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  • Silversword plants in the crater of the Haleakala Volcano on Maui, Hawaii. USA. These remarkable plants, which bloom only once in thirty years and then die, were nearly wiped out by goats and vandals; they then made a comeback only to face a new threat: Argentine ants. This introduced alien ant species eats the larvae of the native Hawaiian insects, which pollinates the plants, threatening the future survival of the Silverswords.
    USA_HI_26_xs.jpg
  • Silvresword plants in the crater of the Haleakala Volcano on Maui, Hawaii. USA. These remarkable plants?which bloom only once in thirty years and then die?were nearly wiped out by goats and vandals; they then made a comeback only to face a new threat: Argentine ants. This introduced alien ant species eats the larvae of the native Hawaiian insects, which pollinates the plants, threatening the future survival of the Silverswords.
    USA_HI_25_xs.jpg
  • Kuang Si Waterfall, Luang Prabang, Laos.
    LAO_120128_125_x.jpg
  • US department of agriculture Jonathan Saito with beagle, Joice, checking a Northwest Airlines flight from Guam for brown tree snakes. Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii. USA.
    USA_HI_54_xs.jpg
  • John Barone, senior Project Manager of the Fieldstone Corporation (a big developer). At future housing subdivision site; home to the threatened Gnatcatcher bird in La Costa, California, (San Diego County) MODEL RELEASED.
    USA_SCAL_04_xs.jpg
  • Kuang Si Waterfall, Luang Prabang, Laos.
    LAO_120128_199_x.jpg
  • Kuang Si Waterfall, Luang Prabang, Laos.
    LAO_120128_128_x.jpg
  • Kuang Si Waterfall, Luang Prabang, Laos.
    LAO_120128_121_x.jpg
  • Hapu'u ferns in the rain forest of the Kamakou preserve on Molokai, Hawaii. USA. These ferns are considered a delicacy by feral pigs, which have devastated large sections of native forests by rooting and digging. The pigs are being eliminated by hunting and fencing. .
    USA_HI_56_xs.jpg
  • US department of agriculture Mike Smith with beagle, Cagney, sniffs luggage from arrivals from Asia for fruit, vegetables and meat. Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii. USA.
    USA_HI_53_xs.jpg
  • Chinese bamboo overtaking native forest near Hana at Kipahulu. Maui, Hawaii. USA.
    USA_HI_48_xs.jpg
  • Miconea, an invasive weed, has taken over large sections of mountainous forest near Hana on Maui. These plants "escaped" from a nursery where they were sold as ornamental landscaping plants. Near Hana, Maui, Hawaii. USA. MODEL RELEASED.
    USA_HI_45_xs.jpg
  • Miconea, an invasive weed near Hana, Maui, Hawaii. USA. Miconia has taken over large sections of mountainous forest near Hana on Maui. These plants ?escaped? from a nursery where they were sold as ornamental landscaping plants..
    USA_HI_42_xs.jpg
  • Chinese bamboo overtaking native forest near Hana at Kipahulu, Maui, Hawaii. USA.
    USA_HI_41_xs.jpg
  • Nene goose, the endangered state bird of Hawaii, USA, in Volcanoes National Park on the island of Hawaii. At 230,000 acres, Hawaii's Volcanoes National Park dominates the southeast end of the Big Island, sweeping from lava-bound coast to high-mountain rain forest. Midway up the mountain, in the dry land forest, protection from predators plays a big role in the effort to bring back the nene in one of Hawaii's largest wild nene flock (about 160 birds)..Volcano National Park, Big Island, Hawaii. USA. .
    USA_HI_52_xs.jpg
  • Rainforest "weedbusters" chop & apply herbicide to invasive weeds. The ?weedbusters? of Volcanoes National Park on the island of Hawaii defend the park from the most vexatious invasive plants (Chris Zimmer and Lowell Thomas, rear; Kim Tavares and Bob Mattos, front). They are National Park employees who use machetes and weed killing chemicals to rid sections of forest of non-native invasive plants such as Kahili Ginger, Banana Poka, and Kikuyu (African grass)..Volcano National Park, Big Island, Hawaii. USA. MODEL RELEASED..
    USA_HI_51_xs.jpg
  • Rainforest "weedbuster" Bob Mattos chopping & applying herbicide to invasive weeds; Kahili Ginger. Volcano National Park Big Island, Hawaii. USA. MODEL RELEASED.
    USA_HI_50_xs.jpg
  • Miconia, an invasive weed, has taken over large sections of mountainous forest near Hana on Maui. These plants "escaped" from a nursery where they were sold as ornamental landscaping plants. Near Hana, Maui, Hawaii. USA.
    USA_HI_46_xs.jpg
  • Relic Rain Forest near Cape Otway, southern Australia. View of the diversity of plant species under the canopy of a sub- tropical rain forest. The rain forests are vast regions of multi-layered floral communities. Tall trunks of the canopy trees are interspersed with species that are more at home in dark conditions. Environmentalists and scientists alike lament the destruction of the Earth's rain forests as one of the great disgraces of humanity: not only are the rain forests a major source of oxygen (from plant respiration) but they are also home to millions of unique plant and animal species. Environment [1989]
    AUS_SCI_DINO_01_xs.jpg
  • USA.rs.312.qxxs.A surprising amount of the lab's work at Robert Full's Poly-PEDAL laboratory at UC Berkeley (California) focuses on cockroaches, because they are exceptionally mobile?for their size, the fastest species on the planet. The fastest roach is a big species known, melodramatically, as the death-head roach, seen here in its "run" at the Poly-PEDAL lab. As the run demonstrates, cockroaches do not have to have secure footing to move quickly. Instead, they use two alternating sets of legs (two on one side, one on the other) as springs, almost bouncing themselves forward. Remarkably, the insect brain doesn't have to see its feet or even be aware of them. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 96.
