In the News
Catch the latest in-roads in bio-inspired products and
development.
Daniel Goldman,: Assistant Professor, School of Physics, Georgia Tech
Undulatory Swimming in Sand: Subsurface Locomotion of the
Sandfish Lizard
The desert-dwelling sandfish (Scincus scincus) moves within dry sand, a material that displays solid
and fluidlike behavior. High-speed x-ray imaging shows that below the surface, the lizard no longer
uses limbs for propulsion but generates thrust to overcome drag by propagating an undulatory
traveling wave down the body. Although viscous hydrodynamics can predict swimming speed in
fluids such as water, an equivalent theory for granular drag is not available. To predict sandfish
swimming speed, we developed an empirical model by measuring granular drag force on a small
cylinder oriented at different angles relative to the displacement direction and summing these
forces over the animal movement profile. The agreement between model and experiment implies
that the noninertial swimming occurs in a frictional fluid.
(Kinematics of the undulatory sandfish motion. (A) Traveling wave moving down the body of
the sandfish opposite to the direction of the sandfish forward motion (sampled every 0.04 s).
For each time instant, the instantaneous lateral displacement of a tracked section of the sandfish
is represented in color. The black curves represent the tracked midline (for example, Figure 1E,
snout tip to tail tip) of the sandfish. Image: Ryan D. Maladen, Yang Ding, Chen Li,Daniel I. Goldman)
Mohan Srinivasarao: Professor, School of Polymer, Textile and Fiber Engineering at Georgia Tech
Optical & Chemical Secrets of Jeweled Beetles
"Iridescent beetles, butterflies, certain sea organisms and many birds derive their unique colors
from the interaction of light with physical structures on their external surfaces. Understanding how
these structures give rise to the stunning colors we see in nature could benefit the quest for
miniature optical devices and photonics.” (image: Zina Deretsky, NSF)
David Hu: Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech
Limbless Locomotion
Terrestrial snakes propel themselves by using a variety of techniques,
including slithering by lateral undulation of the body, rectilinear
progression by unilateral contraction/extension of their belly,
concertina-like motion by folding the body as the pleats of an
accordion, and sidewinding motion by throwing the body into a series of helices.
Daniel Goldman: Assistant Professor in School of Physics at Georgia Tech
March of the Sandbots
In the April 9, 2009 issue of IEEE, Daniel Goldman, Haldun Komsuoglu, and Daniel Koditschek
describe how lizards, crabs, and cockroaches are teaching robots new tricks for conquering
sandy terrain in "March of the SandBots". Goldman, an assistant professor of physics at
Georgia Tech, studies how the animals move their limbs, while his colleagues at the University
of Pennsylvania-Koditschek, an electrical engineering professor, and Komsuoglu, a postdoctoral
fellow in Koditschek's lab-refine their robots' abilities to perceive and respond to their
environments.
Jason Nadler: Adjunct Professor. Georgia Tech Research Institute Electro-optical Systems Laboratory
Micro Honeycomb Materials Enable New Approach to Sound Reduction
Nadler's research involves broadband acoustic absorption, a method of reducing sound
that doesn't depend on frequencies or resonance. In this approach, tiny parallel tubes
in porous media such as metal or ceramics create a honeycomb-like structure that traps
sound regardless of frequency. Instead of resonating, sound waves plunge into the channels
and dissipate through a process called viscous shear.
Viscous shear involves the interaction of a solid with a gas or other fluid. In this case,
a gas - sound waves composed of compressed air - contacts a solid, the porous medium, and
is weakened by the resulting friction. "It's the equivalent of propelling a little metal
sphere down a rubber hose when the sphere is just a hair bigger than the rubber hose," Nadler explained.
"Eventually the friction and the compressive stresses of contact with the tube would stop the sphere."
Craig A. Tovey: Professor in ISyE and in the College of Computing at Georgia Tech
Bee Strategy Helps Servers Run More Sweetly
Bees tackle their resource allocation problem (i.e. a limited number of bees and unpredictable
demand on their time and desired location) with a seamless system driven by "dances."
Here's how it works: The scout bees leave the hive in search of nectar. Once they've found a promising spot,
they return to the hive "dance floor" and perform a dance. The direction of the dance tells the waiting
forager bees which direction to fly, the number of waggle turns conveys the distance to the flower patch;
and the length conveys the sweetness of the nectar.
