1. Kingfisher and Bullet Train
The natural world is full of problem solvers. They've had millions of years to test things out.
The term Biomimicry refers to the process of designing materials and structures that modelled biological systems.
The common kingfisher is about 17cm in length. It makes its home in dense cover near slow-moving or still water and eats fish.
Eiji Nakatsu, an engineer and a bird watcher, took the challenge in 1990 to speed up the commuting train further. (clock up speeds)
The problem was when the train makes it into the tunnel, it makes very loud "Bang", which disturbs wildlife, makes passengers uncomfortable, and wakes up people in nearby houses.
It all comes down to aerodynamics:
when the train hits the air at the start of the tunnel, it's like a plunger being pushed into a pump. A rapid build-up of the air creates a shock wave which would speed ahead of the train, down the tunnel, like a bullet down a gun barrel;
when the shockwave got to the other end, it exited the tunnel. But because the shockwave moved at the speed of the sound, the "Bang" was heard before the train itself emerged.
It's a problem for two reasons:
a), the noise was breaking Japan's environment regulation laws which sets the maximum of 75d;
b), the compressed air was slowing the train down (a bit like wading through water).
There are about 100 species of kingfisher. Most species are found in Australia, Asia, and Africa. They are generally characterized as long sharp point bill, large heads with short legs and stubby tails.
After close examination, Nakatsu found the cross section of the upper and lower beak resembles two triangles with rounded edges which together formed squash diamond shape.
Such shape allows air to flow around it, rather than building up in front of it.
So, the newly designed train with a 15m long head model was faster, quieter, and more powerful, and 30% less air resistant.
The second problem: the train was connected to its electrical wires over head by a series of panographs. When the air hits them, it's flow was interrupted, and swirling massive of air was created, like a miniature of whirlwind, noisy one.
The owl comes to the rescue this time. The owl has the ability to fly in almost silence into unsuspecting prey.
Mimicking the comb-like serrations on owl's wing feathers, the panographs were equipped with downward turned taps to break the whirlwind and reduce the noise.
The panographs' supporting shaft was reshaped to be like penguin's body (which is like a spindle that can move effortlessly through water) to reduce further air resisitence and noise.
On 22ed March, 1997, the newly designed bullet train, inspired by three kinds of bird, was put in commercial service. And its speed and quietness was a new world record then.
2. Octopus and camouflage
The term Biomimicry refers to the process of designing materials and structures that modelled biological systems.
The common kingfisher is about 17cm in length. It makes its home in dense cover near slow-moving or still water and eats fish.
Eiji Nakatsu, an engineer and a bird watcher, took the challenge in 1990 to speed up the commuting train further. (clock up speeds)
The problem was when the train makes it into the tunnel, it makes very loud "Bang", which disturbs wildlife, makes passengers uncomfortable, and wakes up people in nearby houses.
It all comes down to aerodynamics:
when the train hits the air at the start of the tunnel, it's like a plunger being pushed into a pump. A rapid build-up of the air creates a shock wave which would speed ahead of the train, down the tunnel, like a bullet down a gun barrel;
when the shockwave got to the other end, it exited the tunnel. But because the shockwave moved at the speed of the sound, the "Bang" was heard before the train itself emerged.
It's a problem for two reasons:
a), the noise was breaking Japan's environment regulation laws which sets the maximum of 75d;
b), the compressed air was slowing the train down (a bit like wading through water).
There are about 100 species of kingfisher. Most species are found in Australia, Asia, and Africa. They are generally characterized as long sharp point bill, large heads with short legs and stubby tails.
After close examination, Nakatsu found the cross section of the upper and lower beak resembles two triangles with rounded edges which together formed squash diamond shape.
Such shape allows air to flow around it, rather than building up in front of it.
So, the newly designed train with a 15m long head model was faster, quieter, and more powerful, and 30% less air resistant.
The second problem: the train was connected to its electrical wires over head by a series of panographs. When the air hits them, it's flow was interrupted, and swirling massive of air was created, like a miniature of whirlwind, noisy one.
The owl comes to the rescue this time. The owl has the ability to fly in almost silence into unsuspecting prey.
Mimicking the comb-like serrations on owl's wing feathers, the panographs were equipped with downward turned taps to break the whirlwind and reduce the noise.
The panographs' supporting shaft was reshaped to be like penguin's body (which is like a spindle that can move effortlessly through water) to reduce further air resisitence and noise.
On 22ed March, 1997, the newly designed bullet train, inspired by three kinds of bird, was put in commercial service. And its speed and quietness was a new world record then.
2. Octopus and camouflage
When it comes to cool animals, octopus is hard to beat: It has three hearts, blue blood, can grow back arms, squirt ink to deter predators, being boneless so that it can squeeze in and out of the smallest space.
With such trickery and deceit, they are he master of disguise. They can not only change the colour, but also the texture of their skin to match their surroundings.
In the world of increasingly safisticated surveillance and counter-surveillance, the race to unlock the secret of octopus could have very high stakes indeed.
What we know about as octopus, squids, cuttlefish, nautiloids are all belong to Cephalopods, a word from Greek meaning a head attatched to a foot (of a mass of suck-bearing tentacles).
They are highly intelligent ocean dwelling creatures.
They come all sizes and shapes. The giant squid can be 6 times of length of a bed; the smallest pygmy squid can just sit on your finger.
They prefer the warmer climates with the most diversified near the equator and decreased as getting closer to the poles.
Few facts about them:
They move by the "Jet Propulsion"--strong muscle fill the body cavity with water and spell it through funnels which propel the animal in the opposite direction.
They have the largest brains of any invertebrate(animals without bones).
They have good memory--they can learn by watching or through trial and error.
They are cunning predictors, proficient stalkers, excellent ambushers, and master of disguise of course.
Mimick octopus can change skin colour, stretch out arms to spook off enemies.
One of those venomous octopus, mainly nestle along the coastline of Japan to Australia, can turn skin into bright blue and black rings to warn preyers.
How do they change the skin colour?
Just beneath the surface of skin, thousands of colour-changing cells called chromatophore. The centre of each cell contains a sack full of pigment, by expending or contracting these cells, they push pigment to the skin and change colour in the blink of eye.
Some can reflect the colour of their background, making it less conspicious.
How do they modify their skin texture?
From small pumps to big lumpy spikes, they do this by adjusting the size of projection on their skin called papillae.
These traits are so intriguing to scientists to create useful surveillance technology.
Inspired by the colour-changing octopus, US scientists have developed a kind of flexible skin that can read its environment and mimick its surroundings.
The skin is made of thermal ceramic materials to respond the changing temperatures by changing colours.
Starting with black and white and some green strikes, and small size piece of skin, it is made of ultra-thin layer containing sensors, reflectors and colour-changing materials.
They are called the "monster sandwich":
top layer contains the temperature sensored dye;
then the layer of white reflective silver tiles;
then an ultra-thin layer that choose dyer temperatures;
underneath, the base layer containing light#detected sensors so that it knows how and when to change colour. They appear black at low temperature and clear as temperature rises up to 43°C;
About two sheets of paper, such material can do all these accordingly within one or two seconds.
Some more frivolous ideas are useful in surveillance and military applications.
Such camouflage can reduce a robot's visibility, thus making it easier to access and explore dangerous areas. It offers the robots better protection too.
It's useful in studying animals in their natural habitat. It can get closer and avoid itself being attacked or damaged.
A soft colour-changing robot, developed by Harford engineers, that could stand out or blend in its surroundings and against inferate detection.
Made of silicon based materials; having a network of tiny channels for letting dye pumps in to change colour; thermal camouflage.
It's been modified since 2011.
Such exciting technology innovations has ways to go before they are exploited commercially. But we should keep an eye on it.
3. Mosquito and surgical needle
Mosquito, the insect that jabs us with its needle like mouth parts and feeds on our blood, could hold the answer to the future pain free injection.
You may hear it coming, but you rarely feel its bite.
There are more than 3000 species of mosquitos worldwide. With mosquito comes mosquito-born diseases, mainly in East Africa, Latin America, India, Southeastern Asia.
The word mosquito comes from Spanish for little fly. Mosquito is a type of fly--a slender segment body, a pair of wings, three pairs of hair-like legs, feathery antennae, elongated mouth parts.
Not all mosquitos are blood suckers. Less than 14% of them feed on human blood. But it's still the deadliest animal worldwide. Because they have the ability to spread viruses and other diseases causing microorganism which results in millions of death globally every year. Say, malaria, Dangue fever, Zika, Chikungunya, Yellow fever, etc.
Actually, the female ones are the blood suckers who need a blood meal before laying eggs. It's the protein in blood they consume that is crutial for egg development.
The male ones usually feed on honey plants, nectar, fruit juice.
Only after they punched your skin, fed on your blood and left the scene of crime that you notice a bumper appeares and iching begins.
The iching has nothing to do with the bites itself. It's caused by the bacteria and anti-coagulant injected by the insects to prevent your blood from clotting.
When mosquitos are doing their worst and sucking your blood, you feel nothing. It's all thanks to the design of their mouth parts.
It's far more complicated than a sharp drinking strew stuck to your face.
Mosquitos have several different stylets or probes inside retrectable cover which they use to pierce the skin and penetrate the blood vessels. Together, these form the proboscis.
Scientists do research on them with the aim for pain free surgical needle.
Japanese got its started.
It's, like the traditional syringe that has a sharp end to pierce the skin, got to the smooth surface, along with it, to allow its pass through the skin and flesh uninterrepted. The pain you feel when it's inserted into your skin comes down to the fact that all that metal comes direct contect to skin. Because it's serated, it makes very little contect of the skin which reduces the stimulation of nerves and, as a result, you feel less pain.
It's based on the observation on mosquito, by high-speed microscopes, to watch the sequence of events of how they feed.
The proboscis is made of several parts:
The labum--a sort of sheets covering other mouth parts. When mosquito lands on the skin, it uses it gently to press on the surface of the skin before other mouth parts inserted.
The mandibles and maxillae. They are responsible for piercing the skin.
The mandibles has pointed ends and go deeper into the skin; The maxillae has the end in jagged blades which engribs the flesh and penetrates the host.
Mosquitos vibrate their head to make it more easily into the flesh. Once in, mosquitos can push against and drive the mouth part even deeper.
So, inside the host are two tubes. One pumps saliva down into the flesh which numb the skin; the other sucks the blood.
How dose mosquito find the host?
They are attracted by carbon dioxide by our breath, body heat and various oders from our skin.
Once she landed, she searches the area where blood vessels are close to the surface.
The needle scientists developed has the silicon needle edge. About the thickness of human hair--1mm long, 0.1mm in diameter. Two harpoon-like jagged edges outer shanks to penetrate the skin; drug-delivering and blood-sucking tube moves down between them; only touching the patient at the sharp of the top; also mimick the vibration by tiny motors.
They have to be durable, last longer, fit with 5mm tank to store the fluids it collected.
Scientists hope this could be applied on small blood collecting, wireless devices permanently attach to the body used for monitoring sugar level, blood cholesterol or simply collecting blood samples.
Scientists in America found something further.
The area close to the tip and edge of mouth parts is softest which leads to less pain due to the fact that deforming the skin less, the nerves of the skin send less signals.
And the force mosquito pushes is three times lower than artificial ones.
Maybe, in the future, they would save more lives than it costs.
4. Woodpecker and Black box
The link between the forest head-bangers and the survival of the plane's flight recorder which records audio and data during flight and help the investigators in the event of accident or crash.
Woodpacker belongs to a family of birds(mainly in South Africa, India, Nigeria) also includes the smallest one is only 7cm in length, the great one 50cm in length; the emperial or ivory Woodpacker are even bigger but have been announced extinct.
They are woodland and forest birds. But there are some exceptions for some can be found in desert area in southwest America and west Mexico.
Woodpacker, as their name suggests, much of their time packing at wood. Clinging vertically to the tree, they rapidly hammer the bark in search for food like insects and grubs. They can also drill holes into dead or dying trees where the wood is slightly soft to create nests--caves in the tree.
They use bill or beak to pack. They also drum to communicate with other Woodpackers, to claim territories, or to attract mates. The launder, continuous drumming indicates their bold statement.
They have strong chisel-shaped bills which are very good for chisel into wood. They also have long sticky tongues for extracting insects from bark. Their stiff tail and grasp in toes help them secure the tree trunks.
The key is they can bash their head against the tree up to 22 times per second without doing themselves any damage which is so incredible.
Here comes the term--G force: a gravitation force that acts on objects as they move through space. The more Gs, the stronger force.
We feel it when we increase or decrease the speed.
The plane take-off produces 2Gs; rollercoaster 5-6Gs.
Human tends to pass out 6Gs for a certain time. But we can't handle sudden impacts to the head of 80Gs before getting concussed.
Woodpacker can take 1200Gs as they drum on the tree which is more beyond impressive.
Woodpackers' skull is designed to absorb shock and minimise the damage. A bit like sponge that skull can compress and expend. The bone that surround the brain is thick and spongy and packed something called trabeculae. Like microscopic plates, it forms a tightly woven mash which provides support and protection and stops low-frequency vibration from passing through--the armor for the brain.
Woodpacker also have hyoid bone.
Hyoid in human services as a anchor for the tongue.
In Woodpacker, these solid, springy, bony support is much longer and forms a loop around the entire skull which acts as a soft belt for the brain.
So, here are four shock-absorbing features:
the hard but elastic beak;
the hyoid spongy tongue supporting structure that extend behind the skull;
an area of spongy bone in the skull;
a skull design which suppresses vibration.
Scientists in U.S., with the aim of protecting electronic devices like flight recorders from damage, use these features as a blueprint to build a mechanical shock-absorbing system to protect micro-electronics.
A cylindrical steel metal enclosure (mimicking the beak), add a layer of rubber within it (the hyoid), and second layer of metal to protect the micro-electronics in between.