    USA_rs_312_qxxs.jpg
  • A German fossil expert carrying the skull of a fossil fish, Xiphactinus. This photo was taken in a motel in Tucson, Arizona, during the annual Fossil Fair. Amateur and commercial collectors gather at the fair to trade in fossil remains. Although many academics are unhappy with such events, amateur collectors frequently discover the remains of previously unknown species or very fine examples of known species. Such fossils are recovered from private land: in the USA private individuals are rarely granted the special license needed to hunt for fossils on public land. MODEL RELEASED (1991)
    USA_SCI_FOS_09_xs.jpg
  • Dan Ulmer and wife, two fossil merchants share their motel room with a variety of large fossils. On the table next to the bed is a leg bone from a dinosaur and the skull of a prehistoric rhinoceros-like animal (Brontotherium sp.). Brontotherium was a genus of mammals that lived in the Lower Oligocene period about 35 million years ago in what is now North America. This photo was taken during the Fossil Fair at Tucson, Arizona, where amateur and commercial fossil collectors gather to trade in the remains of prehistoric animals. Although frowned upon by many academics, amateur collectors frequently find remains of new fossil species or very fine examples of known species. MODEL RELEASED (1991)
    USA_SCI_FOS_19_xs.jpg
  • In the water, pike can accelerate at a rate of eight to twelve g's, as fast as a NASA rocket. To scientists, the speed is inexplicable. In an attempt to understand how the flap of a thin fish tail can push a fish faster than any propeller, John Kumph, then an MIT graduate student, built a robotic version of a chain-pickerel?a species of pike?with a spring-wound fiberglass exoskeleton and a skin made of silicone rubber. Now under further development by iRobot, an MIT-linked company just outside Boston in Somerville, MA, the robo-fish can't yet swim nearly as fast as a real pike, suggesting how much remains to be learned. Photographed at the MIT tow tank, Cambridge, MA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 108-109.
    USA_rs_304_qxxs.jpg
  • Native corn seed examples (known as "landraces") from Oaxaca State, Mexico. Oaxaca is thought to be the corn cradle of the Americas: the origin of corn species that were domesticated and that spread all over the world.
    MEX_093_xs.jpg
  • Eyes sweeping the room with what seems to be hopeful curiosity, Kismet the robot sits like an animated bust on Cynthia Breazeal's desk at MIT in Cambridge, MA. When it spots visitors, the robot's expression changes to an almost uncannily convincing expression of interest and delight. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species. One of a series of Kismet images.
    USA_rs_42_nxxs.jpg
  • In a spanking new, richly-appointed research center above a busy shopping street in Tokyo's stylish Harajuku district, Hiroaki Kitano shows off his robot soccer team. In addition to Kitano's humanoid-robot work at Kitano Symbiotic Systems Project, a five-year, government-funded ERATO project, Kitano is the founder and chair of Robot World Cup Soccer (RoboCup), an annual soccer competition for robots. There are four classes of contestants: small, medium, simulated, and dog (using Sony's programmable robot dogs). Kitano's small-class RoboCup team consists of five autonomous robots, which kick a golf ball around a field about the size of a ping-pong table. An overhead video camera feeds information about the location of the players to remote computers, which use the data to control the robots' offensive and defensive moves. Japan. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 213 top.
    Japan_JAP_rs_31_qxxs.jpg
  • Sleek and elegant, the head of this unfinished robot was constructed by the Symbiotic Intelligence Group of the Kitano Symbiotic Systems Project. It is funded by an ERATO grant from the Japan Science and Technology Corporation, a branch of the Science and Technology Agency of the Japanese government. SIG, as this robot is named, has a white outside shell designed by a project artist, group leader Hiroaki Kitano is a firm believer in the importance of aesthetics. Tokyo, Japan. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 80-81.
