Earlier this year, we reported about a finding which revealed that physical structure of Psaltoda claripennis cicada wings can shred certain types of rod-shaped bacteria. After analyzing the surface, researchers at the Swinburne University of Technology used biomimicry to create a surface with similar properties. This nanosurface could lead to development of a new generation… »
While there are examples of apparently ornamental cogs in the animal kingdom – such as on the shell of the cog wheel turtle or the back of the wheel bug – gears with a functional role have been elusive or rendered defunct by evolution. Scientists at the University of Cambridge have been able to reveal… »
Researchers at the Research School of Chemistry of the Australian National University (RSC – ANU), Canberra, discovered that a rare tree found in Malaysia and Borneo holds the secret to greener chemical production. They managed to create a ten-step method which employs a new, environmentally friendly approach to replicate kingianins molecules found in the Medang… »
Using nature inspired technology to stop counterfeiting and enhance brand design has been around for the last five years, however, recent advancements and award given to Nanotech Security Corp. made us bring back this subject we covered back in 2010, when we wrote about Cambridge scientists that discovered a way to mimic the colors found… »
Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) researchers studied fire ants to uncover fundamental principles of locomotion that could be applied on teams of robots which travel through underground tunnels. Among the study’s findings, the researchers were surprised by the first observation that ants in confined spaces use their antennae for locomotion as well as for… »
Collaboration in an interdisciplinary team of researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), Northwestern University and Temple University led to development of a robot inspired by sea turtle hatchlings. Named FlipperBot, the robot is being developed for better understanding of principles that govern movement using flippers – thus leading to more efficient robots that… »
Inspired by the ability of pine cones to close their scales when wet and open them again once they have dried out, a group of researchers at ETH Zurich devised a new method to produce a variety of composite materials that are able to change their shape to a pre-programmed shape after being influence by… »
Inspired by properties of the liquid film that coats the eyes, a team of researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard cooperated in order to design a new kind of adaptive material able to change its transparency and wetability features when… »
