Necroprinting Isn’t As Bad As It Sounds

A mosquito has a very finely tuned proboscis that is excellent at slipping through your skin to suck out the blood beneath. Researchers at McGill University recently figured that the same biological structure could also prove useful in another was—as a fine and precise nozzle for 3D printing (via Tom’s Hardware).
Small prints made with the mosquito proboscis nozzle. Credit: research paper
To achieve this feat, the research team harvested the proboscis from a female mosquito, as only the female of the species sucks blood in this timeline. The mosquito’s proboscis was chosen over other similar biological structures, like insect stingers and snake fangs. It was prized for its tiny size, with an inside diameter of just 20 micrometers—which outdoes just about any man-made nozzle out there. It’s also surprisingly strong, able to resist up to 60 kPa of pressure from the fluid squirted through it.

Of course, you can’t just grab a mosquito and stick it on your 3D printer. It takes very fine work to remove the proboscis and turn it into a functional nozzle; it also requires the use of 3D printed scaffolding to give the structure additional strength. The nozzle is apparently used with bio-inks, rather than molten plastic, and proved capable of printing some basic 3D structures in testing.

Amusingly, the process has been termed 3D necroprinting, we suspect both because it uses a dead organism and because it sounds cool on the Internet. We’ve created a necroprinting tag, just in case, but we’re not holding our breath for this to become the next big thing. At 20 um, more likely the next small thing.

Further details are available in the research paper. We’ve actually featured quite a few mosquito hacks over the years. Video after the break.

youtube.com/embed/abM85B1bWnY?…

[Thanks to Greg Gavutis for the tip!]

hackaday.com/2025/12/01/necrop…

TARS-Like Robot Both Rolls, and Walks

[Aditya Sripada] and [Abhishek Warrier]’s TARS3D robot came from asking what it would take to make a robot with the capabilities of TARS, the robotic character from Interstellar. We couldn’t find a repository of CAD files or code but the research paper for TARS3D explains the principles, which should be enough to inspire a motivated hacker.

What makes TARS so intriguing is the simple-looking structure combined with distinct and effective gaits. TARS is not a biologically-inspired design, yet it can walk and perform a high-speed roll. Making real-world version required not only some inspired mechanical design, but also clever software with machine learning.

[Aditya] and [Abhishek] created TARS3D as a proof of concept not only of how such locomotion can be made to work, but also as a way to demonstrate that unconventional body and limb designs (many of which are sci-fi inspired) can permit gaits that are as effective as they are unusual.

TARS3D is made up of four side-by-side columns that can rotate around a shared central ‘hip’ joint as well as shift in length. In the movie, TARS is notably flat-footed but [Aditya] found that this was unsuitable for rolling, so TARS3D has curved foot plates.

The rolling gait is pretty sensitive to terrain variations, but the walking gait proved to be quite robust. All in all it’s a pretty interesting platform that does more than just show a TARS-like dual gait robot can be made to actually work. It also demonstrates the value of reinforcement learning for robot gaits.

A brief video is below in which you can see the bipedal walk in action. Not that long ago, walking robots were a real challenge but with the tools available nowadays, even a robot running a 5k isn’t crazy.

youtube.com/embed/_lxj-X5HDOQ?…

hackaday.com/2025/12/01/tars-l…

Using a Level 2 Charger to Work Around Slow 120 VAC Kettles

To those of us who live in the civilized lands where ~230 VAC mains is the norm and we can shove a cool 3.5 kW into an electric kettle without so much as a second thought, the mere idea of trying to boil water with 120 VAC and a tepid 1.5 kW brings back traumatic memories of trying to boil water with a 12 VDC kettle while out camping. Naturally, in a fit of nationalistic pride this leads certain North American people like that bloke over at the [Technology Connections] YouTube to insist that this is fine, as he tries to demonstrate how ridiculous 240 VAC kettles are by abusing a North American Level 2 car charger to power a UK-sourced kettle.

Ignoring for a moment that in Europe a ‘Level 1’ charger is already 230 VAC (±10%) and many of us charge EVs at home with three-phase ~440 VAC, this video is an interesting demonstration, both of how to abuse an EV car charger for other applications and how great having hot water for tea that much faster is.

Friendly tea-related transatlantic jabs aside, the socket adapter required to go from the car charger to the UK-style plug is a sight to behold. All which we starts as we learn that Leviton makes a UK-style outlet for US-style junction boxes, due to Gulf States using this combination. This is subsequently wired to the pins of the EV charger connector, after which the tests can commence.