    Japan_JAP_rs_241_qxxs.jpg
  • USA_SCI_BIOSPH_83_xs <br />
Biosphere 2 Project undertaken by Space Biosphere Ventures, a private ecological research firm funded by Edward P. Bass of Texas.  Carl Hodges, Director of the Environmental Research Lab at the University of Arizona and a consultant of the project. Biosphere 2 was a privately funded experiment, designed to investigate the way in which humans interact with a small self-sufficient ecological environment, and to look at possibilities for future planetary colonization. The $30 million Biosphere covers 2.5 acres near Tucson, Arizona, and was entirely self- contained. The eight ‘Biospherian’s’ shared their air- and water-tight world with 3,800 species of plant and animal life. The project had problems with oxygen levels and food supply, and has been criticized over its scientific validity. MODEL RELEASED 1989
    USA_SCI_BIOSPH_83_xs.jpg
  • USA_SCI_BIOSPH_82_xs <br />
Biosphere 2 Project undertaken by Space Biosphere Ventures, a private ecological research firm funded by Edward P. Bass of Texas.  Margaret Augustine, project architect. Biosphere 2 was a privately funded experiment, designed to investigate the way in which humans interact with a small self-sufficient ecological environment, and to look at possibilities for future planetary colonization. The $30 million Biosphere covers 2.5 acres near Tucson, Arizona, and was entirely self- contained. The eight ‘Biospherian’s’ shared their air- and water-tight world with 3,800 species of plant and animal life. The project had problems with oxygen levels and food supply, and has been criticized over its scientific validity. 1989
    USA_SCI_BIOSPH_82_xs.jpg
  • USA_SCI_BIOSPH_76_xs <br />
Biosphere 2 Project undertaken by Space Biosphere Ventures, a private ecological research firm funded by Edward P. Bass of Texas.  Tony Burgess, a biologist and consultant to the project, in the Arizona desert with saguaro cacti.  Biosphere 2 was a privately funded experiment, designed to investigate the way in which humans interact with a small self-sufficient ecological environment, and to look at possibilities for future planetary colonization. The $30 million Biosphere covers 2.5 acres near Tucson, Arizona, and was entirely self- contained. The eight ‘Biospherian’s’ shared their air- and water-tight world with 3,800 species of plant and animal life. The project had problems with oxygen levels and food supply, and has been criticized over its scientific validity.1990
    USA_SCI_BIOSPH_76_xs.jpg
  • USA_SCI_BIOSPH_74_xs <br />
Biosphere 2 Project undertaken by Space Biosphere Ventures, a private ecological research firm funded by Edward P. Bass of Texas.  Visitors Evan Menzel and Jack Menzel petting goats inside Biosphere 2 test greenhouse and livestock area.  Biosphere 2 was a privately funded experiment, designed to investigate the way in which humans interact with a small self-sufficient ecological environment, and to look at possibilities for future planetary colonization. The $30 million Biosphere covers 2.5 acres near Tucson, Arizona, and was entirely self- contained. The eight ‘Biospherian’s’ shared their air- and water-tight world with 3,800 species of plant and animal life. The project had problems with oxygen levels and food supply, and has been criticized over its scientific validity. MODEL RELEASED 1991.
    USA_SCI_BIOSPH_74_xs.jpg
  • USA_SCI_BIOSPH_73_xs <br />
Biosphere 2 Project undertaken by Space Biosphere Ventures, a private ecological research firm funded by Edward P. Bass of Texas.  Russian doctor Elena Yakhnina (left) and researcher Allen Haberstock (right).  Biosphere 2 was a privately funded experiment, designed to investigate the way in which humans interact with a small self-sufficient ecological environment, and to look at possibilities for future planetary colonization. The $30 million Biosphere covers 2.5 acres near Tucson, Arizona, and was entirely self- contained. The eight ‘Biospherian’s’ shared their air- and water-tight world with 3,800 species of plant and animal life. The project had problems with oxygen levels and food supply, and has been criticized over its scientific validity.1990
    USA_SCI_BIOSPH_73_xs.jpg
  • USA_SCI_BIOSPH_72_xs <br />
Biosphere 2 Project undertaken by Space Biosphere Ventures, a private ecological research firm funded by Edward P. Bass of Texas.  ‘Biospherian’s Mark Nelson and Jayne Poynter eating lunch inside Biosphere 2 with Roy Walford in background. Biosphere 2 was a privately funded experiment, designed to investigate the way in which humans interact with a small self-sufficient ecological environment, and to look at possibilities for future planetary colonization. The $30 million Biosphere covers 2.5 acres near Tucson, Arizona, and was entirely self- contained. The eight ‘Biospherian’s’ shared their air- and water-tight world with 3,800 species of plant and animal life. The project had problems with oxygen levels and food supply, and has been criticized over its scientific validity. 1990
    USA_SCI_BIOSPH_72_xs.jpg
  • USA_SCI_BIOSPH_70_xs <br />
Biosphere 2 Project undertaken by Space Biosphere Ventures, a private ecological research firm funded by Edward P. Bass of Texas.  Biosphere candidates inside the test greenhouse.  Biosphere 2 was a privately funded experiment, designed to investigate the way in which humans interact with a small self-sufficient ecological environment, and to look at possibilities for future planetary colonization. The $30 million Biosphere covers 2.5 acres near Tucson, Arizona, and was entirely self- contained. The eight ‘Biospherian’s’ shared their air- and water-tight world with 3,800 species of plant and animal life. The project had problems with oxygen levels and food supply, and has been criticized over its scientific validity. 1986
    USA_SCI_BIOSPH_70_xs.jpg
  • USA_SCI_BIOSPH_67_xs <br />
