4 Technologies Inspired From The Animal Kingdom

From decades engineers took inspiration for bespoke engineering designs from Mother Nature.The first highway reflectors were made to mimic cat eyes and Velcro was inspired by the hooked barbs of thistle. But today, the field known as biomimetic, is a money-making industry in which science is mimicks nature and thus derives references for new inventions.

We have shortlisted 4 such technologies that were inspired from the animal kingdom to explain how truly amazing nature is. 

1.       Shark’s skin—The Newest Craze in Catheter

Generally, hospitals are always worried about germs. Doctors and nurses wash their hands at regular intervals, although bacteria and viruses might still infect patients. Many people die every year from infections that they pick up in hospitals. However, sharks have managed to stay squeaky clean for more than 100 million years. So, thanks to sharks because now we have the possibility of making infections tone down and send them packing.

Sharks don't collect slime, algae, or barnacles on their bodies like all other marine creatures do. This phenomenon intrigued Tony Brennan, who is an engineer. When he learned about it in 2003, hewas trying to design a better barnacle-preventative coating for Navy ships. While he was investigating the skin of a shark, he discovered that its entire body is covered in bumpy scales, miniature, like a carpet of tiny teeth. Barnacles and algae cannot grasp hold and for this matter, neither can troublesome bacteria such as Escherichia coli.

Brennan's research inspired a company named Sharklet, which began exploring how to use the sharkskin concept to make a coating that repels germs. Now, the firm produces sharkskin-inspired plastic wrap, which is presently being tested on hospital surfaces that get touched the most. So far, it seems to be successfully fending off germs. The company already has even bigger plans. Sharklet’s next project is to create a plastic wrap that covers another common source of infections—the catheter.

2.       Consider the Lobster Eye

There's a big reason, X-ray machines are large and clunky. X-rays don't like to bend, like visible light do. So they are difficult to manipulate. There is only one way we can scan bags at airports and patient sat the doctor's clinic. It is by bombarding the subjects with a torrent of radiation all at once because this requires a huge device.

But, lobsters who live in murky water 300 feet below the surface of the ocean. They have "X-ray vision" that is far better than any of our machines. Lobsters can see direct reflections that can be focused to a single point, where they are gathered together to form an image. But the human eye can’t be focused to a single point because they view refracted images that have to be interpreted by the brain of human beings. Scientists have figured it out and now they know how to copy this trick to make best X-ray machines.

The Lobster Eye X-ray Imaging Device (in short LEXID) is a handheld flashlight and it can see through 3-inch-thick steel walls. This device shoots a small stream of low-power X-rays through an object, and a few come bouncing back off whatever is on the other side. Like in the lobster’s eyes, the returning signals are funnelled through tiny tubes to create an image. The Department of Homeland Security has already invested considerable amount of money in LEXID designs.

3.       What Would Robotic Jesus Christ Lizard Do?

There's a hidden reason for the basilisk lizard, which is often referred to as the Jesus Christ lizard as it walks on water. More truthfully, it runs. Many other insects also performs a similar trick, but there is a difference because they do it by being light enough not to break the surface tension of the water. The much larger basilisk lizard stays afloat by bicycling its feet at just the right angle so that its body rises out of the water and rushes forward.

In 2003, Metin Sitti who is a Carnegie Mellon robotics professor was teaching an undergraduate robotics class. They have focused on studying the mechanics present in the natural world and when he used the lizard as an example of strange biomechanics; he was suddenly inspired to build a robot to perform the same trick.

It wasn't going to be easy for him. Because not only the motors have to be extremely light, but the legs would also have to touch down on the water perfectly each time. After some months of work, Sitti and his students were able to create their first robot that could walk on water.

Design of Sitti’s and his students needs some more work, though. The mechanical miracle still rolls over and sinks occasionally. But once he irons out the twists, there could be a bright future ahead for a machine that runs on land and sea. It could be used to monitor the quality of water in reservoir sand even help rescue people during floods.

4.       Wasps—They Know the Drill

You don't have to be scared of the two giant, whip-like needles on the end of a horntail wasp. They are not stingers; they are drill bits. Horntails use these needles which can be longer than their entire bodies! They use it to drill into trees, where they can deposit their young.

For many year, biologists have been researching about drills but they couldn't understand how the horntail drill worked. The horntail can drill from any angle with little effort and little body weight but traditional drills can’t do this because this requires additional force. After years of examining the tiny insects, scientists finally figured out that the two needles inch their way into wood, pushing off and reinforcing each other like a zipper.

Some Astronomers think the wasp's drill will come in handy in space, at the University of Bath in England. Scientists have well long known that they might have to dig for it, in order to find life on Mars. But they weren't sure how they'd find the pressure to drill down on the planet's hard surface because they don’t have that much gravity. Researchers who were inspired by insects have designed a saw with extra blades at the end that pushes against each other like the needles of the wasp. Theoretically, this device could even work on the surface of a meteor, where there's no gravity present at all.

There is so much that we can learn from things around us, so many inventions that we can make. Engineers are keen observers and biomimicry is surely a field that can be exploited to make room for new developments and technologies.