In a test, by air-firing the bullet against the wall, it shows it can stand 60,000G!
In a Formula One race, thanks to neck and head supporting system, sophisticated seatbelts, clover designed cockpit, the driver, whose car crashed, and tumble-rolled against the track wall, could walked away with his life.
A design for cyclists by a London engineer--the bike helmet. Double-density cardboard(which I light and recyclable) with honey comb structure.
Such inspiration could help building a safer place.
5. Bat and Visual aid
According to WHO, there are about 36m blind people and 1.3b visual impairment people in the world.
Animals, that are active in the dark or at night, in the cave or under the water, use sound to communicate and nevigate.
Bat species are masters in using sound to hunt and nevigate. The way they do this inspires scientists to come up with ideas to help blind and partially-sighted people.
Flight has enable bats become the most widely distributed groups of mammals in the world. Apart from high Actic, Antactic, and few oceanic islands, they exist in almost every habitat on earth.
Their forelimbs are adapted as wings. The largest bat species is fruit bat or flying fox for their fox-alike faces. Their wing span can be 1.7m. While, the smallest species only has 15cm wing span.
Echolocation is the skill they possess. It can provide sensory information that is similar to vision. e.g. Bats can not only locate and catch insect while they are flying, they can also gather information about the size, and even the soft or hard body.
So how does it work?
Staring at a glowing sonar system, as the steady pulse if sound spread around out into dark abyss. As soon as that sound wave comes into contect with object that is in range, the sound is reflected back and a mark pops up on the screen. The heroic part is minused here.
As bats flying around, they act as similar fashion as the submarine sonar.
By sending out high-pitched or frequency calls, up to 200 of them per second and listening to the returning echoes, they can build up a sonic map of their surroundings, a 3D one which is constantly changing as they fly around.
They can use the image to estimate the distance of an object from how long it takes the sound to return.
They vary how they produce pulses of sound to distinguish between both stationary objects and moving preys.
Different bat species echolocate within specific frequency ranges that suits to their particular environment and their type of prey. So, we can identify many bat species by listening to their calls by the help of a bat-detector--a device converts high pitch calls into sounds we can hear.
In the past decade, "we can echolocate" has been the hot topic.
A Spanish scientist found people can develop echolocation skills: by producing certain kind of tongue-clicks, people are able to identify objects around them. It can be life-changing to blind people.
The palat click: placing the tip of your tongue on the palat or roof of your mouth, just behind your teeth, sucking so a slight of vacuum, and move it quickly backwards.
A blind American has used it to climb mountain, ride a bike. It makes you wonder the human limits.
With practice, two hours a day, about several weeks, you can detect whether there is an object in front of you; more practice, you can sense the texture: walking through the bushes or matel fence.
This skill(producing shapes, textures, movements in mental image, a 3D mind map of the world) is also useful for firefighters, rescue teams or thos lost in fog when the vision is poor.
English scientists concurred it that this skill is what we can all learn about.
In India, a mobility aid based on the principle use of echolocation was invented. A handheld device like a bulky mobile phone with earbugs. It's used to detect objects within three metres radiates, produce sound patterns conveying information of these objects, transmit radiate sound and receive a transformed reflected sound into electrical signals. The device computes information and calculates the distance of the objects, then translates into audio notes to inform the user.
A bit like parking sensors on cars.
In 2009, Spanish scientists developed a helmet that takes real time image of the world and combines it with depth data from lasa arranged finder and present these information as audio cues through headphone. An enhanced version of human sonar.
Also in India, a smart cane has been developed. With ultra-sounds system, it uses sonic waves to identify substance and conveys through patten of vibration which can be felt in users' hand.
Such technology will get better and better to enhance the life of visual-impaired people and sharp our sensory skills.
Maybe hearing is believing.
6. Tardigrade and Vaccine Transport
This tiny creature is a kind if animal that can handle being heated up to 148°c, or being frozen at -272°c, or standing radiation level that would be lethal to human.
Such a toughest animal, the smallest of the small, on earth, it's the stuff of science fiction with powers beyond belief.
Human being can be dying of thrust or dehydration after three days without drinking water. But tardigrade can be completely dehydrated for more than a year.
Hydrabiosis is the term referring to a life without water.
Tardigrade is a half millimetre in size. It's also called moss piglet or water bear.
Let a piece of moss wetter for 20m, then squeeze out all the water, you will find something like a miniature of a vacuum bag with eight legs stuck to it.
Bizzard doesn't even begin to describe these creatures:
a pair of black eyes;
few have body plates;
some are omnivorous, others are ruthless carnivores;
tiny sensory hairs lie in their mouth which help them to guide food into a specialized furrow or tube which sucks food into the gut.
They are indestructible.
From living the moss in your garden, they've been spotted on the top of Himalaya, in Japan, even at the bottom of the Antarctic ocean.
They own heir title of the "extremephile".
A Dutch scientist, in 1702, first described tardigrade in a letter he sent to the Royal Society of Science in London.
A German parster, in 1773, gave them the nickname water bear.
An Italian scientist gave them the scientific name which means slow stepper.
Tardigrade, under certain conditions, can be in a "suspended animation". They, though live in water, can survive without water in months or decates.
When it dried out, it responses by retracting its head and legs, shuts down its metabolism to less than 0.01% of its usual state. (A dried tardigrade is called a "ton".) These actions preserve tardigrade until it's rehydrated and springs back to life.
In 1948, an Italian zoologist found that tardigrade can be reanimated from a sample of 120 years old.
The resurrection has not only challenged our understanding of the boundary between life and death, but also inspired a new way of potentially life-saving application.
How hydrabiosis works?
It's discovered in 1970s that the key ingredient is a type of sugar called Trehalose.
Tardigrade uses it to replace water molecules and cells when it dries up. It maintains its structure on a molecular level until water become available again. And the cells rehydrated once more.
It can be used in protecting human blood cells from damage when they dries up.
According to WHO, it's challenging to use and restore those blood donation collected every year. Refrigerator would destroy them. They have to be kept in room temperature, within 3 or 5 days before go off.
Add Trehalose into the platelets, freeze and dry them, and keep them as powder for two years. Such application has been going through clinical trials.
It can be used in vaccine transportation.
Vaccines do need refrigerator. But half would go inactive on the way.
Such technology can extend the shelflife.
It can be used in space.
Someone has grown them, with NASA, on space station.
Prolonged space time could have detrimental effects on human body. It might help in how to cope with low gravity and increased radiation exposure.
Tardigrade is so helpful with its tenacity for survival.
7. Fly and Lightbulb
The electricity for lighting accounts for nearly 15% of global power consumption and 5% of greenhouse gas emissions.
The flyfly can provide a way for better and more efficient lighting.
Despite their name, they are not flies at all, but beatles. They are ranging in size from 5 to 25mm, about a size of small paperclip. Most species are active at night. They belong to a family named Lampyridse, a Latin word for shinning ones or shinning fire.
Glowworm also belongs to this family. They, too, are beatles that luminous. Tell the two species by winged or not.
What of the firefly?
They make up about 2000 species, live in warm environment. Best time to look after them is at warm summer evenings. They love moisture. Often being found in humid regions of Asia, Americas. In drier locations, you tend to find them around wet or damp habitats.
What do they look like?
They have flattened, dark brown or black bodies with orange or yellow markings. Both the male and female are winged. According to different species, either one or both have light producing organ.
The reason males emit their burst of light all comes down to sex.
The flashing light they produce may appear random but they actually follow specific patten to attract females of a specific species.
Like a type of Morse code between secret lovers. Each species produces unique code.
The speed of males' flashing and the amount of time before the females to respond to the males are all important.
In some species, the fireflies glow in unison, giving the effect that a pair of lights appearing and disappearing at the same time.
The light signals are also thought in defending them--a clear warning to their unappetizing taste. Fireflies produce steroid in their bodies which make them unpalatable.
If everything goes well, after females have responded to the fleshing pattern of male counterparts, he will approach and mate with her.
But there is the dark side of it.
Most adult fireflies have short lived, and don't feed during their lifetime.
Females of the genus or group called Photuris (mainly in North America) are known to eat the males of rival genus of Photinus.
The female Photuris mimick the glow response time of the female Photinus. As the male Photinus approaches, female Photuris reduces the intensity of the flashes to resemble more closely the weak signals of the female she's copying. Then, when he laned, he will be seized and devoured.
How they produce the light?
They have special light organ under their abdomen. The light comes about through the chemical reaction we call bioliminescence. The reaction happens with a special cell called Photocyte which surrounded by air tubes called trackie which supply the cells with oxigen, thus making the light.
Unlike the lightbulb which produce light and the heat, fireflies produce the cold light with 100% of the energy given off as light, only a tiny amount of heat.
Now, the lightbulb moment.
A Belgain physicist took a keen interest in naturalltpy occurring optical structures. During a field trip in central America, he captured some fireflies and examed them in his lab.
From their abdomen, the light shine through the area--the insect's outlayer. The light travel more slowly through the layer than through air. Some of the light is reflected back into the cuticle, which means the brightness of the glow is reduced. However, the unique surface of the cuticle helps minimize the internal reflection, so that more light escapes allowing fireflies to shine brighter.
They found the scale-like structure on the cuticles, not all flat, has sharp edges of jagged scales which let out the most light.
Lightbulbs in human world like LED faces the internal reflection problem too.
A factory-roof coating could make LEDs shine brighter. So, they created a jagged overlayer on top of the standard LED, by depositing the layer of light sensitive material on top of the LED, then, use the laser to create the triangular factory-roof profile. It works.
The factory-roof coating increasing light extraction by more than 50%.
Nature's lantern could help our own night lights to shine a little brighter.
8. Mussel and Plywood
What treasure laid under the curtain of the seaweed?
A group of blue mussel were anchored to the slippery rocks, clinging tight against the turbulent waves.
How a seafood favourite inspired a new powerful glue and better kind of plywood?
When Li, the chemist based in USA, explored around the sea shore, he found mussels, and he had to use some drift wood the pry them free(from the rocks).
Li took them back to the lab, and eagered to find out how these creatures achieve their remarkable grip.
The blue mussel, or common mussel, is a medium-sized marine bivalve molluse in the family Mytilidea. About the size of 10cm ×5cm, they can often be found widely including along the Arctic, Atlantic, Baltic sea coastline.
The best place to look for them are on rocky shores where they attatch to the exposed rocks and in crevices.
They may look alike, but they are different in sexes of males and females. The adults reproduce by releasing sperm and eggs into the water to be fertilized. It's a hit-and-miss affair, because not so much eggs could be fertilized in water.
They are able to detatch and re-attatch to the surface so that they can reposition themselves as the water levels changes.
Dense and massive mussels attatch themselves to surface by what's like a beard. The beard is made of 50--100 individual threads called Byssal threads produced by a Byssal gland inside the shell; at the end of the thread is a small adhesive plug to cling to the surface; the surface or cuticle of the thread is as hard as adhesive used to manufacturing printed circuit boards.
The thread still has the ability to flex and expand.
The juvenile or young mussels (about less than 2cm) can use their Byssal threads to climb by extending, attaching, and pulling themselves forward.
There are separate gland responsible for the adhesive plug at the end of Byssal threads, for the core and for the cuticle.
What fascinated Li was these threads are made of proteins.
The mussel stick to the rock through strings of proteins.
The Eureka moment for him: Can it be used in making super sticky glue which can work in water and stand so much force?
While another American engineer Steven was thinking about his hardwood or plywood--made of seceral thin sheets of wood that glued together. The result is a versatile and highly workable material, because layers of wood give them strength and flexibility. And they can be used in doors, floors, walls, etc.
But the problem is the growing evidence about the link between formaldehyde and cancer.
Back to Li.
He converted soy (which contains 50% of protein and a remarkable natural resource) protain into mussel protein to create an effective adhesive by mixing the soy flour and curing agent(the substance to harden the material) in water.
He boiled the sample wood and then put them into the oven and fire them.
Under pressure of heat, wood will swell; then cool them, they will dry/shrink. Plus its water-resistant element, such super glue was done.
When Li was giving a presentation, Steven was in the audience, and they stroke a deal.
Once they attatch an idea, there is no letting go.
After trials and errors, the super glue and formaldehyde-free plywood was in application and almost occupied the whole market around 2006.
Mussels' tenacious grip and their impact on hard wood production is amazing.
9. Termites and Ventilation System
Termite mound is extraordinary. Termites live in the nest at the base of mound. Termites' sound is like popping candy(Everything seems calm and sedentary at outside, inside the mound, the termites are really busy.).
Lots people are packed in small space with poor ventilation, rising temperature.
Termites have the answer to a cool place.
The science of heating and ventilation building is a challenge that architects and designers regularly face.
In 1991, Mick Pearce was hired to design the East Gate Centre, the largest office building in ZZimbabwe's capital. He faced a financial problem. So he had to design a building that regulates its heating and cooling all by itself at minimum cost.
Termites live in hot climate. In an effort to stay cool, they live in nests below the ground, at foot of huge mound made of sand, clay, mud and saliva that can tower over 9 metres high.
When Mick saw a documentary about termites on BBC, he realized the solution was staring him right in the face.
Scattered across the forests and grasslands of Africa, Asia, and South America, termite is a society of expert builders.
They can only survive if their environment stay within 1 degree of 31 degrees.
How do they manage to regulate their temperature inside the mound?
The large mound at each colony constructed above the nest acts as natural air-conditioning system exchanging stale air for fresh one.
With the help of thermal-imaging, we get the observation:
Each mound acts as an external lung, uses the changing temperature, as day becomes night, to drive ventilation, based on the principle that hot air rises and cold air falls.
The mound are, in some ways, an extension of their metabolism, a living system.
Far from being a solid structure, termites' mounds are covered with tiny pores, invisible to human eye, which allow air to pass through them. Just like a brittle sponge.
