience efforts like it.
when navigating the outside world.
HOW DO BATS DO IT?
The researchers trained their robot’s There’s an ongoing debate about precisely
algorithms to recognize leaf reflectors how bats use echolocation to perceive
of various sizes, much like how a bat and move through their environment.
discerns objects of various shapes by their Do they simply recognize the echoes
echoes. Each reflector type conveyed an bouncing off specific objects, or can
instruction, directing the robot to turn, stop they reconstruct a more detailed 3D
or switch a light on. layout? Perhaps, some researchers argue,

As their knee-high robot moved on three it’s a combination of both.
wheels through the lab, making batlike calls, How bats use sonar to navigate is “the
the echoes from the reflectors shone like little million-dollar question in echolocation,” says
Yossi Yovel, a biologist at Tel Aviv University in
Israel and co-creator of the batlike robot Robat.

64 DISCOVERMAGAZINE .COM

His preliminary research sug- Though dolphin “They’ve got a brain,” he says. “And
gests that building robots that use sonar has been that’s the trick.”
deep-learning algorithms may help studied for
us understand what information decades, machines Unravelling echolocation in nature
bats extract from sonic data. After that mimic their is a puzzle that scientists have yet
all, these neural networks mimic communication to solve. Herbert Peremans of the
something bats have but robots do techniques are University of Antwerp, a co-author
not: a brain. still no match for on Simon and Steckel’s reflector
nature. study, says he would be happy if he
And while neural networks are a could just duplicate what bats are
powerful tool, they might not be an doing. “I consider nature to be an
airtight solution to mimicking the brains of master engineer,” he adds. As one himself, he knows what
echolocators. Dolphin sonar, for example, has been he can glean from fellow inventors, Homo sapiens
studied for decades, but the mammals’ natural or not.
abilities continue to outperform their human-made He’s proud of the group’s reflectors because they
counterparts, especially in cluttered environments. offer a straightforward answer to the echo clutter
problem, and could aid artificial sonar in outdoor
Such has been the observation of Yan Pailhas, environments. “I think it makes sense to look at
a scientist at the Centre for Maritime Research naturally evolved solutions, because they usually are
and Experimentation in Italy, who has developed very simple,” Peremans says. “Elegant, but simple.” D
dolphin-inspired sonar systems and fashioned
underwater sonar landmarks. Despite recent Raleigh McElvery is a science writer who covers biology
advances, he says neural networks still can’t compete and neuroscience. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
with the way dolphins interpret sensory data.

SMEERJEWEGPRODUCTIES/SHUTTERSTOCK #68197 • $12.99 ASTRONOMY’S

P38399 DEEP SPACE
MYSTERIES

2021 CALENDAR

Get this calendar filled with dramatic images of nebulae,
spiral galaxies, planets, star-forming regions, and other
mysteries of deep space.

THIS CALENDAR INCLUDES:

• Planet visibility, meteor showers, moon phases and more.

• Stunning, high-quality images.

• An illustration of the Voyager mission’s grand tour.

• Easy-to-read calendar grid.

MOrydSecr ineonwc!eShop.com/CAL21

Sales tax where applicable.

