More Reasons to Imitate Biology

Recent articles about Biomimetics show that the field is still going strong.

[Note: CEH is taking a break this week. These news items are presented for those who wish to follow up on them.]

Newly developed molecule to improve pharmaceuticals draws inspiration from nature’s toolbox (Colorado State, via Phys.org). Inspired by a special enzyme that handles fluorine.

Sugars in mother’s milk help shape baby’s microbiome and ward off infection (Medical Xpress). Study of natural milk may improve synthetic imitations.

How to use limited bandwidth more efficiently? Think like a cave-dwelling fish (Science Daily). Nature-inspired device avoids jamming, could enable smarter and less expensive use of wireless communication bandwidth.

Built for speed: DNA nanomachines take a (rapid) step forward (Phys.org). “This is much slower than naturally occurring processes in living systems like protein motors, which can perform feats of dissociation similar to strand displacement in much faster time frames.”

Wireless ‘RoboFly’ Looks Like an Insect, Gets Its Power from Lasers (Live Science). But insects do it without lasers.

Researchers mimic comet moth’s silk fibers to make ‘air-conditioned’ fabric (Phys.org).

Ants’ route-finding abilities put mapping software to shame (Nature).

Has artificial intelligence become alchemy? (Science Magazine). AI can do specialized tasks, but works nothing like a real human mind. The quest to imitate the mind is like the pseudoscience of alchemy, Matthew Hutson writes.

Why we need to figure out a theory of consciousness (The Conversation). Various secular theories about mind that have come and gone.

Maybe these stories will inspire you to write an article or a blog entry about intelligent design at work in real scientific research.