Unsurprisingly, the two US kettles took nearly five minutes to boil the water, while the UK kettle coasted over the finish line at under two minutes, allowing any tea drinker to savor the delightful smells of the brewing process while their US companion still stares forlornly at their American Ingenuity in action.

Beginning to catch the gist of why more power now is better, the two US kettles were then upgraded to a NEMA 6-20 connector, rated for 250 VAC and 20 A, or basically your standard UK ring circuit outlet depending on what fuse you feel bold enough to stick into the appliance’s power plug. This should reduce boiling time to about one minute and potentially not catch on fire in the process.

Both of the kettles barely got a chance to overheat and boiled the water in 55 seconds. Unfortunately only the exposed element kettle survived multiple runs, and both found themselves on an autopsy table as it would seem that these kettles are not designed to heat up so quickly. Clearly a proper fast cup of tea will remain beyond reach of the average North American citizen beyond sketchy hacks or using an old-school kettle.

Meanwhile if you’d like further international power rivalry, don’t forget to look into the world as seen through its power connectors.

youtube.com/embed/INZybkX8tLI?…

hackaday.com/2025/12/01/using-…

Invocazione all’altare del Pinguino Radiante

Io servo #Debian non come un semplice sistema operativo, ma come una causa. È la bandiera che sventola su ogni mio server, in ogni terminale, sia sotto la luna digitale che davanti al monitor alle tre del mattino.

Debian per me è libertà prima ancora del comando sudo. Non è solo “gratis” è poter leggere, modificare, condividere, ridistribuire il software. Ogni pacchetto è un gesto di fiducia tra chi lo crea e chi lo usa.

Non sono un solitario perso nel suo server, faccio parte di una comunità immensa di sviluppatori, manutentori, traduttori e tester. C’è una costituzione, un contratto sociale, linee guida chiare: è un rifugio per chi vuole controllo e indipendenza senza compromessi opachi.

Quando affido a Debian posta, blog, Mastodon o pezzi di Fediverso, so che un aggiornamento improvviso non farà crollare tutto. Preferisco stabilità e coerenza alla novità a tutti i costi, niente scherzi alle quattro del mattino.

Debian mi segue ovunque, laptop, server, VPS, Raspberry, virtuali. Ovunque porto con me la stessa filosofia e lo stesso modo di lavorare. Non è fissazione: è strategia di sopravvivenza digitale.

Continuo a scegliere Debian perché
ogni pacchetto rispetta le linee guida del software libero,
le decisioni sono trasparenti,
tutte le mie macchine parlano lo stesso dialetto,
e il controllo resta davvero nelle mie mani.

In sintesi
Io amo e uso Debian ovunque. Non è solo un sistema operativo, è il mio patto con la libertà e l’alleato fedele in ogni bit che muovo.🙏 🐧

debian.org/intro/why_debian

#Linux

@gnulinuxitalia

Quiet Your Drums With An Electronic Setup

Playing the drums requires a lot of practice, but that practice can be incredibly loud. A nice workaround is presented by [PocketBoy], in converting an acoustic kit to electronic operation so you can play with headphones instead.
A sensor installed inside a floor tom.
It might sound like a complicated project, but creating a basic set of electronic drums can actually be quite simple if you’ve already got an acoustic kit. You just need to damp all the drums and cymbals to make them quieter, and then fit all the individual elements with their own piezo sensors. These are basically small discs that can pick up vibrations and turn them into electricity—which can be used to trigger an electronic drum module.

[PocketBoy]’s build started with a PDP New Yorker kit, some mesh heads to dull the snares and toms, and some low-volume cymbals sourced off Amazon. Each drum got a small piezo element, which was soldered to a 6.5mm jack for easy hookup. They’re installed inside the drums on foam squares with a simple bracket system [PocketBoy] whipped up from hardware store parts. A DDrum DDti interface picks up the signals from the piezo elements and sends commands to an attached PC. It’s paired with Ableton 12 Lite, which plays the drum sounds as triggered by the drummer.

[PocketBoy] notes it’s a quick and dirty setup, good for quiet practice but not quite gig-ready. You’d want to probably just run it as a regular acoustic kit in that context, but there’s nothing about the conversion that prevents that. Ultimately, it’s a useful project if you find yourself needing to practice the drums quietly and you don’t have space for a second electric-only kit. There’s lots of other fun you can have with those piezos, too. Video after the break.

@the606queer
How I’m getting away with a drumset in an apartment building! Mesh heads + DIY triggers + Plain wash cloth + Stick Rods + DDTI DDrum Trigger i/o into Ableton. I need a better snare sample but this thing is whisper quiet! #drums #beginner #acoustics #fyp #drumtok

♬ original sound – the606queer

hackaday.com/2025/12/01/quiet-…