A large central chimney connected to a system of pipes, located in the mounds. And thin, flute-like side mounds called batricis.
During the day, the air and batricis warms more quickly than the air in the insulate central chimney.
As a result, hot air rises up through the outer chimney and cool air in the central chimney sinks. So the air circulates, continuously bringing in oxygen and fresh air in and out the carbon dioxide. At night, the ventilation system reverses. This reversal air flow, in turn, expels the carbondioxide-rich air that builds up in the subterranean nest over the course of the day as a result of termite's metabolism.
As extra touch, some species of termite constantly adjust the mound, alternatively opening up new tunnels and blocking others to more actively regulate heat and humidity inside.
The office building site is made up with two buildings linked together by a glass roof, a network of walkways, steel bridges spanning the atrian below, with lifts and escalators between at various levels and skywalk ways.
The material was concrete slabs and bricks which have a high thermal mass, which means they can absorb lots of heat energy without changing in temperature.
The exterior of the building has increased the surface of the building, which increases heat lose at night, whilst heat gain redused during the day.
Inside the building, electric fans suck up cool night air from outside, blow upstairs through hollow space under the floors, into each office through vents.
As it rises and warms, the air drew through 48 round furrows.
During cool summer nights, fans are used to circulate air through the building 7 times per hour to chill; during the day, keep air fresh.
At night, when temperature drops, the concrete bricks are cooled, it chills the circulating air; when morning comes, temper5rises, warm air is vented up through he ceiling and released by he chimneys.
So that temperature is maintained at comfortable level. And it's 50% less energy consumption than air-conditioning buildings.
Mick's another project is the Mulburn City Concil II building.
The face of the building is made by vertical timber slabs covered as a fully glazed wall. Those slabs are pivotal vertically, opening and closing responding to the time of the day and the angle of the sun.
It's as if the whole building comes to life. The internal temperature is kept within 21 to 23 degrees. And it's 80% less energy consumption than buildings of the same size.
An English engineer put it that the buildings of future construction should be permeable ones that allow for better air flow; The walls are more like the manbrine to limit the problem such as dampness that results in air tight.
Termites inspire such a fundimental shift in the way buildings are conceived and produced. Potentially, it's the end of traditional bricks, and the introduction of more breathable structures.
10. Cod and Anti-freeze
Mick's another project is the Mulburn City Concil II building.
The face of the building is made by vertical timber slabs covered as a fully glazed wall. Those slabs are pivotal vertically, opening and closing responding to the time of the day and the angle of the sun.
It's as if the whole building comes to life. The internal temperature is kept within 21 to 23 degrees. And it's 80% less energy consumption than buildings of the same size.
An English engineer put it that the buildings of future construction should be permeable ones that allow for better air flow; The walls are more like the manbrine to limit the problem such as dampness that results in air tight.
Termites inspire such a fundimental shift in the way buildings are conceived and produced. Potentially, it's the end of traditional bricks, and the introduction of more breathable structures.
10. Cod and Anti-freeze
Many animals can survive in teeth-chattering cold environment that could freeze human blood.
The problem is the water inside our body as a result of cold.
As temperature falls below freezing, small ice crystals begin to form inside the cells of plants and animals. As these crystals grow, they draw water out of the surrounding cells which destroy their structures and kills the cells. ( that's why berries turn to mush after being left in refrigerator. Their cells were burst when frozen.)
However, many organisms have now been found to contain a group of unique molecules that scientists called anti-freeze proteins or AFPs which have the ability to stop the damage.
Those AFPs are capable of lowering freezing point as a solution, which keep ice crystals very small or prevent their formation all together.
Fish live in South and North poles are fantastic examples of this.
They live in the water of temperature of -2°c all their life. AFP in their blood lower the water in their bodies below the freezing point of the sea water.
When water gets colder, it gets denser, until it reaches 4°c; when water eventually turns into ice, it gets lighter and less dense. This is why ice floats on top of water.
It also expends. This expension can cause materials crack and rupture, through a mechanism called absorbtion-inhibition.
When these anti-freezing molecules bind to an ice crystal, they devide the growth phase of crystal into regions with curved phases.
The water molecules can't easily bond to others, so they remain as liquid rather than being converted to solid ice. So the only way to get the water molecules to stay in these curved regions is to lower the temperature, thus lowering the freezing point.
Not only polar fish, a host of plants and animals have such super power.
When salt desolved in water, it can lowers the freezing point. So sea water has the freezing point of -1.9°c.
A physiologist Arthur D revealed the action of a sugary protein called glycol protein attaching themselves to ice crystals in the blood of Antactic fish is the one that prevents crystal growing. Combined with body salt, that's the super power of the fish.
Since the discovery of AFP in 1960s, there are many interest in commercial potential.
On the flip side, the AFP could prevent ice from melting at warmer temperature. Ice structuring proteins or ISPs applied on icecream industry can maintain the shape longer and melts slower. It's estimated that till 2024, the icecream market in USA will be worth 74b $.
It's also used in Airliners to keep planes frost-free in cold conditions, which is a major challenger. Any delay due to ice on passenger or fleight planes incures cost and damage to the planes.
In Germany, anti-freezing coating is applied on planes.
Also, in powerlines. Not only the weight of ice brings the cable down, but also acts as an insulated. The ice causes the wires to heat up which means energy transmission becomes less efficient. The technology saves utility companies millions of dollar in maitainance and repair cost alone, as well as improving energy efficiency.
In health sector. In preserving organs and tissues destined for transplate. The possibility of transporting organs for longer period of time will be hugely beneficial.
Now, scientists are plan to produce synthetic AFPs.
All thanks to snowflees.
They are not flees at all. They belongs to a primitive group of organism "spring tails". Closely related to insects, they are wing-less, six legs, and move about by walking or jumping. Instead of using their legs to jump, they catapult themselves into the air by releasing a spring-like machenism(a sort of flat folds under the abdomen until it's needed.). When it's released, the snowflees (only 2mm in length) was launched several centre metres into the air.
Discovered by a Canadian scientist while she was snow skiing, they can survive in sub-zero temperature.
Such synthetic AFP can extend shelf life between organ removal and transplant.
In a race against time, this could make all the difference when it comes to saving lives.
And when these AFPs lose their structure at higher temperatures, they would degrade naturally at the body temperature, reducing the possibility of any side effects.
The research into anti-freezing is still at its infancy. There will be and can be a wide range of applications out there.
What we don't know is the climate change would affect these species who benefit from AFPs. How environmental change might affect our development of this important technology.
Such synthetic AFP can extend shelf life between organ removal and transplant.
In a race against time, this could make all the difference when it comes to saving lives.
And when these AFPs lose their structure at higher temperatures, they would degrade naturally at the body temperature, reducing the possibility of any side effects.
The research into anti-freezing is still at its infancy. There will be and can be a wide range of applications out there.
What we don't know is the climate change would affect these species who benefit from AFPs. How environmental change might affect our development of this important technology.
There is a cautionary warning in exploring the bio-diversity of our planet and protect natural resources.
11. Desert Spider and Mars Robot
Mars, one of the closest planetary neighbours. The planet has the largest volcano in the solar system. The Olympus Mount, as it's named, is 27km high, three times of the Everest. And it boasts the deepest canyon, gullies, craters, polar caps and desert.
It's minus 63°c there and 96% of the atmosphere is CO2, no drinking water, gravity only 1/3 of the earth.
Named after the Roman God of war, Mars is referred to as the red planet. Because vast amount of ironoxidite(the same what rusty is made of) on its surface which gives its the reddish hue.
It's the 4th planet, just after earth, in terms of the distance to the sun; the 2ed smallest in solar system, just after Mercury.
The desire of exploring this plane can dates back to ancient Egypt 4000 years ago.
Because of the heavily crated surface, thin atmosphere, fluctuating temperature, it's really a challenge to explore it.
One of the solution is to design some vehicle to explore for us.
A German engineer, who has been studying desert animals for more than 30 years, got a new species of spider in Moroco in 2009.
The spider can do acrobatics to avoid predator by tumbling, double its speed from 1m per second to 2m per second by simply cartwheeling in all directions from predators.
In 2014, it was officially named after the man who found it. But he would rather call it the Flick-Flack spider.
The spider is a medium sized huntsman spider-- group of spiders have long jointed legs, can use venum to immoblize prey, nocturnal, feed on moth which they catch before sunrise; males are about 19mm, females are little longer; both are white with black marking on underside of their legs; spend hot desert days in tube-like towers in the sand in which they waeve out silk.
It's their amazing movement gave the engineer the idea of a cartwheelinf robot which could be used in agriculture, on ocean floor, or even on Mars.
Mars is the rocky planet, like earth. And all the rock and minerals identified on earth are also found on Mars.
The core of Mars is also similar, but the exact structure remains a mystery. The surface is dry, dusty, rocky. The southern half is rugged with massive craters and towering highlands; The northern half has flatter appearance with dry river banks and basins.
Scientists suspect ocean and lakes which has long since disappeared is a reason for the smoothness of some of the areas.
Was ancient glaciers carving out the terrain? Was the ice caps at both poles growing and shrinking with changing seasons?
Such a challenge to travel on Mars and to cope such diversified landscape.
The spider robot is a model of 25cm in length. And it needs more stamina than the real ones who would die of exhaustion by doing 4 or 5 flick-flacks a day.
The "Bionic Wheel Bot" as it's called. It's 55cm in length, 8 legs controlled by 15 motors in the joints; uses 6 of the lags when walking; when it dose somersault, it tucks in 6 legs, using the other 2 to push off the ground with every rotation.
It's more speedy while rolling and fitter for tackling such tough surface.
Why is sumersaulting so important?
Because, in rolling motion, it allows more of the being to contact with the surface it's rolling over at any one time. It spread the weight over a larger area, allowing for greater grip and weight distribution than either wheels and legs can offer. So it's more stable on irregular surface.
How about exploring from the air?
The atmosphere pressure on Mars is less than 1% of the earth. So, even with the advantage of lower gravity, generating light is surprisingly difficult.
The humble bumble bee has the answer!
An American professor developed the "Mars Bees" robot.
For more than 70 years, the ways bees flew perplexed scientists. A popular misconception dates back to 1930s. A French entomologist thought bees' flight should be aero-dynamically impossible. Because wings are too small to get their fat bodies lift from the ground.
The basic principles of flight, and why airplanes can fly is because of the careful balance of 4 physical forces: lift, drag, weight, thrust.
Lift overcomes weight, thrust needs to exceed of its drag resistance.
In airplanes, wings for lift, engine for thrust, drag is reduced by streamline designed body, and light-weighted materials also achieves lift.
Those big wings satisfy the lift equation of flight.
Bees flap their wings, instead of up and down, back and forth. While airplane's wing forces air down which pushes the plane upwards; insects swing their wings in flap and spin.
The angle of the wing creates turbulence or vortex in the air, like miniature hurricane. The eyes of the hurricanes have lower pressure than the air outside, thus lifting bees upwards.
As to the robot, the wings need scale up 4 times to increase the surface area to push in the atmosphere; because the thin or dense air there, so the more air you need to push down for the same weight you try to lift up.
It's so hopeful that such robots can be tackle the difficulties on Mars, and map the terrain for us.
12. Sea Otter and Wet Suit
When it comes to take an example in natural world that could serves as a design model for warm, dry, streamline wet suit. We focus on semi-aquatic mammals such as beaver and sea otters.
Sea otters are famous for the finest fur in the entile animal kingdom. Not only because they are beautiful but also incrediblely dense with 150,000 hairs per square centremetre(we only have about 100,000 hair on the entire head).
Why are they so furry?
They spend lots of time in northern and northeastern coast of Pacific ocean where they raise their young and search for food such as crabs, clams, sea urchins, and slow-moved fish.
These waters are very cold.
Walruses and whales build up thick layers of blubber which help to insulate when they are swimming and diving in and out at sea.
Instead, sea otters rely on their fur to keep warm. Because fur is so dense, it traps pockets of air in between the layers, thus keeping them warm and dry.
But all their hair needs upmost of care. So when they are not eating or sleeping, they grooming, a lot--cleaning the fur, squeezing out water and blowing air into the fur to keep fur in top condition and otters themselves as warm and dry as possible.
There are few places on otter' s body doesn't have such dense fur: paws(that's why they hold paws out of water when resting to conserve body heat.)
Ironically, the thing possible for otters to thrive in such chilly waters--their fur--is also that brings them to the blink of extinction.
In 1745, fur traders hunted from Siberia east onward to Alaska for Asian market, sometimes, under the help of local indigenous people. Trade was in ruthless quest.
In 1899, just a few thousand otters left in Alaska, and few dozen in Califoripnia.
In July, 1911, USA, Japan, Russia, and UK entered into a treaty for protection the sea otters and seals in North Pacific by outlawing killing except by Alaska natives.
It brought a remarkable recovery.
Otter fur has two special properties that make it specially good at creating insulating layers of air:
One is it's so dense.
The other is it's also spiky. Otters want their fur to be as tangled as possible to trap maximum of air bubbles.
Otter pelts might be smoothly and soft to us. But under microscope, they are covered in tiny geometric barbs which help hair mat together so tightly that their body is almost dry. Dry is the key to keep warm.
Their pelt has two different types of furs:
The outer guard hair, long, thin, act as defensive shield, as well as the shorter, denser under fur.
The guard hair keeps the water from penetrating the under fur, thereby trapping warm air against animal skin.
Scientists' aim is to mimick the properties of the outer pelt in a wet suit.
They began by making precise a fur-like surface of various dimentions and plunging their surface into liquid at varying speeds;
Using video-imaging to measure how much air was trapped in the fur during each soaking;
Molds by lazer-cutting thousands of tiny holes in small aquilic blocks. The size and space of the individual holes was different in each mold;
Filling the mold with soft casting rubber (PDMS), when set, pull those artificial pelts out;
With the hair surface outward, submerged into silicon oil (which is easier than water to see air pockets forming).