Biosphere 2 Project undertaken by Space Biosphere Ventures, a private ecological research firm funded by Edward P. Bass of Texas.  Hydroponic vegetable  research for Biosphere 2.  The experiment shown here was not used inside Biosphere 2.  Biosphere 2 was a privately funded experiment, designed to investigate the way in which humans interact with a small self-sufficient ecological environment, and to look at possibilities for future planetary colonization. The $30 million Biosphere covers 2.5 acres near Tucson, Arizona, and was entirely self- contained. The eight ‘Biospherian’s’ shared their air- and water-tight world with 3,800 species of plant and animal life. The project had problems with oxygen levels and food supply, and has been criticized over its scientific validity. 1986
    USA_SCI_BIOSPH_67_xs.jpg
  • USA_SCI_BIOSPH_63_xs <br />
Biosphere 2 Project undertaken by Space Biosphere Ventures, a private ecological research firm funded by Edward P. Bass of Texas.  Biosphere candidate Bernd Zabel and fish culture inside Biosphere 2 test module before the construction of the main Biosphere buidings.  Biosphere 2 was a privately funded experiment, designed to investigate the way in which humans interact with a small self-sufficient ecological environment, and to look at possibilities for future planetary colonization. The $30 million Biosphere covers 2.5 acres near Tucson, Arizona, and was entirely self- contained. The eight ‘Biospherian’s’ shared their air- and water-tight world with 3,800 species of plant and animal life. The project had problems with oxygen levels and food supply, and has been criticized over its scientific validity. 1986
    USA_SCI_BIOSPH_63_xs.jpg
  • USA_SCI_BIOSPH_65_xs <br />
Biosphere 2 Project undertaken by Space Biosphere Ventures, a private ecological research firm funded by Edward P. Bass of Texas.  Tissue culture tubes with the test module in the background.  Biosphere 2 was a privately funded experiment, designed to investigate the way in which humans interact with a small self-sufficient ecological environment, and to look at possibilities for future planetary colonization. The $30 million Biosphere covers 2.5 acres near Tucson, Arizona, and was entirely self- contained. The eight ‘Biospherian’s’ shared their air- and water-tight world with 3,800 species of plant and animal life. The project had problems with oxygen levels and food supply, and has been criticized over its scientific validity. 1986
    USA_SCI_BIOSPH_65_xs.jpg
  • USA_SCI_BIOSPH_64_xs <br />
Biosphere 2 Project undertaken by Space Biosphere Ventures, a private ecological research firm funded by Edward P. Bass of Texas.  ‘Biospherian’ Sally Silverstone inside Biosphere 2.  Biosphere 2 was a privately funded experiment, designed to investigate the way in which humans interact with a small self-sufficient ecological environment, and to look at possibilities for future planetary colonization. The $30 million Biosphere covers 2.5 acres near Tucson, Arizona, and was entirely self- contained. The eight ‘Biospherian’s’ shared their air- and water-tight world with 3,800 species of plant and animal life. The project had problems with oxygen levels and food supply, and has been criticized over its scientific validity. 1991
    USA_SCI_BIOSPH_64_xs.jpg
  • Spider web: Orb web of Araneus diadematus on coastal sage habitat in la Costa, California (San Diego County). The Fieldstone Corporation owns the land of a future housing subdivision site that is also California gnatcatcher habitat (a threatened species).
    USA_ANML_16_xs.jpg
  • One of Floyd Zaiger's mature orchards of flowering fruit trees. Floyd Zaiger (Born 1926) is a biologist who is most noted for his work in fruit genetics. Zaiger Genetics, located in Modesto, California, USA, was founded in 1958. Zaiger has spent his life in pursuit of the perfect fruit, developing both cultivars of existing species and new hybrids such as the pluot and the aprium. Fruit trees in bloom - 1988.
    USA_AG_ZAIG_13_xs.jpg
  • Floyd Zaiger cuts open a "Pluot", a cross between a plum and an apricot, in his orchard. Floyd Zaiger (Born 1926) is a biologist who is most noted for his work in fruit genetics. Zaiger Genetics, located in Modesto, California, USA, was founded in 1958. Zaiger has spent his life in pursuit of the perfect fruit, developing both cultivars of existing species and new hybrids such as the pluot and the aprium. Pluot fruit (plum & apricot) - MODEL RELEASED. 1988.
    USA_AG_ZAIG_12_xs.jpg
  • Hybrid fruit tree blossoms in Floyd Zaiger's greenhouse. Floyd Zaiger (Born 1926) is a biologist who is most noted for his work in fruit genetics. Zaiger Genetics, located in Modesto, California, USA, was founded in 1958. Zaiger has spent his life in pursuit of the perfect fruit, developing both cultivars of existing species and new hybrids such as the pluot and the aprium. A fruit tree in bloom. 1983.
    USA_AG_ZAIG_08_xs.jpg
  • Floyd Zaiger under an aprium hybrid tree. Floyd Zaiger (Born 1926) is a biologist who is most noted for his work in fruit genetics. Zaiger Genetics, located in Modesto, California, USA, was founded in 1958. Zaiger has spent his life in pursuit of the perfect fruit, developing both cultivars of existing species and new hybrids such as the pluot and the aprium. Zaiger under an aprium (apricot & plum) tree- MODEL RELEASED. 1983.
    USA_AG_ZAIG_06_xs.jpg
  • Zaiger Genetics: Apricots in test tubes in the tissue culture lab run by Grant Zaiger, Floyd's son. Floyd Zaiger (Born 1926) is a biologist who is most noted for his work in fruit genetics. Zaiger Genetics, located in Modesto, California, USA, was founded in 1958. Zaiger has spent his life in pursuit of the perfect fruit, developing both cultivars of existing species and new hybrids such as the pluot and the aprium. Tissue culture Lab. 1983.
    USA_AG_ZAIG_04_xs.jpg
  • Mammoth skeleton. Side view of the largest mounted Mammuthus columbi skeleton in the world. It is housed at the University of Nebraska State Museum, USA. At upper left are giant up-curved tusks. This specimen is 4 meters in height. Mammuthus columbi (Columbian mammoth) was a giant elephant-like mammal, which roamed temperate parts of North America more than 10,000 years ago, when it became extinct. This species was an important later relative of the woolly mammoth of Europe and Siberia. These well-preserved bones of Mammuthus columbi were discovered in Lincoln County, Nebraska, in 1922, a site famous for its fossils. The skeleton was assembled in 1933. 1992.
