IB 199 BioInspiration Spring 2011

You know that the bible/religion and evolution can coexist? Don't have to denounce one over the other. Just keep admiring all that is around you.

This is quite a lengthy article, but if you like dense math and physics, then this is the article for you. Usually, when one thinks about bees, you think of CCD, or bees' dance. This time, scientists are interested in their vision. Using an interesting mix of mirrors and a video camera, we are actually able to somewhat recreate what a bee sees. Obviously, it's not perfect, but it's pretty close.  The central aim was to build a light-weight system that can be used as an intuitive tool for assessing the visual world from the bees' perspective by reconstructing their visual input. This system may also serve as an insect-inspired system for mobile robots, especially for small flying vehicles.

Kate, this is a very interesting article and it points out that simple systems can be just complex enough for us to learn from. Nice annotation - this type of annotation will help you in the future - I mean why read a dense paper (full of math and physics) again if it was no good in the first place.

This is a great article that was posted on Twitter by John McCann. Thank you! This relates to the material silk, which is a very useful naturally-made material. In my research, I came across a goat that was able to produce silk proteins in its milk thanks to science, but I never saw this. This article talks about how some researchers have been able to modify silkworms to produce a mix of silkworm/spider silk. This is much more sturdy than silk from a silkworm alone. It is better to be produced by a silkworm, because they are easier to raise and more efficient at producing silk. This is a great article to think about biomimicry.

This website is all devoted to the applications of shark skin. Great way to use the design in nature to solve the problems we have to use chemicals for. Linked to a solution for boats, but if you explore the website you'll find other ways that this could be used.

This is a short scholarly article that is definitely worth reading. It expands on the Student Teach Presentation for the Stiff Composites group, specifically the resilin aspects. I was really interested in the resilin's applications in dragonfly wings and its "rubber-like" properties, and this article was perfect for further information on it.

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.

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This is a really interesting find. This article talks about how scientists are developing a coating similar to that found in mussels that could really allow us to do more with cells.

This is a pretty interesting article about how sharks navigate and can detect prey using electroreception. However, I would recommend reading just the first three paragraphs, because after that I think it gets a bit repetitive. Basically, hair cells in sharks can sense electric changes (caused by crossing geomagnetic lines or movement of prey) which travel through ions in seawater and then relay this information to the brain.

Hey guys, I found this short little site that has a bunch of cool applications of nature to architecture. Definitely worth your time if you're looking for an interesting read. Enjoy!

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.

This article talks about a study of the special feature of flying snakes, which has perfect active movement. This study will help us to understand how snake move smoothly or even fly. They finally came up with an idea of snake-like military aircraft, which I think is very creative and jump out of the box of the classic design of aircraft.

In this TED talk Paul Wolpe discusses the current excels in bioengineering and whether there is a line that needs to be drawn. According to Paul, man has undergone three major waves of evolutions: Darwinian Evolution (passive), Civiliization (controlling the evolutionary environment), and Directed Evolution (design). For the first time in history man is intentionally designing and altering the physiological forms that inhabit our planet. In the speech, Paul posses the question of what are the "ground rules" for bioengineering and creating life by depicting the work we have done so far. The majority of food in the supermarket today already has genetically modified aspects of it without clear regulations or identification on the packages. Are the benefits that may come from genetically modifying organisms worth the manipulation of nature? Paul also talks of recent successfull experiments in which scientists have been able to control animals through computer technology. An "Organic Robot". What do you guys think? Is it right for us to modify animals in order to benefit ourselves? Where is the line drawn? This is no longer science fiction, but a reality.

This represents ingenuity in nature. To prevent contact with a poisonous surface, macaws dip their feet in a special clay before grabbing for the fruit of the hura tree. The macaw also swallows this clay after ingesting this poisonous fruit. An application for this would be analysis of the clay to form an antivenom that doesn't require refridgeration. I was extremely intrigued by this.

This scholarly article discusses the shift in architecture from constructing buildings that "worked with nature" to today's type of buildings that have very little concern for the nature around them. It also addresses the fact that we should try to model our buildings after animals as we once did. Although this article is quite lengthy, it is definitely worth reading. This article really helped me appreciate architecture.

Nice job explaining what we can expect in the article. Exactly what I am looking for in an annotation.

This is a great self-help guide for anyone who is struggling to come up with ideas from nature. This guide walks you through different techniques you can use to see the inspiration in nature. Yes this is for photography, but if you think big picture this is a guide to find inspiration in nature regardless of your end product. Quick Overview: 1)Take a Closer Look 2)Focus on Variety in a Specific Category 3)Stop Studying Plants 4)Explore Different Perspectives 5)Think of Nature in Motion 6)Combine Opposites 7)Spice up the Color 8)Focus Only on Texture 9)Focus Only on Shape 10)Think How You Want the End User to Feel 11)Use Nature-Inspired Culture 12)Illustrate a Scene from Scratch 13)Create an Abstract Composite of Photographs 14)Use your Imagination 15)Reflect on a Place You Love 16)Zoom Out 17)Create an Imaginary World

John, this is an excellent idea. Thanks for sharing. I will definitely save it to share with future courses.

An article about a new ventilation system based on the nasal passage of a bipedal kangaroo rat.

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 find something more about solar energy. Scientists begin to search better way to use solar energy on much smaller things like bacteria. I'm thinking, mostly, we would like to focus on animals, plants or other species are "big" enough to observe. Actually, there are even more things we can learn from those tiny things.