The test show surfaces with denser fur that would plunge at higher speed, generally, retaining a thicker layer within their hairs.
Both the space of individual hair and the speed at which they were plunged are important to work out how much air a surface could trap.
Such experiment has been put into mathematical equation(of hair density, length, diving speed) to check how thick an airlayer would circulate the surface.
It may not be long before we take into waves in rather sheek little pelts to keep us both dry and warm.
French researchers think it could also be used in other applications: in the process of industrial dip coating--surfaces are dipped in chemicals to achieve an even protective coating.
The challenge is there is no air to be allowed in air and liquid entrapment.
The equation can provide operation at maximum efficient without compromising the product by preventing bubbles from forming by controlling the speed of dipping.
Meanwhile, sea otters are just keeping eating, resting, and grooming.
13. Stenocata Beetle and Water Collector
According to the forecast by UN: By 2025, 1.8b people will be living in countries or regions in water scarcity; 2/3 of the world population will be under water-stressed situation.
A handstanding beetle can teach us how to collect water from the air.
It's a kind of beetle native to the Namib Desert in South Africa, the most arid area of the world with rainfall being both sparse and unpredictable.
But what it lacks in rainfall, it makes up for a coastal fog that can reaches as far as 100km inland.
The evolutional trick that helps the fingernail sized beetle to survive by collecting water from the fog.
Instead of bask in sun, they bask in the fog. It performs as what like a handstand on the ridges on sand dunes that face into the wind. And water from the fog slowly begins to collect on its wings, or mire precisely on its harden wing case, moisture runs down its back and into its mouth.
There is a patten of bumps on the beetle's back. The droplets slide off these bumps into small channels towards the mouth.
So, the beetles can survive by collecting water on the surface of its bumpy back from the early morning fog.
The art in this water collecting handstand: the beetle has long, spindly legs; stand on small rigged sand facing into the breeze with body angled in 45 degrees; head facing up-wind; stiff bumpy outer wings spread against the dumpy breeze; minute water drops (only 15-20 micrometers in diametre) gathered on its wings from fog; droplets flatten as it makes connect with hydrophilic water-lowering bumps preventing them being blown by the wind and providing a surface to which other droplets become detached, when the droplets reach 5mm in diameter, gravity causes it to roll down the back and channel into the mouth.
Simple but really clever.
For humans, collecting water from air can be traced back to 2000 years ago. Then, a Roman writer recorded residents on an island gathered fog droplets trapped by trees, using stones placed under the trees to catch the dropping water.
From then on, there are increasing number of fog-collecting projects across the world.
In Chile, there is a village of 7000 people. Giant masjph collectors can gather droplets drifting in from11 the coast can provide 15,000 litres per day. It's being pipelined down from mountain to the community below.
A beetle-inspired material maybe more effective at gathering dew, particularly when making the droplets run off the surface.
Look under the microscope, the back is made of tiny bumps and channels resambling mountain ridges. It can be easily reproduced in sheet form by technology like injection molding.
Some UK scientists see the potential for such material in a variety of devices which could be produced for controlled collection vapers to provide water for drinking or farming in hostle locations. Also useful at collecting water from roofs of buildings.
Some US counterparts ammulated the beetle's capability by creating a texture surface that combined alternating hydrophobic (water repellent) and hydrophilic (water attracting) materials to harvest water from fog in arid places.
But, with some modifications, it can be extended to extract moisture from the air to create windows and mirrors that don't fog up (like those conventional ones).
A company named NBD suggests a self-filling water bottle that maybe capable of collecting 3 litres per hour depending on weather conditions.
Other animals like the thorny devil lizard in the middle Australia, who eats ants, moves in slow gentle manner, 20cm in length, entire body covered by spikes which are with the aim to be defended itself from predators, can drink water by skin as well.
The secret is skin deep: between the spikes are subtle network of microscopic grooves which have the ability to absorb water out of moisty sand. What they have to do is to stand at the right position and drink with their skin.
The discovery of such activity can be traced back to 1923.
In 1962, scientists put one lizard into water and found an advanced water-front moved over its skin towards mouth--the capillary action process--the same as getting sponge or paper towel into the water.
From 1993 onward, developed by German scientists, there is the plastic sheet based on the skin which prohibits the flow towards one direction whist promotes towards another. Such technology can be used in medical appliance, distillery, electronic ink display, etc.
14. Albatross and Drone
Meanwhile, sea otters are just keeping eating, resting, and grooming.
13. Stenocata Beetle and Water Collector
According to the forecast by UN: By 2025, 1.8b people will be living in countries or regions in water scarcity; 2/3 of the world population will be under water-stressed situation.
A handstanding beetle can teach us how to collect water from the air.
It's a kind of beetle native to the Namib Desert in South Africa, the most arid area of the world with rainfall being both sparse and unpredictable.
But what it lacks in rainfall, it makes up for a coastal fog that can reaches as far as 100km inland.
The evolutional trick that helps the fingernail sized beetle to survive by collecting water from the fog.
Instead of bask in sun, they bask in the fog. It performs as what like a handstand on the ridges on sand dunes that face into the wind. And water from the fog slowly begins to collect on its wings, or mire precisely on its harden wing case, moisture runs down its back and into its mouth.
There is a patten of bumps on the beetle's back. The droplets slide off these bumps into small channels towards the mouth.
So, the beetles can survive by collecting water on the surface of its bumpy back from the early morning fog.
The art in this water collecting handstand: the beetle has long, spindly legs; stand on small rigged sand facing into the breeze with body angled in 45 degrees; head facing up-wind; stiff bumpy outer wings spread against the dumpy breeze; minute water drops (only 15-20 micrometers in diametre) gathered on its wings from fog; droplets flatten as it makes connect with hydrophilic water-lowering bumps preventing them being blown by the wind and providing a surface to which other droplets become detached, when the droplets reach 5mm in diameter, gravity causes it to roll down the back and channel into the mouth.
Simple but really clever.
For humans, collecting water from air can be traced back to 2000 years ago. Then, a Roman writer recorded residents on an island gathered fog droplets trapped by trees, using stones placed under the trees to catch the dropping water.
From then on, there are increasing number of fog-collecting projects across the world.
In Chile, there is a village of 7000 people. Giant masjph collectors can gather droplets drifting in from11 the coast can provide 15,000 litres per day. It's being pipelined down from mountain to the community below.
A beetle-inspired material maybe more effective at gathering dew, particularly when making the droplets run off the surface.
Look under the microscope, the back is made of tiny bumps and channels resambling mountain ridges. It can be easily reproduced in sheet form by technology like injection molding.
Some UK scientists see the potential for such material in a variety of devices which could be produced for controlled collection vapers to provide water for drinking or farming in hostle locations. Also useful at collecting water from roofs of buildings.
Some US counterparts ammulated the beetle's capability by creating a texture surface that combined alternating hydrophobic (water repellent) and hydrophilic (water attracting) materials to harvest water from fog in arid places.
But, with some modifications, it can be extended to extract moisture from the air to create windows and mirrors that don't fog up (like those conventional ones).
A company named NBD suggests a self-filling water bottle that maybe capable of collecting 3 litres per hour depending on weather conditions.
Other animals like the thorny devil lizard in the middle Australia, who eats ants, moves in slow gentle manner, 20cm in length, entire body covered by spikes which are with the aim to be defended itself from predators, can drink water by skin as well.
The secret is skin deep: between the spikes are subtle network of microscopic grooves which have the ability to absorb water out of moisty sand. What they have to do is to stand at the right position and drink with their skin.
The discovery of such activity can be traced back to 1923.
In 1962, scientists put one lizard into water and found an advanced water-front moved over its skin towards mouth--the capillary action process--the same as getting sponge or paper towel into the water.
From 1993 onward, developed by German scientists, there is the plastic sheet based on the skin which prohibits the flow towards one direction whist promotes towards another. Such technology can be used in medical appliance, distillery, electronic ink display, etc.
14. Albatross and Drone
Imagin if we could send out a team of flying search robots that could glide effortlessly over the wave, covering vast distances with minimum energy. It's possible, thanks to aero-evolution of a bird.
Albatross are enormous seabirds, with the largest recorded wingspan of any bird reaching up to a massive 3.5m across. Plus, its wings are uniquely adapted to soar thousands of miles with minimum effort.
They nest on remote islands and spend several years of adult life out of the sea. Picture a overgrown seagull with a large pink bill and pink feet. Then, you are on the right track.
Recently, it serves as an inspiration for a new flying machine harnessing the prowess of both wind and water.
Wondering Albatross spend most of their life gliding over the waves, only coming back to solid ground in order to breed.
From sub-tropic waters to the planet's southerly extremes (important breeding colonies in South Africa and Antactic island).
Because their inherent connection to the sea, in the past, they were seen and caught regularly by sailors who ate them and used their long wing bones to make tobacco pipestems.
But, not all were so forgiving to such practice, as English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge taled in his 1798 book《The Rime of the Ancient Mariner》: a bad luck striking the ship as the consequence of the killing of an albatross; and they hanging the dead bird around the neck of Mariner to shame him for killing such an innocent bird.
On the other side of the planet, the Maori people of Newzealand also inspired by the power of albatross. They use down and underwear feathers as signs of rank, and as decoration for war canoe as a sort of blessing as albatross' prowess at sea would pass onto the sailors. They also hunt them for food and make flutes and tattooing chisels from their wing bones.
Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish botanist, zoologist, Father of naming of species, first described this bird in 1758 and named it Diomedea Exulans. Diomedea was a hero in Greek mythology whose companions were transformed into birds by the Goddess Venus; Exulans is a Latin word for exile or wonder which highlights the bird's extraordinary voyages across the open sea.
Albatross is so famous for their ability to long distance flight.
In 1989, a male bird was recorded, by satellite tracking device, had a flight from his breeding ground in the South Indian islands and went on to a feeding trip of 15,000km between incubation shifts. (15,000km on a single trip=from New York all the way down to the South Pole)
Some individuals have managed to circumnavigate the southern ocean 3 times (120,000km).
Their efforts become more impressive when you consider how the distance they fly would become at a huge energetic cost for most other birds--eat less.
They are able to stay aloft, skillfully gliding through the air with barely a wind beat.
It's this ability which fascinates scientists.
Back then, the capacity to fly into prevailing wind also caught the attention of 17th century merchant, traveller, and writer Peter, who was thinking about a ship that could sail in that similar fashion: the way the wind struck the slightly curved underside of the wing, likewise the curved hull formed by the ship's sail.
In the early 19th century, French sea captain John studied on those dead bodies for the flying skills and constructed and flew 2 light way gliders referred to "The Artificial Albatross".
In the early 20th century, American ornothologist Robert put it:"When the secret of their perfect balance has been learnt and applied to manmade planes, then we will go and flying."
The secret of effortlessly gliding and long distance flight is so-called "dynamic soaring".
They are able to do this through 2 adaptations:
A), they save energy with special tendency by locking their wing open;
B), they do a dynamic flight patten: a zigzag over waves to surf the strong winds that come over the ocean.
By gliding at an angle of 90° to the wind, it gains lift and begins rising up to 50m; at the top of its crest, the bird turns slightly in the direction of the wind and coasts effortless downward into the surface of the water; turning again to the wind, the bird soars upward once more; and the cycle repeats.
MIT graduates made a computer model to show that as the birds climb and descend, drag is reduced, thus flying more efficiently.
The other ingredient is their coloration: black on top and white belly.
Black feathers absorb more solar energy. When the dark feathers heat up, the temperature difference lowers air pressure on the upper surface of the wings, thus creating additional lift allowing the birds to fly through the air more easily.
So, a robotic glider: skim along the water surface, riding the wind like an albatross, also surfing the waves like a sailboat.
It can dramatically expand the areas you can go to.
The sailboat: propells itself through out the water by taking momentum from the wind with their sails and trandpsfers into the water by pushing back with their keel.
A hybrid vehicle that can operate both in the sea and in the air, has been drafted: a glider with 3m wingspan, a tall triangular sail and a slender winglike keel which only needs about 9km/hour propel force of calm wind, and in order to zip across the water, it needs at speeds about 37km/ hour.
It combines the high speed quality of energy-efficient design of both sailboat and albatross.
Such compact speedy robotic water skimmers could be used in searching in vast ocean; in remote areas where the need of electricity charging comes at a premium; in the air to collect scientific information and data for meteorologist.
Such a beautiful and environment-friendly way to survey the oceans.
15. Shark and Hospital Surface
An experience of plunging into icy water which sent the heart beat through the roof to see great white shark.
Sharks are epic predators. Their hunting prowess have been finetoned over millions of years of evolution.
They even have a six sense--electro-magnism. The combination of this and other senses, along with sleek torpedo shaped body, makes most of sharks highly skilled hunters.
Their skin also provides evolutionary advantage.
There are over 500 species of sharks, ranging in size from the whale shark(12m in length) to dwarf lanten shark(less than 1m).
The first shark evolved 400m years ago, long before the dinosaurs roamed the earth.
Now they are scattered all around the waters. Some travel vast distances to feed and breed; some migrate between deep and shallow water every day, which is called the vertical migration. Blue sharks can dive into 400m deep to chase prey.
Shark's skin is spotless, no sign of algae, no barnacles. Even at microbial level, their skin remains clean.
It's smooth if stroks it from head to tail; but it's like a sand paper, if stroke the other way around.
The skin is made of millions of V-shaped scales called Dermal Denticles. Like flexible layers of small triangles marked with grooves running down in length with water flow.
The grooves prevent small swirls of turbulent water called Edie from forming so that the water flows more smoothly pass the skin, thus reducing friction and increasing swimming efficiency.