    USA_SCI_FOS_23_xs.jpg
  • April and Barry James, commercial paleontologists, holding the tusk of a Siberian Mammoth. Just behind them is a prepared and mounted skeleton of a Cave Bear (Ursus spelaeus), which was widespread throughout Europe in the Pleistocene Period about 2 million years ago. A skeleton in this condition can be purchased for about $35,000. Academics often frown upon such collectors, but amateurs have discovered many new species across the world. Incisor tooth comes from Siberian Mammoth. MODEL RELEASED (1991)
    USA_SCI_FOS_01_xs.jpg
  • Hunting for fossils: Mine owner Bob Foster displays fossil dinosaur remains found in an opal mine at "the Sheepyards" mine area Lightning Ridge, southern Australia. Fossil excavations usually follow existing mining operations. The seam of opal-bearing rock is about 100-120 million years old, laid down during the mid-Cretaceous Period, a time of rich diversification of dinosaur species. Australian fossils are particularly interesting, as at that time the continent was much closer to the South Pole than today. This means that many dinosaurs would have had to cope with long periods of permanent darkness during the winter months. MODEL RELEASED [1989].
    AUS_SCI_DINO_12_xs.jpg
  • Biosphere 2 Project Insectarium seen at dusk. The Biosphere was a privately funded experiment, designed to investigate the way in which humans interact with a small self-sufficient ecological environment, and to look at possibilities for future planetary colonization. The $30 million Biosphere covers 2.5 acres near Tucson, Arizona, and was entirely self-contained. The eight 'Biospherian's' shared their air- and water- tight world with 3,800 species of plant and animal life over their two-year stay in the building, producing all of their own food and supporting the whole environment in five 'biomes'; agricultural, rain forest, savannah, ocean and marsh.  1989
    USA_SCI_BIOSPH_48_xs.jpg
  • (1992) The white rhino "Dinka" at the San Diego Wild Animal Park, San Diego, CA. White rhinos were proven to be a separate species by DNA fingerprinting.
    USA_SCI_DNA_53_xs.jpg
  • (1992) At the San Diego Zoo in California, veterinarians draw blood from Galapagos tortoises for DNA fingerprinting. The samples will be used to repopulate the islands with the correct species. DNA Fingerprinting.
    USA_SCI_DNA_50_xs.jpg
  • João Agustinho Cardoso, fishes in a shallow lake near the Solimoes River in Manacapuru, Brazil. (Featured in the book What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets.) The caloric value of his day's worth of food for a typical day in the month of November was 5200 kcals. He is 69 years of age; 5 feet 2.5 inches tall and 140 pounds.  João's new house has no electricity and the toilet is simply the end of the big balsa wood logs the house is floating on. There is, however, running water, and plenty of it, in the half-mile-wide branch of the river they live on. Unfortunately the water is not potable, but it is teeming with fish, including piranha, which can make swimming during the early morning or evening worrisome. The curimata in the photo is just one of dozens of species that makes its way onto João's table. Absent from his daily diet are any alcoholic or caffeinated beverages, eschewed by his Seventh-day Adventist religion.  MODEL RELEASED.
    BRA_071107_141_xw.jpg
  • Burying his face in a 3-D viewing system, Volkmar Falk of the Leipzig Herzzentrum (Germany's most important cardiac center) explores the chest cavity of a cadaver with the da Vinci robotic surgical system. Thomas Krummel (standing), chief of surgery at Stanford University's teaching hospital, observes the procedure on a monitor displaying images from a pair of tiny cameras in one of the three "ports" Falk has cut into the cadaver. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 176.
    Usa_rs_424_120_xs.jpg
  • Pinky (chaperoned by graduate student Dan Paluska) is the prototype of the next walking robot from the MIT Leg Lab in Cambridge, MA. Established in 1980 by Marc Raibert, the Leg Lab was home to the first robots that mimicked human walking?swinging like an inverted pendulum from step to step. Famously, Raibert even built a robot that could flip itself in an aerial somersault and land on its feet. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 182.
    USA_rs_83_qxxs.jpg
  • Joseph Ayers, head of Northeastern University's Marine Research Laboratory, has been researching lobster locomotion for more than twenty years. Based on Ayers's studies, staff researcher Jan Witting is building a robotic lobster that will capture in detail the behavior of a real lobster. The project has enough potential for sweeping mines that it is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Nahant, Massachusettes. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 110-111.
    USA_rs_7_qxxs.jpg
  • Baby It's skin partially removed to reveal its inner workings, this prototype robot baby can mimic the facial expressions of a human infant by changing the contours of its lifelike rubber face. Called BIT, for Baby IT, the mechanical tot is yet more proof that much robotic research will see its first commercial application in the toy and entertainment industry. My Real Baby, the market version of BIT, is scheduled to debut in US stores in late 2000; it is a collaboration between Hasbro, the US toy giant, and iRobot, a small company started by MIT researcher Rodney Brooks.  Somerville, MA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 229.
    USA_rs_72_qxxs.jpg
  • At an early-morning procedure at Shadyside Hospital in Pittsburgh, PA., Anthony M. DiGioia (center) uses HipNav, a computerized navigation system he developed in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon's Center for Medical Robotics and Computer-Assisted Surgery, to replace the hip of a 50-year-old Pittsburgh man. Aligning the new hip properly, DiGioia explains, is necessary to avoid surgical complications. Here DiGioia, a former robotics student, uses the intra-operative guidance system and a simple "aim and shoot" interface to emplace the new hip. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 177.
    USA_rs_62_qxxs.jpg
  • After cutting off half the face of BIT, a prototype robotic doll, photographer Peter Menzel is himself photographed  by assistant Alex Wright at the headquarters of the toy's designer, iRobot of Somerville, Massachusetts. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 19.