Tovey, a co-director of the Center for Biologically
Inspired Design at Georgia Tech, and Nakrani set to work translating the bee strategy. They developed a
virtual "dance floor" for a network of servers. When one server receives a user request for a certain Web
site, an internal advertisement (standing in a little less colorfully for the dance) is placed on the dance
floor to attract any available servers. The ad's duration depends on the demand on the site and how much
revenue its users may generate. The longer an ad remains on the dance floor, the more power available servers
devote to serving the Web site requests advertised.
The 2006 International Symposium for
Biologically Inspired Design in Science and Engineering
An amazing international gathering of scientists and
engineers in the Spring of 2006 at Georgia Tech revealed fascinating
research projects from the bio-design for aquatic propulsion, to the homeostasis
of termite mounds, to the biomimetic fibers of orb-weaving spiders.
Department of Energy
EERE Solar Decathlon Team 2007
Home-O-stasis: Dynamic Equilibriums in Solar Homes of the
Southeast
Headed by project managers Chris Jarrett, Ruchi
Choudhary and Franca Trubiano, the latest
advances in building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV)
will be integrated within the design of an innovative low energy house
exhibiting the highest level of excellence in architectural design,
construction and comfort. Building on shared research interests in
ecological principles of design, building design performance, and
materials research, the program managers will coordinate the
interdisciplinary team with the goal of achieving substantial
innovation in the research and development of solar energy housing, its
technology, implementation and testing.
Project Managers:
Ruchi Choudhary (BEET & Building Performance Lab): Franca
Trubiano )BEET & Design Materials Lab & Studio): Chris
Jarrett (BEET & Ecological Design Studio) Faculty Advisors:
Architecture: Fried Augenbroe (Building Technology): Russell Gentry
)Structural, AWPL) Engineering: Ian Ferguson ( Elect. SSL Lab) Ajeet
Rohatgi )UCEP, Photovoltaic Lab) Biology: Jeannette Yen (CBID) Marc
Weissburg (CBID) Sustainable Technologies, Policy and Education: Carol
Carmichael )ISTD) Fundraising /Marketing: Susie Briggs (ISTD) Student
Leaders: Jason Brown, Huafen Hu, Phd Program
Engineers discover why toucan beaks are models of
lightweight strength Marc A. Meyers, a materials scientist
and professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at UCSD's Jacobs
School of Engineering, and graduate students Yasuaki Seki and Matthew
S. Schneider reported that the secret to the toucan beak's lightweight
strength is an unusual bio-composite. The interior of the beak is rigid
"foam" made of bony fibers and drum-like membranes sandwiched between
outer layers of keratin, the protein that makes up fingernails, hair,
and horn.
Natural adhesive systems of marine mussels, Mytilus
edulis
This illustration shows the Atlantic Blue Mussell, Mytilus edulis, and
its adhesive structure–the byssus with byssal threads and
byssal plaque–and includes a closer look at the byssal thread
and plaque and the individual adhesive proteins with respect to a
substrate surface.
Chemists are increasingly looking to Nature as a
source of inspiration
The use of naturally sourced molecules in synthetic organic
chemistry can provide significant benefits, either as
shortcuts to complex chemical structures or to catalyse chemical
reactions towards a desired end-result. One such biomolecule, vitamin
B12, has a number of useful functions.
Silk may be able to help repair damaged nerves
"The picture shows two things: reddish coloured processors, which are
the nerve fibres growing along the silk; and blue supporting cells,
called Schwann cells, which are very important in supporting nerve
regeneration." John Priestly, a neuroscientist from Queen Mary's School
of Medicine and Dentistry, London
Forest fire sensor inspired by nature
Bonn zoologists "copy" a beetle's monitoring device
Jewel beetles can "smell" the products of a fire
"Shinkansen Technology Learned from an Owl?"The
story of Eiji Nakatsu
Japan for Sustainability newsletter, Biomimicry Interview series, the
owl and the kingfisher
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Biomechanics and Hydrodynamics of jet-propelled
swimming in jellyfish
Professor William Megill is a Lecturer (Asst Prof) in Biomimetics at
the University of Bath, England. His PhD was in Biomechanics at the
University of British Columbia. He has been working with marine mammals
since 1990, interested first in dolphin and killer whale acoustics
before turning to baleen whale ecology and now to physiology. He
studied the ecology of blue, fin and humpback whales in the Gulf of St.