2002, U.S. submarines were found being coated with algae. A solution was needed to tackle the algae. A solution would reduce the use of toxic anti-fungi paints and make the vessels more efficient in the water and come down the cost of bring vessels into land and dry docking them while they were treated.
Such a challenge.
The bacteria, which actually cling onto the surface of hull when searching for food, excrete a variety of substances in the process. Other oganism attracted to the area are also attached. The bacteria replicate and population rapidly grow. Algae also grow in number.
A coating of sharks-skin like stuff can decrease in power efficiency and the cost associated with combating bio can be substantial.
Shark skin are arranged in a distinct diamond patten with millions of tiny ridges. That's the key.
When compared with flat surface, such skin puts tension on bacteria's manbrine and reduces area of contact. It's not energy-saving to them, so they tend to settle elsewhere.
The width-length ration of the ridges was measured.
And a synthetic surface was designed based on the findings called sharklet.
A revolutionary application of this bug-proof surface has already been used in the hospitals.
Among the different materials to prevent the spread of bacteria, copper-alluids are the one option. Being toxic to bacterias, they work by interfering with their cellular inter process which kills them off.
But the shark skin model work differently. Rather than killing bacteria, it would prevent them from attaching in the first place.
With the application of such coating on high-contect areas like door handles, light-switches, we could reduce the spread of affection rates of dangerous super bugs, such as MRSA.
It can also applied on under water research vessels and robots.
Widely regarded as the killing machine, sharks could be the secret to saving thousands of lifes.
16. Spider and Rescue Robot
Arachnophobia is the oldest and most common phobia in western culture.
Love or loath it, spiders are pretty impressive creatures.
With high-tuned senses, heavily armed bodies, effective venum injection system, and a build-in construction scent, all these make them one of the most successful predators in history.
The features that make them scary- -like the flexibility, ease with which they can squeeze through tight spaces--makes them an ideal model for life-saving robots that can navigate through rubble surfaces.
Spiders are not insects. Though the two belong to the same group of Arthropod.
Insects have three parts of body, 6 legs, a pair of antennae, some have wings;
Spiders have two body parts, 8 legs, silk-producing glands in hindquarters to spin web and venomous bank just in front of their mouth.
They can be dated back to 400m years ago in Devonian period in geologic time table. Maybe evolved from aquatic ancestor lived in shallow waters then.
There are more than 40,000 species of spiders from the giant bird eater whose legs can span a dinner plate to the tiny spider whose body barely covers the head of a pin.
They are everywhere, except in Antactic.
They are covered in hairs. The hairs connected to heir nerve system to detect vibrational energy. Anything from sounds around to touch signals that tell them information about food, enemies, or a potential mate.
They taste and smell with feet and pulps which are covered in taste hairs. Male ones use their hair, as well as microscopic poles on their feet to pick up female scent trails.
Their move is special:
By alternating different parts of legs. While two pairs of legs are in the air, the other two stay on the ground.
The amazing part of spider locomation is they can walk on both horizontal and vertical surfaces.
How do they do that?
At end of each leg there is a thick brush of hairs; at end of each hair is covered in tiny microscopic feet-like structures; these tiny feet act like suction pads and grip small bumps on whatever the spider are walking on; so that they can move easily over almost any terrain.
(One exception is the smooth surface of the bathroom, once they climb in, they can hardly climb out.)
What really interesting is how they move.
They do this by using hydrostatic pressure from blood.
With no muscles to stretch their legs, they have to resort to building up a high level of body presure which they use to pump fluid into the limbs, effectively shooting fluid into their legs in order to extend them.
They adjust heart rate to control the presure. So the fast the heart beat, the more hydrostatic presure are produced.
Usually they maintain low presure. Only running and jumping require high presure.
When they do jump, they push 8 times of normal presure. So they can run fast and jump high.
The fastest spider is the giant house spider, only less than 1.5cm in size, who can cover half a metre per second, 34 times their body length per second; the highest one, literally, the jumping spider can jump the height 25 times of their body length.
Thus, a giant spider robot could be a life-saver in the rubble situations like earthquakes, etc.
German engineers and epscientists think being agile and purposeful, the robot could be used in environment too hazard for human to enter, too difficult for rescuers to access.
They also can be equipped to broadcast live image, or track down hazards like leaking gas pipelines and send information back.
The spider robots are flexible in all directions and to stretch and even jump, thanks to hydronic bellows that serves as joints.
Like the real ones, the robots keep 4 legs on the ground at all times, other 4 turn and get themselves ready for the next step, thus achieving stability and no tipping over.
The materials are very light by using 3D printing process--selected sintering lasa of plastics (SLS)--thin layers of fine powder are applied, one at a time and then melted in place where the lasa beams.
And 3-D printing also keep the cost down.
So, such spider robots may change your arachnophobia when you are in danger.
17. Gecko and Adhisives
The amount of debris floating around in space is repidly growing: more than 20,000 pieces larger than 10cm in diametre orbiting at speed of up to 28,000km/hour.
This space junk is made up of defunct satellites, bits of spacecrafts, spin rockets. When they collide with a working satellite, the damage and loses can run up to a costly bill of millions of dollars. Even worse, each collision can trigger a chain reaction resulting in even more debris. A threat of damage spacecrafts, international space station.
The answer to this problem could be lie in the feet of gecko--a super adhesive material that could be used inside of human body, as well as helping us to clean wastes in space.
Until now, capturing space debris is far from easy. Because suction cups don't work in vecumn. Traditional sticky substances, like tape, glue, can't handle the freezing temperature of space.
Robotic sticky arms can be one of the solutions.
Geckos are exotic looking small to medium sized lizards, found in more temperature and more tropical areas like India, Africa, Australia, South America.
There are more than 1000 species of them, living in a wide range of habitats, ranging in size from a few centre metres to more than half a metre in length.
Best known for their ability to walk on vertical surfaces even it's smooth as glass, scurrying across ceilings with absolute ease.
Their amazing sticky abilities lies in billions of hair-like structures, called CT, that covered their toes.
Their toes have a series of ridges which are covered by hair-like CT. Each one is finer than a human hair. CT is further dderived into hundreds of split ends called spatulas. In this way, gecko maximizes the surface area of contact and adhesion.
How does this adhesion work?
It all comes down to so-called Van der Weals force.
These are small intermolecule forces that exist when the positive sides of one molecule attract the negative sides of another molecule. The result is the two sides are draw together.
Roughly, a couple of magnets are attracting each other and snap together.
The molecule between the CT and gecko' foot and surface on which it's moving are charged and attracted to one another. This results in the adhesive, gravity-defiring fact.
Each square millimetre of gecko's foot has about 14,000 CT. The adhesion forces are so strong that gecko could effectively walk upside down carrying a rocksack of 40kg.
Something else, how they position their feet is also important.
With every step they take, they press down their foot, and then drag it back just a little. This causes the tiny hairs to be pulled sideways and a greater surface area are exposed. As the surface area increased, so too does the force holding the gecko to the wall.
To let go off the wall, gecko pushes forward to decrease the surface area in contact and the adhesive force decreased. So that gecko can peel its foot away from the wall.
The real trick is: by changing the direction of the CT, the grip is instantly broken--there is no sticky resistance left behind and it's easy to pull away.
The applications:
In the last 10 year or so, synthetic CT has been invented. Very small CT, almost invisible to human eye.
One of these products is Gecko tape. A piece of 1square cm could hold the weight of more than 100g.
Another one is used in wet conditions. Added some chemical reaction of glue derived from muscles.
Bioengineers in MIT created a waterproof adhesive bandage that could join and staple for patching up surgical wounds or internal injuries. It's bio-degradable so that it could break down into substance that is not toxic. It's flexible and comparable with the body so that no internal inflammation would occure.
A tape with tiny hair structures, micro-sized hair less than 1mm in length, just enough to grip and inter lock the internal tissues, then, a thin layer of glue was added to help the tape stick wherever places like the heart or bladder.
California researchers have developed a gripper that has grid of adhesive squares on its front and arms with thin adhesive grips that can fold out and move around object. It can grab curved and flat pieces of junk. And it has been sent to the space station for testing.
The nest step is a climbing robot assistant that could crawl around spacecrafts doing repairs, filming, checking for defects.
"Astrobie": free floating robotic spheres for fetching tools for astronauts and filming videos during experiments.
The aim is to equip them with gecko grips so that they can stick any where they are needed.
Canadian scientists developed "Abigail III" which has adhesion techniques and can climb vertically, accessing to where is too haphazard to humans.
Cleaning up will be a step forward of space exploration.
18. Whale and Wind Turbine
The whales launch themselves, up out of the water, arching their backs and diving back into the waves. That's how their name comes from--the humpback whales.
Sometimes they do logging--sort of rest or recharging for the long journey ahead.
Despite their huge bunk(16m in length and 36,000kg in weight), humpback whales are not the largest whales. The largest one is blue whale.
Humpback whales are also famous for their songs which generally heard on winter breeding grounds. The songs are produced by males, and they can last for hours. The same song can be heard in a region. But they change the tune by seasons. Anyway, the songs are huntingly beautiful.
Humpback whales are mainly black or grey with white underside their fluke and tail flipper or belly.
Despite their size, they are turely graceful in the water.
They have the ability to make sharp, tight turns and can reach speed of 15km per hour.
A professor in Pennsylvania USA called Flank Fish spot a supposed mistake on a whale sculpture(the bumps on the flipper) while shopping. But it's proved it's him and the science of dynamic then were wrong.
Why the humpback whales have bumps on the front of the propel flippers?
The bumps cause the water flow over he flippers more smoothly, giving them, the giant mammal, the ability to swim the entire circle of their prey.
Whales need the agility to catch prey.
Humpback whales are baleen whales--have no teeth, a bristle-like curtain in place of teeth on their upper jaw called baleen plates.
They take an enormous amount of water, siver out shrimps and fish from water.
The flippers are agile for banking and turning.
They use their flippers as biological hydroplanes as they feed.
The inside loop behaviour:
The whales swims away repidly from a shovel of fish, the flippers extended and protracted and row 180 degrees and make a sharp U-turn and lounger towards their prey.
They can dive deep and swim up in spiral pattern releasing a stream of bubbles from their blow holes--the bubble netting.
As the bubbles rise, they form a net which surround their prey. The whales then pivot with the flippers, banks turn sharply and swims up through the bubble net to engulf the fish trapped in the net.
Their bumps are called tubercles--the key to whale's acrobetic skills.
A whale's flipper acts like wings on airplane to produce lift, by angling the flipper into the water flow at an angle of attack.
The lift force helps whales to turn.
If angle of the attack is too high, a wing would lose lift as it stalls.
But whales' tubercles channel the water in such a way that they actually prevent a stall. They give them more lift and less drag, allowing the angle of attack rise up to 40%, thus making them more efficient in water.
The tubercles technology is applied, firstly, to a small turbine; then, to high-volume low-speed fans.
What would be years of methmatical middling has been replaced by observing how nature tackles the same problem.
An adaptation under the water could help us on land.
Over the history, hunting whales has been a culture of indigenous people across the world.
In the early 20th century, about 90% of the whale population were killed commercially for their oil, meat, or bail.
1998, IUCN enlisted whales as "the vulnerable". Though in 1982, the whale population had been steadily increased thanks to moritorium on commercial whaling.
In 2008, it has been categorized as the least concerned. Though certain species are still in danger of extinction.
Nowadays, they still face the danger of habitat loss, chemical and noise pollution, entanglement in fishing nets.
19. Spider and Window Glass
It's estimated that more than 350m birds die each year in USA alone when they hit glass windows, walls, or other structures. It makes the windows the most significant threads to birds.
So, here is how spider webs inspired a glass to help reduce a number of potentially fatal collision birds have with windows.
Some birds collide into windows in the heat of chase. Because they see the reflection of trees and sky in the windows; or because there is another window or mirror in the window which, to birds, looks like a way to get through.
The reflective and transparent characteristics of glass are dangerous for birds.
Double-glazed window tend to pose greater risk, because they produce clearer reflections. The fatal consequence of such collision is concussions or internal injuries.
This can be reduced by making windows more visible to birds.
Eg: fix an object outside the window to create an obstacle; or by sticking shapes on glass to make it standout.
Darwin's bark spider in Madagascar can weave a web of 25m in diametre.
There are more than 3000 weaver spiders worldwide.
The most common one is the common garden spider, mainly in North America and Europe. (In autumn mist, hanging over the fields, there are fine network of spider webs that drape over the grass, sparkling with drew.) Their flat webs consist of concentric circles which spokes radiating from the centre, like a bicycle wheel.
Usually it's the female ones build the webs to catch prey.
Spider produce silk thread from silk glands in their abdomen where silk threads emerge from spinnerets which found on rare part of their bodies.
The silk is both strong and extensible when considering its 0.0015mm in diametre.
It's one of the strongest natural fibers in the world.
The property of different silk vary. The tense on strength--the amount of strength a substance can withstand before it's starting to break is measured in giga power scale.
A spider thread can hold 0.45 to 1.6gg. Even stronger than steel.
The hardest part to make a web is to lay down its first thread. It's a horizontal thread on which the rest web hangs.
Start by releasing a thread from its spinneret, if lucky, he wind will carry it to a good spot where it attaches; repeat it until the primary thread reinforced and strong enough to carry on to the nest step; the spider then hangs a Y shape thread below the primary one; these are those radios or arms of the web.
They recycle the web by eating the silk and absorbing the protein.
The miracle is barely a web is broken.
Why can't birds collide with a spider wab?
The orbe weavers decorate their webs with UV reflective thread called stabilimenta.
Birds can see UV light.
German researchers have mimicked the UV patten and applied it to coat glass windows, thus creating a surface which deters birds from colliding into it and injuring themselces.
It began in the late 1990s, Dr. Alfred, an attorney and amateur naturist, wrote an article about birds and UV light.