    USA_rs_489_qxxs.jpg
  • A "smart" pallet that can move in any direction, OmniMate was designed by Johann Borenstein, a research scientists at the University of Michigan. Like the HelpMate hospital delivery robot, OmniMate sits on robotic platforms called LabMates. Although earlier robot pallets had to move along cables buried in the floor, OmniMate can track its own location by measuring its movements precisely. Borenstein is in the process of putting his robot on the market. At the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 189.
    USA_rs_486_qxxs.jpg
  • Lampbot 1.0, a nine-segment snake robot from researcher Mark Tilden in Los Alamos, New Mexico. "Nothing in nature is digital," says researcher Mark Tilden, who created Lampbot 1.0. "Everything's analog and analog can do better. Built of simple, off-the-shelf components. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 5 bottom.
    USA_rs_476_qxxs.jpg
  • Force-feedback is widely used in data gloves, which send hand movements to grasping machines. The robot hand, which was built by the students in Mark Cutkosky's Stanford lab, transmits the "feel" of the blocks between its pincers, giving operators a sense of how hard they are gripping. Stanford, CA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 137 bottom.
    USA_rs_474_qxxs.jpg
  • Rather than building an exact metal and plastic copy of an insect's bones and muscles, Stanford engineer Mark Cutkosky and his students Sean Bailey and Jorge Cham (Cutkosky at left) stripped a cockroach to its essence. The Mini-sprawl has padded feet, with springy couplings and pneumatic pistons that yank the legs up and down. Like a real roach, the robot skitters forward as each set of legs touches the surface. The next step: creating a robot that can turn and vary its speed. Stanford, CA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 99 top.
    USA_rs_473_qxxs.jpg
  • Rodney Brooks of MIT (with the latest incarnation of Cog, his humanoid robot) believes it likely that robots can achieve humanlike intelligence and consciousness. But when that happens, he says, it will be unethical to have them work for us; we shouldn't treat our creations as our slaves. I think we're a long way from having to face it, but the landscape is going to be so unimaginable that it's hard to say sensible things." MIT, Cambridge, MA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 25.
    USA_rs_457_qxxs.jpg
  • Although MIT roboticist Rodney Brooks has worked in robotics since the late 1970s, he first attracted widespread attention when he began building robot insects, in the 1980s. (He was one of the subjects of Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control, a documentary film.) From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 61.
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  • One of Rodney Brook's team's first subsumptive robots was the insectoid Attila (in photo from 1991), here being worked on by graduate student Cynthia Breazeal. The other pairs of hands belong to then-undergraduate student Mike Binnard, and former graduate student Colin Angle, who is now chief executive officer of the robotics firm iRobot. MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab, Cambridge, MA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 60.
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  • In a photo-illustration, SARCOS, an animatronic robot built by the SARCOS Research Corp., a Salt Lake City, UT, robotics company, appears to peer at the seven-card-stud hand of Scott Reynolds (at right), one of the engineers responsible for creating him (with technicians Doren Prue, center, and Charles Ledger). From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 218-219.
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  • Dismissing the fears that robots will come to dominate their creators, Hans Moravec of Carnegie Mellon argues that humans will literally become robots, "uploading" their consciousness and memories into their computers. Photographed at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 33.
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  • The product of a long quest, Robot III, an artificial cockroach built by mechanical engineer Roger Quinn (in blue shirt) and biologist Roy Ritzmann at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH, required seven years to construct. (Quinn directs the Biorobotics Lab at the university.) From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 102-103.
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  • Designed as a miniature reconnaissance airplane capable of flying at 40 mph for up to 20 minutes, AeroVironment is building the tiny Black Widow, which ultimately will be able to fly for an hour?or should be, if engineers can figure out how to pack more energy into its batteries. Zipping along at treetop level, the 15-cm-long, 58-gram Black Widow could spot details missed by even the sharpest satellite cameras. AeroVironment, Simi Valley, California. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 158 bottom..
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  • AeroVironment engineers (left to right) Marty Spadaro, Paul Trist Jr., Tom DeMarino, and Carlos Miralles cluster around the working prototype of the Mars glider, Otto. NASA sees an airplane as an important tool for exploring Mars early in the 21st century, and AeroVironment is seeking the honor of building the plane. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 158 top.
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  • Spreading its solar-power panels to catch the last feeble light of day, the Rocky 7 patrols the Mars Yard of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Controlled by an operator (visible in shed window), it is working in dimly lit conditions like those it will face on Mars, which is much farther from the Sun than the Earth is. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 125.
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  • Eyes sweeping the room with what seems to be hopeful curiosity, Kismet the robot sits like an animated bust on Cynthia Breazeal's desk at MIT in Cambridge, MA. When it spots visitors, the robot's expression changes to an almost uncannily convincing expression of interest and delight. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species. One of a series of Kismet images.
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  • Painted pink to give competitors a false sense of its harmlessness, Mouser Catbot 2000 has two deadly sawblades in its nose and tail and a hidden flipper on its back for overturning enemy robots. Built by Californians Fon Davis and April Mousley (left to right), the machine deftly trounced Vlad the Impaler, a larger machine with a hydraulic spike that shot from its snout  at Robot Wars, a two-day festival of mechanical destruction at San Francisco's Fort Mason Center. California. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 205.
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  • A rancher in Halfway, Oregon, Bob Goodman lost his arm below his elbow in a freak accident. Researchers at the University of Utah attached a myoelectric arm, which he controls by flexing the muscles in his arm that are still intact. Sensors on the inside of the prosthetic arm socket pick up the faint electrical signals from the muscles and amplify them to control the robot arm. In this way, Goodman can cook his dinner and do his chores, just as he did before the accident. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 179 top.
