2024-01-21 01:22:00
Nature is ingenious, thanks to billions of years of evolution, and humans take inspiration from plants and animals to design or improve products.
You may have noticed them, while walking in nature, walking in tall grass, these little stinging balls that cling to your socks, the laces of your shoes, or even your hairy legs… This are fruits, and this is how certain plants send their seeds to colonize other territories: by clinging to animal hair. These small prickly fruits were noticed by a Swiss engineer on his dog in the early 1940s. They were the fruits of a plant, burdock, and it was by examining them under a microscope that he discovered that each thorn ended with a hook, that he had invented velcro, velcro, these zippers without a zipper.
This is biomimicry, when ingenious nature, thanks to billions of years of evolution, inspires humans…
By studying the flight of birds and their wings, Leonardo da Vinci had, in the 15th century, laid the foundations of aeronautics. Later, at the end of the 19th century, a French engineer, Clément Ader, flew the first airplane, which resembled a bat. Japan’s high-speed train, the Shinkansen, is famous for its nose, the lead locomotive, which stretches like the long, thin beak of a bird, the kingfisher, capable of cutting through water without sound , without splashing. This was the solution found to the pressure changes at the entrance to the tunnels which caused noise pollution. The bird’s beak train has also gained in speed and energy savings. 20% more energy produced also for wind turbines, thanks to their serrated blades, similar to the fins of humpback whales, so agile despite their weight.
Shark, lotus and termite mound
Swimmers, who have flippers like ducks, also go faster thanks to a suit that copies shark skin, smooth in appearance, but equipped with millions of microscopic scales. The mako shark can thus exceed 50 kilometers per hour. There is also the lotus effect: the leaves of the aquatic plant resemble shark skin: micro-roughnesses prevent water from penetrating; the lotus is hydrophobic, and the drops that roll on its surface have a self-cleaning function, so that photosynthesis is perfect.
Throughout evolution, living beings adapt to their environment; nature is a permanent research laboratory. We make warm clothing inspired by polar bear fur.
The air conditioning in a building in Harare, Zimbabwe, was designed using termite mounds as a model. Superglue is made up of a molecule found in snail slime. Needles, in medicine, take the shape of the proboscis of mosquitoes, which bite without us noticing.
Are mosquitoes racist?
No, mosquitoes bite all skin, regardless of color. The most dangerous animal for the human species is attracted by our breath, the CO2 that we emit, our sweat, our heat, but also, according to a study carried out on Temples of the Egyptians, the yellow fever mosquito, by certain colors: red, orange and black. But whether we are Black, Yellow or White, our skin has the same color for a mosquito: it sees it red, and it goes dark. And we see red too!
#Biomimicry #living #inspiring