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Octopi are great swimmers, but they're pretty weird about how they do it. The cephalopods get around via a strange swimming technique known as sculling, which uses all eight of their rubbery legs. Unfortunately for researchers working to recreate this movement in robots, octopi around the world have failed to leave thorough notes on just how sculling works. That means a European team working to build a robotic octopus is trying to recreate the movement from scratch, with...oh, let's call it varying degrees of success. 

Today in 'things that will one day squeeze the life out of you after you smart off one time too many to our coming robot overlords' news: this new robotic hand from DARPA. The mechanical limb can grip things as small as a ball bearing, lift objects as heavy as a 50-pound kettle bell, and doesn't so much as flinch when you give it your best shot with a baseball bat.

This is RoboBee, and it may be the world's tiniest robot. Inspired by the anatomy of aviation-inclined insects like bees and flies, it's just a bit larger than a human fingertip. And after years of work, RoboBee has joined its organic inspirations in flight. The minuscule machine designed by researchers at Harvard took to the air for the first time last year, but the footage of its flight is only available this week, now that the results have been published in the latest issue of the journal Science.

Do you need a robot that can move easily over loose sand, perhaps to serve drinks at your next beach party? Georgia Tech may be able to help you out. Last month, the University debuted a lizard inspired robot that can run over sand. This morning, they're back with another robot designed to scamper adorably across sand dunes, this one inspired by the motion of baby seat turtles. According to the Georgia Tech team, the key to the turtle's speedy movement is all in the wrist.

Robots may not have the capacity to care about us  yet, but that won't stop humans from feeling unrequited love for their android buddies. While it may seem obvious to those of us who have harbored a mad Data crush at one point or another, a new study seems to confirm that humans harbor a great deal of empathy for their robotic brethren, reacting to affection towards -- or violence against -- them in the same way they react to these things in humans.

It's that time again, folks. Time to watch everyone's favorite headless, suit-testing robot, PETMAN, strut his stuff into hypothetical peril. No, wait -- this time our creepy friend has a head and a gas mask! And not only does he walk, he squats, twists, and turns in the uncanny valley of lifelike creepiness, ensuring a place in your nightmares tonight. Designed by Boston Dynamics, PETMAN is used to "test the performance of protective clothing designed for hazardous environments."

Scientists have been hitting the pool lately. First they were building hive-minded, water-floating robots on behalf of DARPA, but now Virginia Tech's College of Engineering has created a giant, autonomous robot jelly fish. They're even jumping into the pool with that thing. Read on to see what they're doing with these gelatinous monster!

Need another reason to go to the Hannover Messe tech conference next month? How about seeing the official debut of BioniCopter, a mechanical dragonfly with a wingspan measuring over two feet? If you can't fly all the way to Germany to check it out, though, don't fret -- we've got you covered with footage of the coolest enormous robot bug you will ever see.

Researchers at the New Jersey Institute of Technology wanted to learn more about how ants moved and behaved in their colonies, so they did what anyone -- well, anyone who worked at an Institute of Technology -- would do: they built a robotic analog for the insects. The robots don't look like real ants -- they're simple, boxy things about the size of a sugar cube that are powered by watch motors -- but they behave the way ants do, moving randomly in a general direction or following the trails laid down for them by earlier ant explorers. As it happens, though, these two simple tactics allow the robots -- and the ants they're modeled after -- to navigate complicated mazes.

I'm a huge fan of robots, because let's face it -- robots are pretty awesome. Like many of our readers, though, I don't necessarily trust robots. Thanks to movies like The Terminator and psychological concepts like the uncanny valley, I find it pretty difficult not to think of a robot -- especially a humanoid one -- as a foreign creature that will eventually try to wipe out humanity. It's a pretty common concern. A study conducted at the Ars Electronica Museum in Austria, though, suggests a surprising way to make humanoid robots seem more friendly -- by giving them a backstory. Specifically, a backstory in which they are aliens.

While it's a shame it's not higher quality, I'm still amped by this video of 30 lit quadcopter robots forming a Starfleet insignia in the night sky above London, because...well, it's that sentence. Do I really have to explain why I'm totally down with it? Yes, I know it's a shameless publicity stunt. But considering it's a publicity stunt for a thing I'm already totally going to spend my money on (and you know I'm not alone there) and also involves robots, I can get behind it with fairly little trouble.

While you surf the web, go about your job, or just generally live your life, scientists are working hard to usher humanity swiftly to its inevitable decline. I realize there are many ways to do this and many fine men and women are on the job, but researchers at Cornell University have been teaching robots how to learn by watching our behavior. That's right. Robots are studying our every move, and they're learning.

If you were to gather up all the recent robots inspired by designs found in nature, you would have a pretty awesome robot petting zoo. The newest addition to it might be this bot designed by engineers at the Georgia Institute of Technology, which takes its cues from desert lizards who can move without trouble over loose, tricky terrain like sand dunes. The team behind the bot hopes its means of locomotion could one day help a new generation of of rover robots get around alien planets quickly and easily. Keep reading to get a look at the new design in action.

Look, I'm a pretty lazy guy, and as such, I'm as in favor of teaching robots to do pretty much anything. If a robot can wash my dishes, great. If a robot can hang out with my friends for me while I play video games, honestly, that's awesome. But when you teach a snake robot to automatically constrict around whatever it comes in contact with -- a tree branch, say, or your neck -- you've gone too far. That way madness lies.

On hearing yesterday's news that Carnegie Mellon University had developed a robot that turns into a tank, one of my fellow Geekosystem editors pointed out that at some point, we're just asking for a violent robot uprising. He's not wrong. I can't imagine my co-worker is going to be exactly delighted, then, by the University of Pennsylvania's newest robotic offering, a quadcopter drone equipped with a mechanical talon that allows it to snatch prey from the sky like a robotic eagle. While clearly terrifying, it's also pretty awesome, and you can get a look at in action below.