DECEMBER 2020 . DISCOVER 65

20 THINGS YOU BY JONATHON KEATS
DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT ...

Glaciers

RIGHT: In India, 1 We’re living in an ice age. For most of the past 14 Such melting has the potential to expose FROM LEFT: BORIS_NIEHAUS/SHUTTERSTOCK; NAVEEN MACRO/SHUTTERSTOCK
human-made 2.5 million years, much of the planet has been glaci- pathogenic viruses trapped in the ice, some of which
ice replaces the ated, as Antarctica still is today. 2 Our current, more haven’t been in circulation for more than 10,000
glaciers that used hospitable geological epoch, the Holocene, is a brief years. Paired with warming waters, melting glaciers
to provide villages respite; today’s glaciers have been in retreat for the also threaten to flood cities with a projected sea level
with water. BELOW: past 12,000 years. 3 Geologists call this an intergla- rise of 1 to 3 feet by the year 2100. 15 Not helping:
The memorial to cial, and caution us not to get used to it. Interglacials Some algae get their drinking water by deliberately
Okjökull, the first are caused by cyclical changes in Earth’s orbit, and melting glaciers, producing dark pigments that
Icelandic glacier have nothing to do with human-induced climate absorb enough sunlight to thaw their frozen habitat.
lost to climate change. 4 The ice could be on schedule to return as But they’re too good at it for their own good — large
change, reads: soon as the next several millennia — but only if we blooms along the edge of the Greenland Ice Sheet
“This monument don’t totally cook the planet in the interim. 5 The are increasing its summer melt rate by 10 percent.
is to acknowledge fact that the world was once iced over wasn’t known 16 During the Cold War, the U.S. built a city
that we know what until the 19th century, when Swiss naturalist Louis under that ice sheet, testing the viability of hiding
is happening and missile silos there. 17 Smaller in scale but more
what needs to be Agassiz noted that attributes of the glacial ambitious in aim, the Swiss Federal Institute of
done. Only you landscape seen in the Alps could also be Technology built a habitat under an Alpine glacier
know if we did it.” found far from any mountains. 6 Charles last year. 18 The team was studying what it would
Darwin was initially incredulous that take to build inside the moon’s ice caps, where
DISCOVER (ISSN 0274-7529, USPS# glaciers once had predominated — but lunar ice would protect inhabitants from cosmic
555-190) is published eight times per later remarked that it was incredible he radiation. 19 Speaking of protection, the Swiss
year (January/February, March/April, had failed to notice the evidence that have begun covering glacial ice with white fleece
May, June, July/August, September/ Agassiz made appear obvious. 7 But then blankets in the summer to insulate it and deflect
October, November and December). glaciers are full of surprises. For example: heat from the sun. As daft as it sounds, the fleece is
Vol. 41, no. 8. Published by Kalmbach Astoundingly, glaciers flow, the mass of estimated to slow the melting of the Rhône Glacier
Media Co., 21027 Crossroads ice moving like a river. 8 Alaskan Natives by up to 70 percent. 20 Or you could just make a
Circle, P.O. Box 1612, Waukesha, WI know glaciers’ activity well. In Athabaskan glacier from scratch. Exploiting plentiful water and
53187-1612. Periodical postage paid languages, spoken by many Indigenous freezing winter temperatures, artificial hillocks of
at Waukesha, WI, and at additional peoples of the Alaskan interior, glaciers are ice are keeping Indian villages irrigated through
mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send grammatically treated as animate, like polar bears the summer, making up for natural glaciers that
address changes to DISCOVER, and people. 9 When a climber falls into a crevasse, used to do the job. Nobody is going to mistake these
P.O. Box 8520, Big Sandy, TX 75755. a deep fracture in the ice, the frozen corpse will “ice stupas” for the Himalayas. But in the current
Canada Publication Agreement # flow through the glacier and be ejected from its foot climate, they may be the next best thing to waiting
40010760. Back issues available. several decades later. 10 This gruesome process, for the interglacial to end. D
All rights reserved. Nothing herein known as corpse transfer, was one of the earliest
contained may be reproduced without clues that glaciers aren’t simply solid blocks of ice. Jonathon Keats is a contributing editor to Discover.
written permission of Kalmbach Media 11 Climate change is also turning up bodies — like His most recent book is You Belong to the Universe:
Co., 21027 Crossroads Circle, P.O. Box the infamous Otzi the Iceman — and more as
1612, Waukesha, WI 53187-1612. glaciers melt away. Over the past decade, researchers Buckminster Fuller and the Future.
Printed in the U.S.A. in Norway have recovered dozens of ancient items
in a previously frozen mountain pass, including
a complete Iron Age Roman tunic. 12 Glaciers
provide data on past climate conditions, as well.
When annual snowfall solidifies into glacial ice,
air bubbles trap atmospheric gases and airborne
particles ranging from pollen to soot. Scientists then
drill into the ice and extract layered cylindrical cores
for study. 13 But they’d better act fast, before global
warming melts away these memories. For instance,
the amount of ice flowing from Antarctica’s Thwaites
Glacier has doubled over the past three decades.

66 DISCOVERMAGA ZINE .COM

You’ll Be Smitten With This Kitten!

Baltic Amber NOW
Feline Pendant ONLY

925 Sterling Silver $99
18k Gold Plating
Genuine Baltic Amber +S&H
Complimentary 18”+2” Chain
(You Save

$150)

Natural Baltic Amber
Delightfully shaped in
to your purr-fect feline

companion

This feline is sitting pretty. Fashioned THE BEAUTY OF AMBER comes
from the fossilized resin of trees.
from sterling silver, plated in 18k 40 million years ago, this resin
yellow gold. Two bright Baltic was exuded by trees to heal
Amber stones form the body of damage to a branch or trunk.
this purr - fect kitty. Complete with Embedded with the ability to
a bow tie collar. A charming design produce negative ions, amber
that everyone will love. Beautifully has been made into a variety
crafted 925 sterling silver, lavishly of decorative objects; used
plated with yellow gold to in jewelry ,and as a healing
compliment the oval cognac Baltic agent in traditional folk
amber that has been precision medicine. Baltic Amber from
handset into each piece. Order around the Baltic Sea contains
today as we have limited stock a higher percentage (8%) of

available. succinite, which acts as an anti-
The Baltic region is home to the largest inflammatory and an analgesic when
known deposit of amber, dating from 44 million
years ago (during the Eocene epoch). Amber is a worn against the skin.
unique gem; not only is it simply beautiful but also Order this exceptionally beautiful piece now at
equips mankind with valuable data through its capacity the stunning reduced offer price of $99 plus S&H
to show us the past. It can preserve organic tissues simply call us toll-free or visit our online store.
of life forms, something both valued by scientists and Remember to quote or enter your promo code to
obtain the offer price. We’ll ship directly to your door
gem collectors alike. making this the perfect, hassle-free gift for yourself
or others. If you’re not completely satisfied with 30
days simply return to us for a full refund of the offer

price.

ORDER NOW TOLL FREE 24/7 ON

1-800 733 8463
AND QUOTE PROMO CODE: DS2NBC

Or order online at
timepiecesusa.com/ds2nbc and enter promo code DS2NBC

Timepieces Int Inc, 10701 NW 140th Street, Suite 1, Hialeah Gardens, Florida, 33018