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This is an article about a new discovery that some octopuses tuck in six of their legs and run backwards on two to get away from predators. Biologists think this is so that they can remain camouflaged and increase their speed. This is important for bio-inspiration because the article also mentions how this could be used for "soft" robotics and artificial muscle. It is the first underwater bipedal locomotion that has been discovered.

This article talks about some really interesting possible bio-inspired sensors on future robots. They're very likely to achieve according to the current technical development.

It's a pretty long article but very worth reading. It talks about several ideas about ideas of new smart fabrics. Some of the ideas are from the biomaterials we talked in class like silk and soft composites. I especially like the innovation of self-dealing fabrics which is inspired by skins and the one inspired by chameleon skin and fish scale. It's cool when you see some ideas you never thought about. Enjoy.

something wrong with the link. I shorten the link here. Hope it works. http://bit.ly/fEHAaH

Be it that we are nearing the end of the class, I found this video to be a very good summary of what we have covered in the class and what we can take away from it. The video is based upon the new movement of finding design inspiration from nature (Biomimicry). For this specific interview, they focus on an interview with Robert Full to educate the viewer about engineering inspiration from nature. If you remember, Robert Full believes that evolution doesn't necessarily design the perfect mechanism, but rather the mechanism that allows the animal to survive. Therefore, we as humans are able to learn from the abilities of animals gained from evolution and further refine the specific ability to be more efficient and applicable to our needs. The video covers a bunch of the innvoations we have discussed during our time in class including the gecko robot and the running robot RHex. I think this would be a nother great video to show in the beginning of the class for next semester. It presents the general idea of BioInspiration, provides examples of research and application, and also discusses the great importance it will play in the future; building more efficient and useful technology.

Here is another interesting article about bio-inspired robotics. They have a particularly interesting flying robot based off of a fly as well as other pages including nanostructures, biomaterials, and more.

This is a site full of fascinating innovations that have been inspired by life, the first and most interesting, in my opinion, is a breathing apparatus that draws air from the water like a fishes gills.

I found this 11 minute video when I was looking up information about biomimicry for our Habitat post. Ironically this video has the same speaker from one of our lectures that we watched from moodle. It goes into detail about the history of where and how biomimicry got started, along with an interview with Robert Full that goes into greater detail of the biomimetic experiments that are being done at UC Berkeley. It was really interesting to learn where biomimicry stems from and that scientist havie been using it for many many years.

South American electric knifefish are a leading model system within neurobiology. Recent efforts have focused on understanding how they move, and how that relates to how their brain controls movement. Knifefish swim by means of an undulatory fin that runs most of the length of their body, affixed to the belly. Using this fin enables the fish to stay relatively straightforward, making them different from sharks in this regard. The results of this experiment show that there is an optimal operational region in the fin's kinematic parameter space, when the fin is used in conjunction with a robot.