Biomimetics – Page 14

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Envying the Tooth of the Sea Urchin

March 31, 2009

Did you know the lowly sea urchin has a tooth? It’s not just any tooth: it’s “a remarkable grinding tool,” according to a team of international scientists. They even used the word “exquisite” in the title of their paper in PNAS.1 Humans might benefit from knowing more about this tool. “The improved understanding of these […]

Biomimetics

See Like a Bee, Fly Like a Fly

March 11, 2009

An aerospace engineer in Australia was inspired by insects to design a better way for missiles to find their targets. Aviation Week reported on work announced by the Australian Government Department of Defense. “Bioseeker,” a new guidance system for smarter weapons, was inspired by insect navigation. The Hon. Warren Snowdon, on his website as Minister […]

Biomimetics

Can Evolution Keep You Safe?

February 25, 2009

A new practical use for Darwinism has come to light: natural security. Two recent articles claim that we can learn from evolution how best to protect ourselves. Natural security: Darwinism can be practical, thinks Rafe Sagarin, an ecologist at Duke University. Science Daily reported that he is using Darwinian principles to write and speak about […]

Amazing Facts

The Uses of Wood Rot

February 16, 2009

Wood rot fungus doesn’t sound like a useful thing. Most people would rather get rid of it – especially those who have seen their houses decay because of it. Some scientists, however, are intrigued by it. It may have properties that could some day help power your car. Science Daily reported that the […]

Amazing Facts

Modeling Solar Cells on Butterflies

February 7, 2009

Sunlight is free – if we could just learn how to use it better. For decades, engineers have been trying to improve the efficiency of solar cells. Why not look at nature? Science Daily reported on work going on in China and Japan: “The discovery that butterfly wings have scales that act as tiny solar […]

Amazing Facts

Corn Is Fuel in More Ways than One

February 3, 2009

There’s been controversy lately about the diversion of corn crops from food for humans to ethanol for engines. Why not both? A new pilot program announced by Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft saves the corn cobs for eating but makes ethanol out of the straw. If so, this would make the whole plant an energy factory for the human […]

Biomimetics

Minerals Can Fool Astrobiologists

January 21, 2009

Look at this picture on National Geographic News. Looks alive, doesn’t it? It’s only a mineral. The article contains a gallery of five micrographs of minerals that form curvy crystals. They’re called biomorphs (a word simply meaning life-like shapes). “Until now scientists had thought rounded crystals, such as those found in seashells and […]

Amazing Facts

Handy Motor Found in Virus

December 30, 2008

Your job today is to stuff a delicate chain into a barrel without breaking it and make it wrap neatly inside. A tiny virus does this with helping hands, reported Purdue University. A research team uncovered the mechanism of a “powerful molecular motor” that crams the viral DNA tightly into the capsid with the help […]

Biomimetics

Fly Swiftly

December 8, 2008

Swifts are amazing little birds in more ways than speed. They are inspiring advanced technology.

Amazing Facts

Thanks to Clam Design, Stronger Materials Are Coming

December 6, 2008

Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Labs have produced a lightweight composite material 300 times stronger than its constituents. How? By taking inspiration from clams. The team, writing in Science,1 described nacre, the shiny mother-of-pearl found inside clam shells. Because of the way it sandwiches crystalline aragonite with layers of protein (07/26/2004), nacre resists […]

Biomimetics

Knowledge of Light Is Power

November 28, 2008

Now that engineers are becoming adept at manipulating materials at the scale of billionths of a meter, they are taking first steps toward using a power source familiar to plants: light. Science Daily described the first humble attempts to get light photons to drive nano-sized machines. The article did not mention whether photosynthesis […]

Amazing Facts

Snails Walk on Water

October 27, 2008

Why is that scientist staring at a snail? He’s watching a miracle: walking on water. This is not our exaggeration: Matt Kaplan on National Geographic News entitled his article, “How Snails Walk on Water Is a Small Miracle.” If we can figure out the trick, we might be able to make little robots do it […]

Biomimetics

Living Better Bioelectrically

October 4, 2008

Electric eels are inspiring a new generation of fuel cells. Science Daily reported that a remarkable fusion of engineering and biology may lead to tiny electronic devices that run on biology’s own energy currency, ATP. “Engineers long have known that great ideas can be lifted from Mother Nature, but a new paper by researchers at […]

Amazing Facts

Fastest Squirt Gun in the Fungi

September 26, 2008

A paper on PLoS One described the highest-speed flights in all nature: the spore discharge mechanisms in certain fungi. A dozen scientists in Ohio worked to capture the action on ultra-high-speed cameras. It took 250,000 frames per second to reveal how fast the projectiles accelerate. The answer: from 20,000 to 180,000 g (where g = […]

Amazing Facts

Butterfly Wings Xeroxed

September 6, 2008

If you can’t build it, copy it. Scientists have had a hard time reconstructing the photonic crystals that make butterfly wings shimmer with light (01/29/2003), so they made, in effect, a carbon copy. PhysOrg described how scientists at Penn State made impressions of the regularly-spaced geometric shapes from a butterfly wing and transferred it to […]

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