3D Printing, Shrimp, and Biomimcry
Something I’ve noticed in my vast experience with roaches, beetles and other specific types arthropods, is that the rigid outer shell that characterizes them don’t burst open. If you ever stepped on a large enough roach then you’d realize that they don’t explode. Now, logically thinking, exploding is bad, rupturing the inside if a bug or shrimp’s organs would lead to instantaneous death. The way these arthropods adapted from this was by utilizing something called a Bouligand Structure. This is a pattern that utilizes layered sheets, that have a higher susceptibility of cracking which allows for these shells to take the blunt force of something without bursting. The way this translates to us, is through 3D printing. The patterns that make up Bouligand structures can be simply copied. Purdue University is currently in the process of applying this to cement structures. Hopefully, in the near future, we’ll have shrimp inspired buildings.
Sarracenia’s Super Slippery Surface
Pitcher plants, scientific names Sarracenia and Nepenthes, are carnivorous plants that use their pitcher-like shape and slippery inner lining to trap their prey in a pool of digestive liquid. Once prey touches the outer edge of their “pitcher” they can’t help but slide down the walls towards their imminent death.
The inner coating in pitcher plants is so slippery that it repels water, oil, honey and can even resist bacteria and ice formation. The unusual surface of these plants features a microtextural roughness that locks in a lubricating layer of water which repels oils on insects’ feet, so they slide to their end. This slippery inner lining served as inspiration for a materials science lab to create SLIPs, or Slippery Liquid-Infused Porous Surfaces.
SLIPs is a surface consisting of Teflon nano-fibers infused with water and oil repellent lubricating liquid. Prior models for slippery surfaces had been lotus leaves, which utilized their shape and surface coating to repel water, but not all liquids like oils. SLIPs, on the other hand, repel all tested liquids of different compositions and viscosities. This new omniphobic material is also self-cleaning and self-healing. These surfaces are aimed to improve for biomedical fluid handling, for fuel transport, and as a surface that repels ice, which can be used to reduce energy consumption in refrigeration.
Building on SLIPs, there are new ideas in the field that extend this technology further to create a new glass coating that repels nearly everything. The technology is still being improved, but they currently prevent water, oil or octane from sticking to the surface, but it can also prevent fog from forming on glass. That means that systems that need to remain frost-free, like airplanes, power lines, and cooling systems, could be kept clear of frost in the winter. Solar panels can be coated to be more efficient, windows can stay clean indefinitely, glasses can be smudge-free and more difficult to break, and medical diagnostic devices can be coated to reduce the risk of infection and sterility.
Cephalopod skin as color changing and camouflage material
Cephalopods are a class of animals that include organisms such as the squid, octopus or nautilus. Cephalopods are very skilled in quickly blending into their environment through a sudden change of color and patterns on their body. This is mainly done through multiple layers of cells with the top most layer being rich in chromatophores. They are controlled with rings of muscle containing various pigments where based on whether the size of expansion different colors can be seen (or not seen).
While observing this phenomenon, researchers from the University of Illinois that the concept could be applied to textiles and other materials. Combining biology with mechanics and engineering, a material was developed that is capable of sensing and responding to its surroundings. Using the multilayered system of materials it can respond to stimuli like light and heat (in lesss than two seconds!). Photo receptors beneath this layers are able to interact with colors in the local environment in order to direct color changes.
This technology has application in the military for camouflage purposes where one uniform with this material is sufficient for all types of environments. There are also future plans of using these properties to create shape changing material that can be used as coating for soft robots to send them to study nature.
Mosquito Bites and Improving the Microneedle
It’s easy to get a mosquito bite an not notice it. We often find ourselves with multiple bites before even realizing what happened. This seamlessness is due in part to the design of the tip of the mosquito’s mouth, also known as the proboscis.
The mouth of the mosquito is made up of multiple parts which make drawing blood painless. First, the mosquito employs a numbing agent, and then along with the initial penetration of the skin, it has serrated edges which saw through the tissue. These serrated issues make penetration easier, and they vibrate while they move. With this design, less surface area is affected, making the bite painless. Not only is the mosquito’s proboscis less painful, but it allows for a large amount of blood to be taken quickly.
Researchers from Japan to Ohio have taken notice of this phenomenon and have used their observations to craft a new micro-needle, which allows for samples of blood to be taken with less pain and with more efficiency. This has led researchers at the University of Kansai in Japan, to design a needle which has multiple parts like that of a mosquito’s mouth. Tests have shown that this experiment has worked. Additionally, researchers at the University of Ohio are planning to design a needle which has two smaller needles inside of it, one of which issues a numbing agent and the other employs the serrated edges. Here one can see that biomimicry is a large part of the design process even in the medical field.
