From flies to fish to lobsters, small insects and animals have long been ideal models for robotic and computer scientists. Bees, for example, possess unmatched elegance in flight, zipping from flower to flower with ease and hovering stably with heavy payloads. A multidisciplinary team of computer scientists, engineers, and biologists at Harvard received a 10 ... »
The world of microorganisms is a dynamic one and all forms of life depend on microbial metabolic activity. In fact, there are more microbes living on and in every human being than there are human cells in our bodies. At the most basic level, there are microorganisms that are harmless or offer beneficial functions to ... »
Researchers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., are developing a transparent coating that prevents dirt and even bacteria from sticking in the same way a lotus plant sheds water. The research begun through collaboration of Northrop Grumman Electronics Systems, Linthicum, Md., and nGimat Corporation, Atlanta, Ga. Although a lotus leaf appears smooth, ... »
Another great example of bio-mimetic robots is a solution many mariners, oil outfits, and the military have big hopes for. RoboClam, designed at the MIT, is meant to become the first “smart” anchor, a major departure from the prosaic piece of nautical gear that hasn’t changed much in centuries. Its present diminutive size is just ... »
A team of MIT researchers has built a school of swimming robo-fish that slip through the water just as gracefully as the real ones, but not quite as fast. Real fish are exquisitely adapted to moving through their watery environment, and can swim as fast as 10 times their body length per second. So far, ... »
The discovery that butterfly wings have scales that act as tiny solar collectors has led scientists in China and Japan to design a more efficient solar cell that could be used for powering homes, businesses, and other applications in the future. The researchers turned to the microscopic solar scales on butterfly wings in their search ... »
In this article we’re going to write about biomimicry of leaves. The development of artificial glass leaves that produce energy is done by UC Berkeley researcher Michel Maharbiz (a guy we mentioned earlier in our article about insects spies), Ruba Borno from the University of Michigan and Joseph Steinmeyer from MIT. They developed an alternative energy ... »