A friend of his who was in insulate glass manufacturing industry thought it could be made into a product of the same UV reflecting qualities as spider silk and a patten coating for glass which is only visible to birds.
After testing, a patten coating solid make the contrast of the treated and the untreated areas more intense; The coated part reflect UV light, while the area sandwich between the two layers of glass absorb the UV light; the two functions together to enhance the reflective effect. That's in 2001.
In 2006, the bird-protection glass was released as a commercial product.
In 2009, an improved product was provided due to the previous vertical lines of UV reflective coating sometimes perceptible.
That's how the spider webs helps in protecting birds.
20. Bat and Unassisted Flight
Out desire to fly can be traced way back to ancient myth--one of the most famous is from Greek mythology: Icarus, imprisoned with his father who built two pairs of wing by sticking collected feathers by wax, ignored warning from his father that do not fly too low (or the moisture from the waves will clog the wings) or too high (or the heat from the sun will smelt them), and tumbled down through the air into the sea and drowned.
One of the first real human to apply scientific reasoning into flight is Leonardo Da Vinchi.
Also being an inspired inventor, his designs and ideas are part of bio-mimickry, ushering the history of human flight.
He sketched his ideas down in notepads, many of which have been preserved since he dies in 1519. His sketches are so revolutionary and shows how he was longing for soaring through the air.
"The flying machine": an middle as anatomy of birds and bats.
Powered flight has evolved three times among vertebrates(animals with back bones) over the course of time.
The first to achieve this coveted feat was flying reptile known as Pterosaurs--emerged 220m years ago, died 65m years, along with dinosaurs, as the victims of a huge astronoid slammed into earth.
Then, the bats and birds.
Claimed as the descendents from small feathered dinosaurs about 150m years ago by scientists, they survived asteroid impact.
Bats arose from 50m years ago generally, nocturnal, the only mammal developed power to fly. (Some sqirrals glide, not powered flight.)
Both of them fly by flapping wings. They use upstroke of the flap in different ways, with bats flicking wings upwards and backwards, unlike birds, to gain lift.
Bats are also capable of moving through complex environments: darting and turning sharply as they catch insects on the wind.
Sweden and American scientists did the experiment: flew bats in the wind tunnels that was full of fog; track the movement of fog particles in the wake left by the bats to understand aerodynamics of each wingbeat.
The wing structure of bird's and bat's is different.
Birds have feathers projecting back from light weight fused arms and hand bones.
Bats have flexible, relatively short wings with membranes stretch between elongated fingers. It can changed the stretchness of the wings to increase maneuverability.
Bird's can open feather like a Venetian window blind; bats have developed a twisting wing path that increase the lift during the upstroke.
When hovering and during slow flight, bats turn the wing upside down to generate more lift.
Birds' flap of up and down motion to propell them forward. The entire wing span has to be the right angle of attack (the angle between the oncoming air and the birds' wings), the wings have to twist with each downward stroke to keep with the direction of travel.
The down stroke, the birds' wing produces lift and thrust, with air being deflected downwards and also to the rare.
Bird reduces the angle of the attack, partially folding wings on the upward stroke, to pass through the air with less resistance.
The inner part of the wing has very little movement and can provide lift to gliding.
For bat, at most speeds, the downward stroke generates both lift and thrust, while the function of upstroke changes with forward flight speed.
The "Onothocter" Da Vin Ci designed was a craft with wing span of more than 10m, frame to be made of pinewood, covered with row silk as light and sturdy membrane, rod and pull system to power it, hand crank to increase energy output, head piece for steering, pilot face down in the centre.
The first truly successful human aircraft took to the sky in 1977, as the price winner of the award, specifically, for the pioneer in human powered flight set in 1959.
That flight last for 7.5 minutes. The aircraft has the wing span of 29m, a small wing at the front, made of light weight plastics, propeller powered by peddles which was efficient for launching into the air.
Two years later came the breakneck development. The 36km flight across the English Channel between England and France won the price the second time to the same team.
1988, April, an aircraft developed by MIT hit the world record of human powered flight. With the 119km distance, they did the recreation of the mythological flight in the craft's name's sake--the Daedalus 88.
After then, remote control ones, the full scale human piloted engine powered ornothopter developed in Toronto, Canada.
In 2010, aviation history was claimed by a Toronto-developed human powered aircraft with flapping wings and was the first to fly continuously. On 2ed, August, the flight last for 19.3 seconds, covered 145m, at the speed of 25.6km/hour.
The entire human powered aircraft, the Snowball, was claimed as the "last of aviation firsts!"--mechanically flapping of the ornothopter wings; made of carbon fiber, only weight of 42kg; 32m of wings; to help keeping its light, the mechanism of the lift was not in the craft, it's done by pully and lines from a car.
It's no doubt other creations will follow as we continue to look into the nature.
21. Bombardie Beetle and Fuel Injection
Charles Darwin was one of the "Glutton Club" in Cambridge University whose members held weekly meetings for feasting strange flesh.
As its name implies, the bombardier beetle is a living miniature canon. It's named after the soldiers who operate such artillery. It's fitted with a weapon of destructive force, a mobile gun that blasts out clouds of adequate liquid that burn and sting its attackers, sending ants, frogs, even birds fleeing for safty.
Studying the conditions inside the beetle, which allows it produce jet without harming itself may inform real worldwide technology.
The firy spray could be very handy for 21st technology, and help us improve existing and new highly efficient fuel injection system in the future.
There are over 500 species worldly. Though rare in Europe, they are common in Africa, Asia, and aarm parts of North America.
They have variety of habitats: forests, grass and plains, and desert.
They are, both adults and larvae, carnivores. They hunt at night for other insects.
They lay eggs under ground in decaying plant materials or in carcasses of dead animals.
The newly hatched beetles undergo several stages of moulding before reaching maturity. Some larvae parasitize other types of larvae.
The most striking thing is their chemical defence.
They take this chemical weapon to a whole new level.
Some emit their discharges as continuous streams, mist or frost, while others fire a high velocity pulse jet spray that reach 100°c!
How do they do this?
Inside the beetle, there are two defensive glands. Each gland has two linked chambers: the inner or first chamber acts as a resoviour; The outer or second one is where the reaction take place.
Through high-speed X-ray imaging applied by U.S. researchers, here is what happening inside the beetle:
The first resoviour carrying the reactive chemicals, hydrogen peroxidate and hydroquinone, is separated from the combustion chamber by an innate valve.
When the beetle is threatened, the chamber is produced by the muscular walls of resoviour chamber and open the vault and pass into the second one. The enzyme then cause two chemicals to react in a violent explosion that produces oxigen, water vapers, a lot of heat, and irritating chemical called quinone.
This noxious steam in cocktail, then, forces its way out through an exit valve as a spray which the beetle can inject to invaders or predators using reflective place on its abdomen.
It can be bursted into 20cm away, which is not bad for a beetle of only less than 2cm.
How could the beetle isn't cooked alive away in the process?
They have the insect equivalent of blast wall surrounding the reaction chamber. So the vapor search to the exit channel rather than leaking into its body.
The opening and closing these passing ways between the chambers seem to take place passively.
An increased pressure during the explosion expend the membrane which opens a second valve and close the inner valve.
Then, after the liquid is jetted and pressure is released, the membrane relexes back to its original position. The exit one closes and the inner one opens once more allowing the next built-up pressure as a chemical reaction heat the liquid which boils and pushes the pressure up again.
It happens between 400 or 500 times per second.
The spray is hotter than other insects that bestowed the same trait. And eject a combination of water and steam (for the same mass, the steam is 1600 times of volume of water).
So this is a vaper or gas explosion. Both the speed and heat serve more effect on predators.
The engines in vehicles need atomized fuel, turning it into mist while getting the fuel into the cylinder quickly and making sure it's widely distributed with uniform particle size.
Usually, huge amount of pressure is needed to atomize the fuel.
So, improved fuel burning efficiency could be achieved with smaller droplets and lower pressure, which means not only burning less fossil fuel but also saving money at the pump.
The "pulse combustion" has been invented before the know-how of this beetle's mechanism.
British scientists are aiming to create a spray in which they can control the droplets' size actively.
So far, the fuel inject system is applied in injecting addictive into engines. Traditionally, we have to atomized fuel and convert it into fine droplets by forcing it through a siver at very high pressure. But producing such pressure consumes energy and money and harmful emitions.
A fuel-injection system inspired by beetle-- the smaller droplets of fuel, with its greater surface, would be more efficient. Because of the greater surface area provides improved engine performance, and lower fuel consumption, and lower level of harmful emitions.
These scientists also have the application on fire extinguisher. Those ones can eject greater distance about 20 to 30m.
Also on nebulizers, inhalers, needle-free injection.
Maybe a bad taste turn out to be a good news for innovation in bio-science.
22. Fish School and Wind Farm
Schools of fish swimming and shimmering in unison. They appear to move as one - turning, contracting, expanding, even parting and then coming back together again. This is a beautiful sight. Scientists have been studying them to try to make wind farms more efficient.
There are two sorts of fish arigation: shoal of fish and school of fish.
Shoals of fish: a group of fish that hang out together but unorganized;
Schools of fish: highly structured with movements that coordinated where all the fish are travelling in one direction.
Fish sometimes switch from shoals to schools.
Schools of fish, a defence mechanism against predators, have no leader. Each individual fish follows two rules:
A), stay close to immedient neighbours, but not too close;
B), keep swimming.
So when one fish turns, the immedient neighbours turn , and so on. A Mexican wave for fish in all directions.
How are the fish organized?
The "zone of repulsion" where a fish automatically turn away from its neighbours to avoid collision.
Outside this zone is the "zone of orientation": each fish attempts to match up neighbours' movements.
The "beit ball": hundreds or thousands of fish all swim for their lives. Their aim is to confuse predators with quick fleshing movements. The chance to be predated is much less to be in a crowd.
This can, occasionally, work against the fish. Some predators, such as sea lions, work together to divide shoals into smaller ones; then, they take it in turn to swim through the best balls and gauge on those helpless fish.
Schooling is a way to save energy as well.
The energy one fish use to push through in the water is released. The fish swims follow behind can utilise the energy the leader has expanded by moving into its wake, making easier to move forward.
Like the slipstream, the fish at the back of the school can beat theirbtail at lower rate, and use less oxigen.
The 2-D diamond patten is the most efficient way for school of fish to swim--each fish take advantage of the vortices produced by the two fish diagonally in front. This, theoretically, can save up to 80% energy needed to swim.
Most wind farms resemble a set of propellers spinning on a massive cortical pole. Closely, they are massive. They have to be placed a fair distance from one another to avoid the turbulence one affecting the efficiency of anoher, which is a waste of wind energy.
It's partially solved by using bigger blaze and taller towers that can catch the wind at higher altitudes.
But it has more noise, thus increasing the chance of being a hazard to wild life such as birds and bats.
Scientists in California focused on what's near the ground. To maximize the energy collecting efficiency, they get them closer to the ground at about 9m (instead of 13m) where the wind power is more than the electricity usage.
With the right design, smaller and less environmentally intrusive turbines arranged in the right way should be able to generate enough energy.
In the desert in California, a ray of vertical axis wind turbines, 24m*10m*1.2m, has been erected. Their positioning and relationship to one another is based on the swimming behaviours of schools of fish.
By positioning the turbines very close to one another, it can catch all the energy of the blowing wind and even the the wind energy above the farm.
Having every turbine turn in the opposite direction of its neighbors increases their efficiency.
The opposing spins decrease the drag on each turbine, allowing it to spin faster.
In a field test in the summer of 2010, turbines were placed in different configurations(about 5m in space and 20m in space), and it showed that the new type can completely eliminate aerodynamic interference between neighbouring ones.
Another lesson form salmon:
Floods not only take lives, but also cause monetary damages.
The river beds which support bridge foundationscan be eaten away by the speed and turbulence of the floods.
For salmon, flow sensors based in tiny hair-like sensors that salmon have on the sides if their bodies. They can identify the direction of the water flow from the direction of their hair sensors' move and determine the speed of flow by the time delay as turbulence passes their sensors.
U.S. researchers developed a salmon-inspired underwater sensor which relay real time information as partner warning system about how much a riverbed has been stripped away, how stable or unstable the supports of a bridge are as result.
The vortex erodes the bridge base. The materials, sand, wood, or concrete, response differently to the rapid currents.
Here are two examples of fish inspired technology.
23. Bat and Robot
A kind of levitating "eye in the sky" is needed with its small, flexible, agile that can move around metal, concrete skeletons, fly in and out of small spaces and around tight corners to monitor the situation.
U.S. scientists have learnt from bat to create a flying robot/drone by using infrared camera which is able to generate image in dark by visualizing body heat.
The Fruit bats(swooping pass my head) are part of a bat family called megabat. They are small (15cm in length but have wing span of 60cm), feed on soft fruits, usually Africa, except Sahara region, and the middle East through Pakistan to North India.
Bats a can nevigate in dark by a system called echo-location. They produce pulses of sound and listen to the echoes to create 3D image of their surroundings.
Not only their ability to nevigate in the dark, it's also their aero-agility what fascinates scientists.
They are closer to humans than they are to rodents.
They belong to Chiroptera--a group of animals that evolved a membrane of skin that covers their forelimbs and elongated digits (fingers and toes) to form webbed wings. This stretched piece of skin, rather than feathers, enable them to sustain true flight.
They use this ability to great effect: prey and migrate over vast distances.
How do they fly?
They at highly efficient fliers, even more so than birds.
The secreted such efficient bat flight lies in multi-jointed wing and flexible membrane, which, together, create a shape-shift structure that provides more lift, less drag, amd greater manoeuvebility than wings of birds.