Aliens and Dolphins
Dolphins have large, sophisticated brains, elaborately developed in the areas linked to higher-order thinking. They have a complex social structure, form alliances, share duties and display personalities. Laurance Doyle of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, studies animal communication in preparation for extraterrestrial contact and began the Order of the Dolphin which set out to determine what our ocean-going compatriots here on Earth might be able to teach us about talking to extraterrestrials.
Doyle uses information theory which is a branch of math that analyzes the structure and relationships of information to analyze radio signals, hoping to better detect intelligence in space. Using information theory it’s possible to separate binary code from random 0s and 1s. Information theory also shows that dolphins have rules of grammar and syntax. Doyle confirmed that dolphin signals weren’t random noise by turning to the work of Harvard linguist George Zipf who, in the 1930s, had found a striking pattern common to human languages.
Doyle also noted that there are some tantalizing studies suggesting dolphins share their own language. All are qualities humans hope to see in an alien, and contact is not complete without some attempt at communication which is why Doyle and his team are finding new methods of converse through dolphins.
The Effect of Wingtip feathers of Birds on Plane Design
While planes themselves were modeled similarly to bird wings in order to fly, there are other aspects of planes that can also be credited to birds and their wingtip feathers. When birds fly, their wingtips point vertically up, and this allows them to lift themselves up higher without using as much of their wingspan to do so. When this concept was applied to airplanes, it was found that having upturned wings caused less “drag” in planes, since the wings point upwards, aligning with the airflow and creating a sort of “vortex” that allows for more ease in actual flight. Additionally, planes with upturned wings can fly further, carry more weight, and save more fuel than before. The smaller size of the wings also helps with making it easier to parking the planes, as they take up less space than planes with longer wings.
Silk from Spiders
Spider silk, first discovered in 1710 by François Xavier Bon has been a desirable ingredient growing in interest over the past few years. It is difficult to collect spider silk as it is extremely sensitive to temperature and spiders do not make large amounts of silk. In order to combat this issue, one specific biotechnology company, Kraig Biocraft Technologies, Inc. developed ways to apply the genetically engineered silk to silkworms. Not only does this increase the production, the designed spider silk, Monster Silk® and Dragon Silk™, a combination of spider silk and silkworm silk protein, are significantly stronger than average silk.
Spider silk is/can be used for military, industrial and consumer purposes. It is stronger than steel and extremely flexible which is useful is many different situations. It is also biodegradable and will change many industries for the better–weapons, clothing, ropes and other tools will be designed to last. The company is also currently designing “Gen 3 technical and medical fiber” which is said to be more durable than spider silk. Spider silk technology is a fast-growing industry and spider silk is extremely compatible with further developing and improving many technologies.
Butterfly Wings and Solar Panels
The boom in solar energy that has come in the last few years marks progress for environmental efficiency, but it still has yet to reach its true potential. In order to maximize the efficiency of solar panels, scientists have looked to rose butterflies for the answer.
Rose butterflies are unique in that they are cold blooded, and thus need to be exposed to sunlight in order to fly. Wondering how evolution has maximized exposure to sunlight, Radwanul Siddique, a scientist at the California Institute of Technology, observed butterfly wings under an electron microscope and found that every scale on their wings had small, randomly distributed holes on them that help to scatter light and absorb heat.
With this in mind, Siddique designed a new type of solar panel that was porous on a nanoscopic level. The small holes are random in size, shape, and distribution, and have proven to optimize the amount of sunlight that the panels take in. This design is currently only in the prototype phase, but funding from the German Research Foundation may lead to mass production in the near future.
Kingfishers and Bullet Trains
In the 1990s in Japan, bullet trains were a primary source of transportation given that they moved so fast and brought travelers from one place to another in no time. However, the quick speeds going up to 300 kilometers per hour came at a cost; when the bullet trains would exit train tunnels, all the air drag and pressure within the tunnel elicited a loud booming sound. This disturbed not only the people who lived nearby but also the wildlife around the area.
The issue of this incredibly loud sound from these bullet trains had to be addressed. It just so happened that one of the engineers for the West Japan Railway Company, Eiji Nakatsu, was also a birdwatcher, and he took his observations and knowledge of the kingfisher and applied them to the design of the newly-innovated bullet trains. What Nakatsu observed from the kingfishers was that they would dive into the water and barely make a splash, which inspired him to consider the design of the front of the bullet trains. The train design would align with the design and function of the streamlined kingfisher beaks that allowed them to enter the water splashless.
With the updated design of the bullet trains, the trains could travel through tunnels without the painfully loud booms. Plus, the design was much more aerodynamic and led to a conservation of energy.
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