Lawrence for several years, then moved to the west coast to study
biomechanics.
The Lobster All-Sky X-ray Monitor:
The lobster is the inspiration for a new type of European X-ray
telescope. The observatory is designed to have an extremely wide field
of view - just as the crustacean manages with its vision. The animal
achieves this using a huge array of tiny channels that focus light by
reflection, rather than by bending it through lenses found in human
eyes. A UK-led team is now building a similar set-up for a telescope
that will sweep the sky for sudden, violent events, such as black holes
swallowing stars.
image:Lobster All-Sky X-ray Monitor
Cicada Escape Response and MEMS
Escape orientation in arthropods is a highly stereotyped, quick and
precise behavior based on a proper recognition of stimuli announcing
imminent danger from a predator attack. The escape behavior is
triggered by physical stimuli which need to be detected (air-flow,
pressure, sound, vibrations, mechanical forces,…), locally
amplified and filtered by specialized sense organs, transmitted,
processed and integrated into a perception pattern which will control
response.
The Control of Aerodynamic Maneuvers in Fruit Flies
Dickinson, M., California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Fruit flies alter flight direction by generating rapid, stereotyped
turns, called saccades. The successful implementation of these quick
turns requires a well-tuned orchestration of neural circuits,
musculo-skeletal mechanics, and aerodynamic forces. The changes in wing
motion required to accomplish a saccade are quite subtle, as dictated
by the inertial dynamics of the fly's body. A fly first generates
torque to begin accelerating in the intended direction, but then must
quickly create counter-torque to decelerate. Several lines of evidence
suggest that the initial turn is initiated by visual expansion, whereas
the subsequent counter-turn is triggered by the gyroscopic halteres.
This integrated analysis indicates how the functional organization of
neural circuits controlling behavior is rigidly constrained by the
physical interaction between an animal and the external world. Also,
related articles (at least 100).
Median fin function in bluegill sunfish Lepomis
macrochirus- streamwise vortex structure during steady swimming
Eric D. Tytell: Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology,
Harvard University
MIT's RoboSnails model novel movements
The humble snail, trailed by its ribbon of slime, now has its first
robotic counterpart in research at MIT that could lead to new forms of
locomotion for future machines.
Richard Bonser and keratin properties
Feather keratin occurs in a 'b-sheet' configuration which is differs
from the a-helices that occur in mammalian keratins. If mammalian
keratins are stretched in steam, then they develop a b-sheet
configuration, so imagining a very stretched spring gives one some idea
of the form of avian keratin.
learn more | PDF
'Frog's glue' could mend knees
"We assumed the substance would be toxic, but when we found it wasn't,
it made sense to explore it as a medical adhesive" said environmental
biologist Mike Tyler. When set, it was flexible and had a porous
structure that should make it permeable to gas and nutrients, which
would encourage healing.
Blue Crab Nano-Sensor Detects Dangers
A substance found in crab shells is the key component in a nanoscale
sensor system developed by researchers at the University of Maryland's
A. James Clark School of Engineering. The sensor can detect minute
quantities of explosives, bioagents, chemicals, and other dangerous
materials in air and water, potentially leading to security and safety
innovations for airports, hospitals, and other public locations.
Jumping Robots: inspiration from
kangaroos, locusts, grasshoppers, chameleons (tongue), flying squirrels
Biomimeticists are looking at how to incorporate flying and jumping.
Among them is Keith Paskins of the University of Bath, who is trying to
mimic flying squirrels. The squirrels have floppy skin attached to
their wrists and ankles, which they can stretch out to make a gliding
surface. The animals also appear to be able to control their gliding
through rapid movements while in the air.
PDF
The relationship between 3-D kinematics and gliding
performance in the southern flying squirrel, Glaucomys volans.
Kristin L. BishopDepartment of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Brown
University
Like a Fish - Revolutionary Underwater Breathing
System An artificial system that will mimic the way fish use
the air in the water thus allowing both smaller submarines and divers
to get rid of the large, cumbersome compressed air tanks.
learn more
The mother of pearl growth surface of abalone shell
is colored due to the way light refracts as it strikes tiny ridges of
calcium carbonate.
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