Unlike insects and birds which have relatively rigid wings that only move in a few directions, bats' wings have over 20 different joints, all covered in thin, elastic membrane. So, they can stretch to catch air and generate lift in many different ways.
They are really good at controlling 3-dimensional shape of wings during flight. (Insects move wings at joint that equavelent to our shoulders. That's the only point they can exert force and control movements; birds do have more joints than insects, but can't compare to bats.)
What's remarkable is every joint in human hand can also be found in bat' s wing, plus a few more for luck.
They use this kind of dexterity to make fine-scale adjustments during flight.
Apart from the skeleton, now the membrane.
It can curve and stretch more than bird's wings can, thus generating more lift with less energy.
In smoky air in the experiment, it's can be seen: during the down stroke, the air vortex which generates much of the lift, closely track the wing tips; in the up stroke, the vortex appears to come from another location entirely.
When a bat flap wings, which has been compared to a rubber sheet, it filled up with air and deforms; at the end of the down stroke motion, the wing pushes the air out when it's spring back to place; The result is the big amplification of power.
And there at whole bunch of muscle in the membrane.
Bats can use these to change the stiffness of the wing in order to make further tiny adjustments to the flight.
Another trick up their wings:
Not only can they bend, flex, amd puff out, they can also land upside down, just like doing a high dive in reverse.
Because of such complicated skeletons and irregular flight patten, it's a tougher challenge of model.
The wings of the BatBot, created and named by U.S. scientists, is soft, articulate in such a way that it can mimick the key flight of bats.
In essence, the bot is the simple version of nature's original design.
During the development, one challenge the team faced is: bats use 40 joints; while they are too much and too heavy and cumbersome for bots. So the bots only have 9 joints and they are made of carbon fiber which is light, strong, highly flexible.
The second challenge: the material of the wing membrane- -they use the stretchable and ultra-thin silicon-based one for its nature of light, strong, flexible so as to morph and change shape during the flight.
And it only weighs 93gm, and there is the tiny motor in the backbone and on-board sensors to adjust on its go.
The bot can perform a banking turn and a steep dive.
Hovering can be challenging for quadcopter or quadrotor lifted and propelled by four rotors, so the bat-inspired one is more energy efficient and a reliable solution over traditional ones.
Though it's still in prototype, scientists think it can be more maneouveble, durable, and can be super charged with radiation detector, 3D camera system, temperature and humidity sensors.
The possibility of its use can be endless.
24. Dolphin and Tsunami Detector
Our relationship with dolphin can trace back over the millania.
In Greek mythology, dolphins are often depicted as animals coming to our aid.
They were considered sacred to the God, even recognized as Gods in some cases. In India, the river dolphin was regarded as the heraldness desendent from Godess in heaven; in Amazon, dolphin there was worshipped as shapeshifters.
They inspire all kinds of emotions. There are certain social encounters between human and dolphins.
It's the way they communicate inspires new method to detect Tsunami, thus saving people's life.
Dolphins are highly sophisticated animals, and this supplies to the war they communicate as well.
Sound travels 4 times faster in the water than through air. That's one of the reason dolphins use it to communicate.
They produce two types of sound:
A), a continuous tone
B), burst of pulse
The first includes whistles, squeals in some species. They refer to frequency modulated sound. Because dolphins modify the tone of sound, so it gets higher and lower in pitch over time.
The second one often refers to clicks. It's produced successively at regular intervals.
Dolphins produce whistle generally to communicate with other members of their species, and other species as well.
Each dolphin has unique whistle called a signature whistle, which is used to identify individual.
The clicks is what's interested.
Because it relates to echolocation--being a bit like sona, pulses of sound are emit and returning echoes are picked up and interpreted by dolphin to create a picture of surroundings.
Dolphin has an organ in head called the melon--it concentrates the pulses of sound dolphin emit and project forward. Like a beam if sound sent out in the water; when the beam hit an object, it bounces back as an echo; dolphin absorbs this returning echo through its jaw. The jaw works as an antenna as it picks up these signals. A passage of fat from the jaw can send this sound to the inner ear where it changes the vibrational sound energy into nerve impulses which dolphin's brain use to work out the position and characteristics of various objects.
The intensity and the pitch of the echo, as well as the time to take it return to dolphin, provide loads of information of the target: size, shape, composition, distance, direction of moving.
Dolphin can picture an object as big as a golf ball within 100m.
The beam of echolocation clicks is highly directional and can be controlled with slight turn of its head.
In water, you can feel the buzz of their sound. Their frequency is 20~20,000 htz which is well above our hearing range.
At 8~2000 echolocation per second they produce, they are short in length. (Low frequency can travel great distance.) These high frequency sounds work beat when an object is somewhere between 4~200m away.
Dolphin use sound to stun prey like fish.
They burst pulse low frequency call of about 2000htz to advise feed event.
It helping improve tsunami early warnings.
Tsunami is a series of ocean waves caused by seismic activities like earthquakes, volcano eruptions that surge water over 30m high into land.
But Tsunami may only be a few centre metres at its initial stage under the water.
So only going deep into the water, can we track the potential of a tsunami.
Getting information from a sensor 6000m deep about a big wave way out the sea to people on land can be tricky.
The signal has to travel quickly over long distance, go through water to be transmitted up to ocean surface where relays to satellite before finally being sent to an early warning centre.
Apart from that, the sound wave in water can be interfered with each other. Unless you are a dolphin.
Scientists from Germany have developed a under water acoustic system using technology based on dolphin communication physics.
The system collects under water sound waves; enable the data transmition between a special seismic sensor placed at depth of 4000m ; and a wave glider on the surface sends a radio link to the control centre vie satellite.
Advanced warning can get more time for people to evacuate soon and reduce the damage.
Such technology can also be applied into our optical wireless system--free space optics (FSO).
It can be used to send all sorts of data, including video and audio ones.
Data information can be sent vie laser beams between two visible points, which has been in use for over 30 years. But such transmittion could be hampered by adversities as bad weather.
Lasa pulses, or wavelets that mimick dolphin chirps, can be applied in making optical wireless signals that can penetrate through fog, cloud and other adversicve conditions.
Thus, more information can be transferred, and it can be improved to achieve data transmittion through challenging conditions such as in military, medicare, urban areas.
So, as if dolphins are the God!!!
25. Butterfly and Butterflyhouse
The natural world is such an inspiration to architects and designers over the centuries.
Back in the time of European Renaissance in the 15th century, architect Filippo Breuelleschi got the commotion of building the dome of the Cathedrol of Florence in Northern Italy by carefully inspecting an eggshell.
In the competition for design in 1419, he examplified how to put an egg stand on its end(tag egg's end to crush it slightly and placed it onto the table).
The construction cost 17 years to complete. It's the largest dome to be ever created in masonry, an inspiration for the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral and the capital dome in Washington. DC.
In the late 19th century, Anthony Gaudi put it:"We need look no further than nature to see construction at its finest."
The most ambitious work of his is the Sagrada Familia Cathedral in Barcelona, Spain.
The four main spires which dominate the skyline have the appearance of low-pulling mud that set over time. The organic feel doesn't stop there. Inside, the interior is clearly forest inspired--rising supporting columns, each splits into smaller strucks near the top, just like the branches of the trees. In between, these tree-like columns, large coloured glass windows gave the illusion of dappled sunlight piecing through a canopy of leaves; sky lights of green and gold colour glass enhance the feeling of standing on a forest floor, which encourages visitors to reflect within the peaceful atmosphere.
Gaudi was utterly committed in his belief in mother nature's perfect design.
Right down to her timing, it's construction began in 1882, and not likely to be finished in 2022, if not later. 140 years for a building.
In recent years, thanks to advance in digital technology and 3D printing (The computer controlled process by which materials can be joined and solidified into 3D shape), we can now create shapes and structures that otherwise would have been impossible.
One example: the design of butterhouse by a graduate from University of Westminster. She calls her design the "metamorphosis inception" inspired by butter eggs. Although it's a mimick of the shape of eggs, the impact of design inspired by nature reachs far beyond just form and function that may have a positive psychological effect.
Originally, her design was a graduate project to house a butterfly enclosure. In the process, the geometry of the eggs of an endangered butterfly species in Singapore caught her attention.
The butterfly's common name "The white royal" is misleading, because they are not pure white.
They are sexually dimorphic:The visible difference between the sexes underside of the body of both is a greenish white. But view from above, it's a different story.
Bordered by a black edge, the female's wings are mostly a light, chalky pastal blue; the male's is a deep, luxurious blue; a final splash of black, orange on the underside of the hindwings puts the finishing touch to our reigal super star.
The female lays the eggs on the under side of a leaf of a host plant. Freshly laid eggs are white, with light green tin which disappears within a few hours.
After 3 days, the caterpillars emerge by eating through the pointy in the shell, and crawling out of the hull.
Each egg is less than 1mm in diametre. They are covered by fractal design of pits and ridges--various patterns are repeated over and over again at different scales.
She replicated this to create a digital represention of eggs in 3D printing. A structure made if con-cave dome, hexagonal panels, each of the panel is perforated with holes to allow air and light to penetrate/filter through.
Biomimicry is not the copy of the nature literally, but to take time to observe the nature and take in the idea and use them to resolve problems and design in a different way.
She thinks the architecture is something that take the geometric rules and multiplies effectively to design something new.
As an inspired conservationist, she hopes her work can raise the awareness of the declining numbers of the butterfly globally.
Humans are subconsciously familiar with naturally occurring pattens. So, in theory, we should be more relaxed by being surrounded by it.
In her words to conclude this: human are experiencing the first stage of their own metaphoric.
26. Mussel and Foetal Surgery
Any kind of surgery on human body comes with an associated level of risk.
Surgery on foetus is the most challenging one involving penetrating the highly delicate amniotic sac--a fluid membrane that holds and protects the foetus in the womb.
The adhesive properties of common mussels could help such surgery much safer.
According to U.S. researchers, one of the greatest risks in performing surgery on a foetus isn't the surgery procedure itself but the insertion of a foetal scope through the very fragile sac.
The risk comes about because after the surgery, the small hole made by the scope is unable to heal and can begin to tear. If it tears completely, it would lead to mother's premature labour.
Such surgery is often being done during the second trimester(4~6 months into pragenacy), well before the foetus is fully developed. So it increases the foetal death toll.
A glue to prevent the sac from tearing is the optimal.
These procedures are vital when it comes to treating critical conditions such as twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome--identical twins share in a umbilical cord don't have equal access to the nutrients coming from father mother's blood; resolving blockages that threatened kidneys; lobes or lumps don't form normally; spinal bifida- -spinal cord fails to close correctly as the foetus develops~~~
Today, the open-abdomen surgery has been replaced by microscopic tools used to carry out such operations through a small hole. Like sawing up a water bloom.
Sealing a membrane poses it's open challenges:
1), the membrane is wet;
2), delivering a surgical glue at the end of an operation is itself very difficult.
The trickier thing is developing foetus is biologically sensitive so it does't allow any harsh chemicals to impair the health of the baby.
Common/blue/European mussels are often found in coast of North Atlantic ocean, including North America and Europe.
It has a roughly triangular shell, blue, purple, or brown in colour, covered with a black outlayer.
Inside, a pearly appearance with a blue outer edge.
They live in inter-tidal zones. So that have to attach themselves to rocks by strong and elastic thread-like structure called byssal threads.
They are filter-feeders--they filter bacteria and planted out of water to feed themselves.
The attachment to wet rock even when the sea is rough also deters predators(birds and fish).
How do they make these threads?
They are produced by a gland located in foot; the foot starts by emerging from the shell and grabbing onto nearby surface; it, then, produces a thin steam of liquid protein--the Byssal thread hardens; The foot retracts leaving the thread to the surface.
Dozens of such threads, as many as needed, is unsurpass its ability to stick to things under water.
And the core of the thread is not only tough, but also can heal themselves when damaged. The exterior of the thread is very hard yet still stretch.
Such substance is called the Aldopa, the amino acid as the building block of proteins.
Researchers have developed a synthetic adhesive and have had experiments on membrane of caw's heart from dead bodies, and on interior layer of eggshell.
It takes about an hour to set and hold pieces together.
In real operation, it's called the "pre-ceiling": a needle to make a space between the wall of uterus and foetal membrane without puncturing the membrane; the glue is injected into the space and left to set until its rubbery state; the injected ceiling would start harden or cure and attach to foetal membrane and to the uterus wall; then, the time to penetrate the sac with surgical instrument through the area covered by the ceiling patch.
It's hoped this is of no damage.
This reinforce of the membrane allows a water tight seal to close around the surgical instruments.
The routine use in clinical surgery is still someway off, as the researchers are still perfecting the solution.
Anyway, it's such a fascinating idea that also can be applied into other kinds of delicate surgeries.
27. Ant and Network
Ants are not regiment army as they seem. They do not act in obedience to anyone. The seemingly random activities of individual ant, each without any apparent sense of common purpose, combined to allow colonies to collect food, build nests, and defend their host plants, are all without any supervision.
Such activity inspired scientists to create a better communication network.
Scientist in Stanford University has studies ants, red harvest ants, for over 30 years.
Red harvest ant is one of more than 14,000 kinds of ants worldwide. Ants can be found in every habitat, and have to deal with all sorts of ecological challenges.
Red harvest ant forage for seeds. They go out under the sun, so the operating cost they have to contend with is lose of water. They only, when return to nests, replenish themselves of water from seeds they eat. To avoid dehydration, they have to be smart to how far they travel.
In human world, the operating cost was so high in the early days of internet.
In both ants and human network, positive feedback stimulates activity.
A forage ant won't go out unless lots of others return with seeds. Likewise, data from computer doesn't go out unless it gets a signal confirming that previous data packets had enough bandwidth to move along.
The study shows the ants' movement can be described in algorithm or methmatical rule to regulate the flow of foragers. Similarly, the algorithm is used by internet to regulate the flow of data.