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  • Eyes sweeping the room with what seems to be hopeful curiosity, Kismet the robot sits like an animated bust on Cynthia Breazeal's desk at MIT in Cambridge, MA. When it spots visitors, the robot's expression changes to an almost uncannily convincing expression of interest and delight. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species. One of a series of Kismet images.
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  • Eyes sweeping the room with what seems to be hopeful curiosity, Kismet the robot sits like an animated bust on Cynthia Breazeal's desk at MIT in Cambridge, MA. When it spots visitors, the robot's expression changes to an almost uncannily convincing expression of interest and delight. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species. One of a series of Kismet images.
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  • The ghoulish host for Secrets of the Crypt Keeper's Haunted House, a Saturday-morning television show for kids, is an animatronic; that is, lifelike electronic-robot. Built by AVG, of Chatsworth, California, the Crypt Keeper can show almost every human expression, although it must first be programmed to do so. Larger gestures of head and hand are created not by programming, but by electronically linking the robotic figure to an actor. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 207.
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  • Oblivious of the seeming threat from Tyrannosaurus Rex, staff artist Lance Jacobson sculpts a batlike creature in one of the Sally Company's large, eclectic workspaces. The bat is destined for an interactive amusement park ride in Terra Mítica, a new Spanish theme park. In the ride, patrons will sit in automated, chariot-like vehicles that rattle through a mythical Greek kingdom. Armed with low-intensity, laser-firing crossbow pistols, they will take potshots at dozens of animatronic evil doers and monsters, among them, the bat-thing Jacobson is working on today. Jacksonville, Florida. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 210-211.
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  • Feeling a hand resting on his shoulder, Robert J. Ambrose looks up to see a hovering Robonaut; the early prototype for the robotic astronauts his team is building for NASA at the Johnson Space Center in Texas. Intended to accompany astronauts into space, Robonaut will be especially important in emergencies. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 128.
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  • With its carapace not yet built, the mechanism inside the head of Cog is revealed against a photographer's lights. Cog's designer is Rodney Brooks, head of MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, in Cambridge, MA. So much is required to come close to simulating a baby's mind, he believes, only shows the fantastic complexity inherent in the task of producing an artificially intelligent humanoid robot. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 59.
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  • Radio-controlled outdoor mobile platforms, Micro ATRV and ATRV-2, are produced by Real World Interface, part of iRobot of Somerville, MA. (ATRV stands for All-Terrain Robot Vehicle.) Their main purpose: to carry equipment in and out of areas difficult for human beings to navigate. Looking at the liquid-crystal display for the Micro ATRV, a Real World staffer directs it toward its larger cousin. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, pages 142-143.
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  • Surrounded by the robots used in his Georgia Institute of Technology laboratory, computer scientist Ronald C. Arkin specializes in behavior-based robots, he's written a textbook with that name. Concerned more with software than hardware, he buys robots from companies and modifies their behavior, increasing their capacities. But outside such places, what Arkin calls "the physical situatedness" of the robot is "absolutely crucial" to its ability to act and react appropriately. Like many of his colleagues, he has been inspired by the way insects and other nonhuman life forms have adapted to their environment. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 153.
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  • Passersby amble past the friendly robot giant at the doorway of FAO Schwarz in Orlando, Florida. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 1.
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  • In a Kafkaesque scenario, an anesthetized female cockroach is pinned on its back in a petri dish coated with a rubbery goo. Guiding himself by peering through a microscope, James T. Watson, a staff researcher in Roy Ritzmann's lab at Case Western Reserve University, inserts the wires from thin pink electrodes into one of the insect's leg muscles. The electrodes will be used to take measurements of the insect's leg muscles when it moves-information that will be used by roboticist Roger Quinn in his roach-robot projects. Cleveland, OH. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 104.
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  • University of California Berkeley biologist Robert Full analyzes centipede motion by observing the insect's movement across a glass plate covered with "photoelastic" gelatin. On either side of the gel are thin polarizing filters that together block all light coming through the glass. When the centipede's feet contact the gel, they temporarily deform it, altering the way light goes through it and allowing some to pass through the filters. In the test above, one group of legs works on one side of the animal's midsection while two other groups work near its head and tail. UC Berkeley (California. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 94 bottom..
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  • Gloved to ward off the possibility of a nasty bite, Berkeley biologist Robert J. Full prepares to pluck a gecko from his office door. A source of inspiration to roboticists around the world, Full's Poly-PEDAL laboratory is one of the premier research centers in the field of animal locomotion. (Polypedal means "many-footed"; PEDAL is an acronym for the Performance, Energetics, and Dynamics of Animal Locomotion.) UC Berkeley (California) From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 91.
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  • Roaming the sands like a glowing desert scarab, six-inch-long Unibug 1.0, designed by Mark Tilden, strides across the wasteland of the Great Sand Dunes National Monument in in south central Colorado. Although built of simple, off-the-shelf components, it can walk easily on a remarkable variety of surfaces, striding from a film of shallow water into deep sand without stumbling. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 2-3.
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  • Leaning over the glass-topped workbench in the spare bedroom of his Los Alamos, NM condominium, where he builds most of his robot creatures, Mark Tilden shines a flashlight on what will become the head of Nito 1.0. Many of the components scattered over his desk are simple, cheap, and (by contemporary standards) primitive; many are ripped from junked tape decks, cameras, and VCRs. Nito will be Tilden's most ambitious creation yet. (The name stands for "Neural Implementation of a Torso Organism.") When complete, he says, this easily built machine should interact in a simianlike fashion in its world. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 121..
