Nature's Children

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Mark
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Re: Nature's Children

Post by Mark » Tue Dec 25, 2012 6:03 pm

"Over some 150 million years, these “products” have been ruthlessly prototyped, market-tested, upgraded, refined and otherwise made new and improved as the world around them changed. Each of these fragile specimens is a package of innovation waiting to be understood and adapted."
How Biomimicry is Inspiring Human Innovation
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-n ... c=y&page=1#
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Mark
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Re: Nature's Children

Post by Mark » Sat Dec 29, 2012 5:16 am

Benoit Mandelbrot: Fractals and the art of roughness
http://www.ted.com/talks/benoit_mandelb ... hness.html
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Mark
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Re: Nature's Children

Post by Mark » Tue Jan 01, 2013 4:40 pm

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Mark
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Re: Nature's Children

Post by Mark » Fri Feb 22, 2013 2:40 pm

Floral signs go electric
"How then do bees detect electric fields? This is not yet known, although the researchers speculate that hairy bumblebees bristle up under the electrostatic force, just like one’s hair in front of an old television screen."
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2013/9163.html

"Its six-legged exoskeleton is fuzzy with hairs that build up a static charge as the bee flies in order to electrically attract pollen."
http://www.rose-lynnfisher.com/aboutbook.html

"Their fuzzy hair often becomes electrostatically charged when they fly. When they land on flowers, which are grounded, the pollen is attracted to them. If pollen is on their body, it can be attracked to the flower stem. They are very effective pollenators. The fuzzy hair also insulates them. Therefore, you will often find them at higher elevations. They can often be found on Catskill Mountain summits where there are flowers. They do occur at lower levels. Bumble bees do not have ears, but can sense vibrations. In spite of being very hairy, they can fly very fast. They can fly up to 30 mph. They beat their wings up to 200 beats per second."
http://www.catskillmountaineer.com/animals-bees.html
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Mark
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Re: Nature's Children

Post by Mark » Sat Feb 23, 2013 3:37 pm

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Mark
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Re: Nature's Children

Post by Mark » Thu Mar 07, 2013 9:25 pm

“The little chap’s name was pronounced 'curry,' but spelled some other way,” he said. “At the time, I was regularly hosting surf-fishing trips to the Skeleton Coast in Namibia, and he belonged to Jens, one of our guides. Each day he would ride up in the front of the truck with us, and when we stopped to fish, he would spend the day digging holes in the sand and generally foraging around. Whenever a bird flew over, he would run to the nearest angler and sit as tight as he could to their legs for protection. As you can see, he loved having his photo taken.”
http://www.sportfishingmag.com/blogs/ti ... py-anglers
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Mark
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Re: Nature's Children

Post by Mark » Tue Apr 02, 2013 2:14 pm

Illustrative video
Hagfish slime: The clothing of the future?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21954779
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Mark
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Re: Nature's Children

Post by Mark » Tue Apr 09, 2013 2:37 pm

"Although conceptually simple, analysis of jellyfish propulsion is actually quite complex. Because the propulsion strategy consists of pulses, the jet velocity is not constant in time and the pressure at the bell orifice is not ambient. Moreover, fluid is ingested and expelled from the same orifice rather than through separate inlets and exits as with mechanical turbojets."
Jetting
http://lyle.smu.edu/propulsion/Pages/jetting.htm

"The shape of the bell, the size of the velum (relative to the bell diameter) and contraction characteristics determine how medusae interact with the surrounding fluid. In other words, these traits of a medusa interact to determine the flow that a medusa generates when swimming and how they generate thrust for swimming. Consequently, prolate and oblate medusae propel through the water differently."
Jellyfish flow
http://fox.rwu.edu/jellies/flow1a.html

Biomimetic Jellyfish Robotic
http://www.emdl.mse.vt.edu/projects/alex.html
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Mark
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Re: Nature's Children

Post by Mark » Fri Apr 19, 2013 4:07 pm

A few crumbs/food for thought
"The lesson to learn here is the incredible success that nature has in adapting designs to take advantage of and exploit multifunctionality."
http://io9.com/roboticists-discover-the ... -476242076
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Mark
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Re: Nature's Children

Post by Mark » Thu Jun 13, 2013 1:54 am

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Mark
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Re: Nature's Children

Post by Mark » Wed Jul 31, 2013 2:07 pm

These Microscopic Balls Protect Insects From Their Own Waste
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com ... own-waste/
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Mark
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Joined: Sat Oct 11, 2003 10:14 pm

Re: Nature's Children

Post by Mark » Fri Sep 06, 2013 3:05 am

Living on Earth: Paper Trees in Precious Ground
"LOBET: To see what drives the Indonesian economy, just get out on the road. Even before sunrise you see truck after truck, loaded with orange palm fruits. Palm oil is big business around the world – for cooking oil, detergent and fuel. And there are still more trucks, laden with logs, to make paper. Soon our car stops so Arman, the driver, can have a smoke.
[BIRDS SINGING; OUTDOOR SOUNDS; GIBBON IN THE BACKGROUND]
LOBET: Where we've stopped the forest is burnt away, most likely to make way for oil palm trees. In a distant stand of forest we hear gibbons. As he smokes, Arman says used to hunt them, but not anymore.
[ARMAN SPEAKING INDONESIAN]
VOICEOVER: In the forest, I came across one of these animals. I shot it four times and it fell out of the tree and leaned against it crying. It was holding a baby. It cried like a human, there were tears and it sniffed. She handed her baby to me, then sank down and died. That's when I stopped shooting animals that act like humans.
LOBET: The sound comes from way in the distance. As the trees are cut the animals are being pushed further out.
[ARMAN SPEAKING INDONESIAN]
VOICEOVER: They don’t know where to find food anymore."
http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html? ... egmentID=2
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Mark
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Joined: Sat Oct 11, 2003 10:14 pm

Re: Nature's Children

Post by Mark » Sun Dec 29, 2013 2:20 am

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Mark
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Re: Nature's Children

Post by Mark » Sat May 03, 2014 2:33 am

Dylan Winter and the Starling Murmurations
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88UVJpQGi88
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Mark
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Joined: Sat Oct 11, 2003 10:14 pm

Re: Nature's Children

Post by Mark » Wed Jun 17, 2015 3:11 pm

I once brought home some horsetail spores and looked at them under the microscope. When I breathed on the slide with just a puff of humid air they instantly coiled up, something they do to drop to the ground when moisture is present, a way of finding a good home I guess. Anyway this other article uses something from nature kind of/vaguely(?) similar perhaps to drive these toys. My spores made an even better performance than the ones seen here, I had so many more in the field of view and to see them respond with the lightest puff of my breath was something to behold.
Pteridology - Equisetum spores
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EnnYX75Sgg

"The idea for the HYDRA material came to Sahin more than half a decade ago, when he came across an unusual find in nature. While studying the physical properties of micro-organisms with advanced imaging techniques, he discovered that the spore of the very common grass bacillus bacteria responds in a strange way to tiny amounts of moisture. Although the dormant spore has almost no metabolic activity and does no physical work, its outer shell can soak up and exude ambient levels of evaporated water—expanding and shrinking while doing so."
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science ... on-engine/
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