"Ants have evolved ways of doing things that we haven't thought up!", as the scientist put it.
Computationally speaking, each ant has limit capabilities, but the collective can perform complex tasks. Simple interactions can add unto achieve complex goals in large engineered distributed system.
How do colonies make decision from studying the turtle ant who get the name by their dish-like shaped head, mainly found in Mexico.
Turtle ants are always in the forest canopy. They travel through tangles of vines branches, along a circuit of trail that link together different nests and food sources. As food source get eaten, the circuit changes a little everyday--nests disappear, branches break in the wind or in the heavy rainfall.
According to the study from University of California in Santiago on how they repair their network of trails: the ants don't follow the shortest path; they follow a chemical trail left by others at any junction or knot. If a trail gets broken, the ants can recover and get back on track based on the "greedy search"--working around the hole in the path by moving back to the nearest junction and choosing a new path from that point.
Such behaviour used by turtle ants for food-searching is studied as the "smart intelligence".
The chemical based on their trace is called pheromone. A short path get pass more frequently can have higher strength of pheromone.
They are volatile. It evaporate over a short period of time.
The food route is strengthened by frequent pass. When food is there no more, the pheromone fades, then new path to new food source.
How does it help designing the network?
The amount of pheroment can be described methmatically. Changes in the environment, temperature affects the rates of vaporization of the pheromone, which leads to looking for food else where.
An experiment on human designed transport network--the European route E63, 1126km, expands much of its length in Finland.
One section was removed. According to the algorithm "rank edge", 70% was succeeded in finding routes around the closure. So, it works in real situations.
It also can be applied in robotics--the swarm robotics. Instead of sending one sophisticated robot on Wars, we can send a smaller patch within a large area.
It's simpler, cheaper, and more resilient to network failours than one uses the central control system.
Because the central is distributed, which adds a layer of redundancy--if one doesn't work, another one can pick up the slack.
Such local interact regulates natural system, as in our body, too.
Cancer cells progress in response to local interactions. Cancer cells are descendents of healthy ones. Hey can thrive and proliferate, because they still interact with other cells using the ancestral rules. In other words, they speak the same language. That's how they can expand to other parts of the body, increase their blood supply, disarm the immune system, turn off the construction of other cells, stop them from reproducing.
Our knowledge of how ants response to changing environments might help us see how different cancers use different algorithm in different physiological situations, thus leading to new ways of tackling the development and spreading of cancer.
With 100m years of evolution, ants can have the inspiration on how to organize our lives and our systems.
28. Peacock and Computer Screen
The dazzling appearance of peacock's tail is one of nature's great wonders.
Males will shake their brilliant coloured tail to attract females. This courtship display is known as "train rattling". With its rattling sound, shimmering pattens of emerald and turquoise, the tail feathers appear glow in their own light.
The way of these colours are produced could help to design the next generation of computer screen.
Because the energy cost to produce colourful screens worldwide is huge.
Peacock and peahen compose the family of peafowl. The males court to several females each of which lays 3 to 5 eggs. Wild ones often roost in the forest trees over night. So look up while you want to find some.
There are mainly the Congo peafowl and the Indian ones which we are familiar with. What strike us are those coloured eyespots.
We see colours thanks to specialized receptors at the back of our eyes. The surface of an object reflects the waveslength of the colour we see, whilst, at the same time, absorbs the other wavelengths or the rest of the colour.
White colour reflects all the waves back to us.
This is called the pigment colour.
Peacock's tail, appearing glimmering in their own light, produces the colour effect in different way.
Zooming in and study the tail feather under the microscope, you will find the surface of the feather have grooves--small but enough to interfere the wavelength. Variation of the size of the grooves allows them reflect different parts of the visible spectrum. In other words, the feathers are structured to reflect light at precise wavelength.
While light hits the tail, at its simplest, it's transformed into the iridescent colour we see.
That's the structural colour--colours caused by interference effect rather than pigment itself. More precisely, it's colour that produced by microscopically structured surface that is fine enough to interfere visible light.
So, one fact about thepeacock's tail is its colour is brown.
According to Darwin, the tail is the showy feature of male for sexual selection.
More recent study argued it's the "honest signal" of male's fitness. Since less fit ones would not survive such long and conspicuous tail.
The males shake their train, spreading and raising feathers, and vibrate them when the females are close, making the eyespots appearing as if hovering in front of the moving feathers.
In video recording, the eyespots bearly move, while the rest of the tail is oscillating about them.(Like plug a guitar string, eyespots are the notes.)
Vibrating a long tail at high speed requires considerable muscle strength. That's why the visible display could be measure of the male's physical prowess.
But according to U.S. scientists who used eye-tracking equipment found that hens pay attention only mainly to the lower part of the train and little time on these eyespots.
What really matters is the size of the tail rather than the ornaration.
Size relates to the age which is the indicator of breeding quality.
Scientists have been long interested in harnessing the property of structure colour. Until recently, its use is needed in reflective displays such as the next generation e-paper display.
Because it's far less energy-consuming.
But the challenge is it's unstable depending on what angle you are viewing them due to its annoying shifting patten.
U.S. engineers have been able to lock in certain parts of wavelength, making the reflective hues hold true dispite the changes of angle of view.
Such technology is called "light funneling", which catches and traps particular wavelengths of light.
They edge groove in a plate of glass. The neno scale groove is coated with a thin layer of silver. Such technology has been applied in creating Olympic Rings display in 2012 Olympis.
The visible spectrum of light spans from 400 neno metre for violet; 700 for red.
The grooves glass plate can produce different colours with different widths of slits.
A groove of 40 neno metre wide would trap red light and reflect a sign colour; a 60 neno metre one can trap green light and reflect magenta hue; a 90 neno metre one can trap blue light and reflect yellow.
How does this happen?
When lights which is a combination of electronic and magnetic field components hit the groove's surface, the electric component creates what's known as a polarization charge at metal slit surface, boosting the local electronic field near the slit. This electronic field, then, pulls a particular wavelength of light in.
This technology has the potential to be truly revolutionary and could lead to high-resolution reflective colour displays and e-readers and computer displays far more energy efficient with no back lighting or electrical power is required.
So, it's not only the peahens are impressed.
29. Butter and Paint
The blue morph butterfly is one of the most beautiful and impressive butterfly in the world. It's also massive with wing span--about 20cm.
It's not only the size so impressive, but also the dazzling display. The brilliant blue wings appear to shimmer. Males' are slightly more vivid, and the colourizarion is used to intimidate any rivalries or confuse predators.
They have the special significance locally as being considering as a powerful symbol of the soul and spiritual transformation.
The shimmering blue colour is thought to symbolize healing. In Costa Rica, people often make a wish when they lay eyes on these stunning insects.
They are, by no means, the only iridescent insect.
Among others, the jewel beatles are the most noticed.
They have been highly priced since the 17th century with their wing cases being stitched in the ceremonial costume, hair dressers, decorative fabrics and on jewels and artworks.
A Belgain artist used 1.5m wing cases in decorating a mirror in Brussel Royal Palace.
The Beatles can be farmed, and eaten in Thailand, Mengmai, and India. The leftover wing cases then be sold on for jewellery.
Iridescence can be found in other animals like birds, Maggie, humming bird.
Historically, iridescent feathers were used in making royal cloaks in Polynesian cultures. They are carved in decoration to show power and status.
The term iridescence comes from Latin and Greek word Iris which means rainbow; also, in Greek mythology, the Goddess Iris, the personification of the rainbow, acts as the messager to the Gods.
Because of its changing nature and the range of shades they produce, iridescent colours are often described as rainbow like, shimmering, metallic, sparkling.
Morph Pilates, the common maopho, the emperor butterfly, are mainly in tropical rainforest in central and South America.
The shimmering blue colour effect while they fly through the thick foliage is a visual signal to find mate and define territory.
But, they contain no blue pigment. It's the typical structural colour.
They normally live 115 days on everage. As caterpillars, they are nocturnal, feed on plants. Some are carnivores who feed on their siblings. As adults, they live on about one month and feed on fruits.
They have a long, thin, hollow tongue used as a drink strew to suck up liquids. They find food by tasting the air with their club-shaped antennae. They also have taste sensors in legs and feet.
The most striking feature is the wings. They have two fore-wings and two hind-wings. The upper side of the wings is dazzling blue; The under side is dull brown.
There are scales on both sides of the wings. Each scale is like a miniature tile of mosaic of a overlapping rose.
The scales are formed during the puple case, so the research team found a way to remove the wings, and grow it in a petrol dish, and monitor its developing.
The ridges on the surface of the scale are key to how the wing spreads or reflects light, which is in similar way to a prism.
A prism separates white light into the colours of rainbow as it passes through the glass.
A butterfly scale, instead, causes light wave to reflect and interfere with one another to make some colour brighter and others darker.
When light hits the ridges, something called construvpctive interference happens.
The ridges are indented, double-edged comb. The space within the ridges, or between the teeth of the comb, determines which wave of light will be reflected and which will be cancelled out. That's why our eyes see the shimmering effect.
Such find can be useful for developing new pigment-free technology in paints and in fabrics. The colour is determined by the structure of sheet of metal they are made.
In the application on cars, the paint changes colour depending on the light source and the angles. The effect is achieved by interfering with reflection of light from the object surface.
It's the tiny synthetic flakes, only 1 micro metre thick, made from aluminium, coated with clay-like magnesium chloride, inbeded in sipemi-translucent Chromium. The magnesium and chromium create vibrant metalic sparkle. While the glass-like coating acts like the reflecting prism, changing the colour of surface as the observer moves.
It's also be used in textile industry to create fabric that has 61 nino layers to produce he colour of blue, green, and red without pigment.
The traditional pigment is hazardous.
Because it pollutes the water, underground and surface, and the air.
The new colouring technology reduces both the need for energy and the waste.
It can't be mimicked by chemical pigment.
And it can not fade.
It's no longer fable that multiple colours can be displayed with a single material.
30. Spider and Remote Sensing
Spider's web, with its intricate silk and threads, looks so delicate and fragile, yet we know it's strong and elastic.
Synthetic spider silk has the potential to revolutionize materials we use for things like bullet vest, protective cover from electronics, rope of suspension bridge, which all rely on flexibility and toughness.
Englush scholars noticed the signal thread in spider's web--the thread in the web to monitor when they catch a new prey.
These threads are made from the same material. They are the last part of the web to be built. Spiders use it to transit vibrations from prey. As a tight rope, spider could come cross the web directly.
Remote sensing--a process in which we get information from a distance. These sensors can be a part of setallites, mounted aircrafts to collect information from earth to monitor changes on the shoreline or track hurricanes.
In the case of spider, remote sensing refers to the way in which it recieves a signal through the thread when it captures the prey in the web. The thread transmit information of the viberation to the spider.
After studying, researchers found the structure of the thread is highly variable. It contains 4 to 16 fibers for each thread. The number of the fiber and the weight the thread could support vary with the movement of the spider--every time the spider scuffles from the perimeter of its web to the hub, more fibers were added to the signal thread. So it gets thicker and thicker so that it could support more weight.
As more fibers added, the spiders pull them more tighter to increase overall tention to the thread. So, the way the vibaration remains the same regardless the size.
In remote sensing technology, there is the idea to design a system or technology which detects viberational energy and turns it into electricity, and extend it to large scale application.
Apart from that, spider also inspires us in the sticky problem: the sticky plaster seems to lose their stickiness in hotm humid summer days.
There is the so-called "interfacial water"--the water gets between the glue and the surface it's supposed to be sticking to, the slippery, non-adhesive layer.
To overcome the effect of interfacial-water, U.S. researchers found the silk thread of spider is coated in a glue--the hydrgel one. Full of water, quite the opposite to non-sticky, it's one of the most effective glue in the natural world, even when it got hot and humid.
There are two types of proteins in it:
Oglycolne is the protein--LMMC (Low molecule mass compounds). The mass of molecule is the building blocks of any given substance.
Low mass means it weigh not much.
The other is water.
Glycol based glues have been found in other manstrue-occurring glues associated with fungi algae, seastars.
It's the LMMC does the clever stuff: it absorbs water. It absorbs or attracts moisture from the air to keep the glue soft and tacky so it can perfectly stick to things.
More importantly, it also moves water from boundary, so that could stick to the surface in high humidity.
The absorption of water is the key. And it has the huge commercial potential.
The interest in spider silk doesn't stop there.
It's strong, light, and non-toxic. So one of the goals of scientists is the synthesize it artificially.
But the challenge is the genetic makeup of spider silk and the silk proteins.
The artificial silk must be kept soluble at concentrations as high as 50% weights of volume, then, quickly converted to threads.
The industrial scale spider thread making costs time, money, and energy preventing protein aggregation(fold up and clump together).
Swedish scientists revealed how they did it:
To create these fibers, they mimick a spider's mechanism by pumping the protein solution through a capillary (a narrow tube) into a low PA solution(buffer). The artificial one has the same structure or conformation as the natural one, and the strength and string in the similar way.
Now, it's time to turn these fibers into matrices, designs, 3D structures for research and clinical applications.
After 5 years of collaboration of spider experts and chemists, it's the synthetic spider silk with anti-biotic property.
It can be used in delivering medical drugs, for closing open wounds with reduced risks of infection, because of its non-toxic, bio-degradable, protein-based, and no inflammatory or allergic in mammals.
In fact, its use in wound dressing can be traced back to ancient Greeks and Romans. Honey and vinegar mixture as an antiseptic to clean, and spider silk to stamp the bleeding.
English scientists have made or coloned silk thread using a special building blocks or amino acids can form chemical bonds to drugs or other molecules. Several molecules were attached to the silk produced from a mimicked spider silk gland. That's the silk fiber decorated with anti-biotics which can be applied in medical use.
Anyway, this is another example of animal inspired innovation.
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