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  • As Mark Tilden's Spyder 1.0 approaches like a tiny but menacing arachnid, its circuits try to optimize actions, walking in this case, with minimal energy. Perturbed by the environment, its patented "nervous net" seeks the minimum state, its legs moving almost randomly until it succeeds. In 1990, Spyder 1.0 was the first walking robot to use Tilden's nervous net control system. When Tilden first achieved such complex behavior from such minimal components, the results astonished some roboticists. Los Alamos, NM. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 118-119.
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  • Wielding a paint brush, a robot touches up its human master in this photo-illustration at the SARCOS robot company in Salt Lake City, UT. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 20-21.
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  • The most sophisticated machines don't necessarily triumph in the violent gladiatorial battles at San Francisco's Robot Wars, as shown when Tazbot (with turret), a simple, remote-controlled vehicle, forces a much more sophisticated, autonomously moving opponent to self-destruct. San Francisco, CA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 204 bottom.
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  • Intended to provide 360-degree images of its surroundings, Omniclops, the robot "omnicamera," is being developed by Hagen Schempf (holding Omniclops) of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. Schempf is now with the Robotics Engineering Consortium in Pittsburgh, PA. Founded in 1994 with seed money from NASA, the consortium is located off the Carnegie Mellon campus and operates with great autonomy in this enormous facility. Behind Schempf on the main floor are autonomous forklifts; out of sight, other rooms are chockablock with robotic harvesters and mine diggers. The forklift, which can understand commands like "unload the truck in bay 4," should be deployed in Ford factories by the end of 2000. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 144.
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  • Deep in the basement of the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute, Omead Amidi adjusts the wing of the robot helicopter he is designing with Takeo Kanade, a Carnegie Mellon researcher who specializes in robotic vision. Several smaller versions of the project sit in his workshop. Pittsburgh, PA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 160-161.
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  • Trying to concentrate in a crowded, busy workspace, graduate student Harumi Ayai pats makeup onto the immobile features of a face robot in the Hara-Kobayashi Laboratory. This machine, the first face robot built in the lab, has a single camera in its left eye. Notwithstanding the relative simplicity of its design, the machine was able to smile when people approached it. Although rapidly superseded by later models, the lab went through three generations in a few years, the robot is still being studied. Japan. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 78-79.
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  • The inner workings of the first generation face robot from the Hara-Kobayashi Lab in Tokyo, Japan. The first of several face robots made in Fumio Hara's lab, it has a CCD camera in its left eye that sends images to neural-network software that recognizes faces and their expressions. Calling upon its repertoire of programmed reactions, it activates the motors and pulleys beneath its flexible skin to produce facial expressions of its own. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 4.
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  • After he removes its skin, Fumio Hara gets the once-over from a face robot in the lab he co-directs with Hiroshi Kobayashi at the Science University of Tokyo, Japan. The first of several face robots made in his lab, it has a CCD camera in its left eye that sends images to neural-network software that recognizes faces and their expressions. Calling upon its repertoire of programmed reactions, it activates the motors and pulleys beneath its flexible skin to produce facial expressions of its own. The project is relatively unusual in its focus, many researchers believe that making robots walk and manipulate objects is so difficult that facial expressions are not yet worth working on. Hara disagrees, arguing that robots with animated faces will communicate with humans much more easily. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 74-75.
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  • Relaxing in his office at the Mechanical Engineering Lab in Tsukuba, Japan, Takanori Shibata pats a derivative product from his research: a robot cat named Tama. Shibata is a roboticist who studied with MIT robot guru Rodney Brooks before heading his own lab. Omron, a Japanese engineering company, applied Shibata's discoveries to produce Tama, a mechanical pet with sensors beneath its fur that react to sound and touch.  Omron says it has no plans as of yet to commercialize its robot cats. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 227.
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  • Although the Titan VII climbing robot has only four legs, its designers drew their inspiration from spiders, which have exceptional climbing skills. Built by Hideyuki Tsukagoshi, a research associate in the Tokyo laboratory of Shigeo Hirose, the machine is intended to be a mobile construction platform on steep slopes. Japan. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 192.
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  • Showing off its dexterity, DB slowly juggles three small round beanbags under the alert supervision of researcher Tomohiro Shibata. The DB project is funded by the Exploratory Research for Advanced Technology (ERATO) Humanoid Project and led by independent researcher Mitsuo Kawato. Based at a research facility 30 miles outside of Kyoto, Japan, Kowato began work by adapting a robot designed by SARCOS, a Utah robotics company. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 52-53.
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  • Lights from futuristic concept cars reflecting in the shiny column behind his head, Honda P3 chief engineer Masato Hirose has been entrusted with the transportation company's hopes of getting beyond wheels. Tokyo, Japan. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 45.
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  • Hanging from a network of cables, Brachiator III quickly swings from "branch" to "branch" like the long-armed ape it was modeled on. (Brachiator refers to "brachiation," moving by swinging from one hold to another.) The robot, which was built in the laboratory of Toshio Fukuda at Nagoya University (Japan), has no sensors on its body. Instead, it tracks its own movements with video cameras located about four meters away. Brightly colored balls attached to the machine help the cameras discern its position. Brachiator's computer, which is adjacent to the camera, takes in the video images of the machine's progress and uses this data to send instructions to the machine's arms and legs. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 87.
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