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Mother Nature's Design Workshop
abb_road writes "Scientists creating new surveillance and defense technologies are studying the insect world for inspiration. Biomimetic researchers working on devices ranging from 360 degree lenses to mine-disabling robots are using biological principals as the backbone of their work. From the article: 'The tried-and-true designs of many insects are the product of millions of years of evolution. Even so, they are not perfect models. Natural selection isn't just a matter of physiological perfection, but how an organism's traits suit it for a particular environment, scientists say. For this reason, Bandyopadhyay stresses it is important not to just copy nature's work, but to take the best parts of it and apply it elsewhere.'"
This is something very important. But even where the "best parts of it" apply, it still may not be the best option for man.
Such as the struggle of flight. You'll notice that many attempts at flying involved mimicking birds. We didn't get it right until we noticed that our materials functioned better under a stable non-morphing wing structure. Planes do not fly at all the same way a bird or insect does and it took us a while to realize this.
I think it is naïve to assume a lot of things can be mimicked from nature but it is interesting to see the successes. Just remember that a lot of times there are more simple mechanical alternatives such as non-morphing planes, the wheel & digital signals that work well or better in areas that mother nature already has inventions.
For this post, please select your ending paragraph depending on your views of creavolution:
*Warning! Evolution assumed below!*
Remember that evolution is simply random mutations. The most successful being the smallest and useful changes. Just because some is successful for an organism in no way means we can adapt that into our technology. I find it interesting to look to random mutations for inspiration but a possible pit fall if you're relying on that for innovation such as the early attempts at flight.
*Warning! Creationism assumed below!*
Remember that God created animals in a non-technologically perfect form since their purpose is to serve humans. If He had created them perfectly, they would be better than humans. Therefore, we should not rely solely on them for inspiration in our technology as they are not optimized by Him. They were deliberately made to be inferior to humans so that we could harness them and use them for our needs. We should also avoid from mimicking God's work as we may anger Him and incur the fury of the Lord Almighty (that's not good).
My work here is dung.
How do scientists find the inspiration for the latest in surveillance and defense technologies?
... not insects.
I honestly thought it woulda been the latest video games
Whooo.. MIT may have a talking robotic head but we have a walking lobster. http://www.neurotechnology.neu.edu/
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
... this article was less informative than most "paragraph" articles in Popular Science. Seriously - no examples, pics, discussion of science.... how is this news?
... and it's a solid principle of intelligent design, of course.
...is it an intelligent design workshop?
You have to leave now, and never come back here. Have you ever heard of insect politics? Neither have I. Insects... don't have politics. They're very... brutal. No compassion, no compromise. We can't trust the insect. I'd like to become the first... insect politician. Y'see, I'd like to, but... I'm afraid, uh...
There are numerous examples of technological advances (usually mechanical or chemical, since that's the focus of TFA and of nature-mimicry) which could never have been acheived through natural selection. Quite apart from their being impractical in biological circumstances the incremental, intermediary stages in the evolution of such developments would be so impractical as to render the finished "product" impossible through natural selection.
You know where this is going. The wheel.
It's thought through a lot by school-kids - why (except for micro-biological exceptions) do biological equivalents not exist in nature? The average /.er can come up with some decent reasons, no doubt.
This is not to detract from the study of nature and the possible applications of mimicking it, but I'm often surprised at how this kind of study is viewed as an "impressive insight" or whatever. Nature has been the starting point for most inventive inspirations since time began, and returning to those principles does not warrant praise.
Necessity is the mother of invention, but Nature is its wetnurse.
Meta will eat itself
His name has evolved into something unpronounceable.
awarded to Promode Bandyopadhyay of the Naval Undersea Warfare Center
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Isn't that what copying is?
Frickin' mother nature takes five billion years to get a working prototype out the door.
Once these tiny robots are able to replicate (a very very difficult task, most likely impossible without some sort of matter rearranging capabilities and this will also be very difficult without abundand energy sources,) they will most definitely take over the world. I don't think humans will remain relevant once that happens.
You can't handle the truth.
This imperfection proves that evolution is false. There is no "nearly right" when dealing with absolutes!!1!one1!
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Perhaps I'm just being nit-picky about hyperbole, but evolution/Natural Selection doesn't produce optimal results; it produces things that just barely satisfy the requirements for survival/reproduction. Evolution doesn't make plans in advance.
I always wondered about ants, a friend compares the Ants with some kind of socialism, because leaving a side the idea of "pawns" or "slaves" everybody work for a cause grater than him/herself. It will be interesting if there are more popular the courses where the Mother Nature (specific insects behaviors) are applied to real world society.
BTW that's just an idea i want to share.
When i was on the Amazonian Jungle (from Peru to Brazil) i saw a LOT of insects (that kind of "bugs" that you only see on movies or books.
It was interesting the behavior of some insects...
The spiders are really BIG, and when we travel on boat at day you can't see any, as soon as the sun starts to hide, the spiders starts to work. Some people kill the spiders (in fact the first time i kill some too) then i realize Watching/analyzing the behavior of the spiders:
They try to stay away from you, but they feel like at night YOU are in his place, so they act overconfident, they build a lot of spiderwebs and the mosquitoes (there is a LOT of mosquitoes in the Jungle and they are BIG) goes directly to the spider.
So i think, well maybe if i leave the spiders alive, they will catch all the mosquitoes, eat well and no one bites me.
At the next day, it works, none bites me. So i start to really analyze that, it seems that the spider knows that the mosquito bit us, so the spiders build webs around us (they can build and unbuild webs really fast) and use us as a carnage.
I feel odd, really odd. I think that i am the one Designing the "model/system".
Also we have some ants-analyzing-days and is annoying how they work you can read a lot about ants, but when you saw/fell them working is amazing.
Its good to "feel" the Mother Nature to learn and "why not?" teach her.
Rock and Roll
ectinsay obotsray, say Bandyopadhyay!!!!!
Mine-disabling robots? But how will we get our Pot Noodles now?
I, for one, welcome our new robot insect overlords!
So once we've spent a few hundreds of billions on all of this whiz-bang security and surveillance technology, we'll all finally be completely safe from the bogeymen. And free, too, right?
In Australia, there is a Hoop Snake that takes its tail in its mouth and then goes bowling merrily along. See Hoop Snakes
The bikini - security through obscurity since 1943
Well... Aside from the fact that any creature that uses a wheel as locomotion would be eaten once it gets stuck in a hole there are parralells in nature. The dung beetle is one such example. Sure it's a ball and not a wheel but all a wheel is a cross section of a ball.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
last night i opened my cupboard door and i swear to god, a coackaroach looked at me, grinned and then suddently vanished!! WTF, i wanna know how they do that!
$action = empty(PHP) ? backToC() : unset(PHP) ; "when the concrete cases are understood, the abstractions are readily
it is important not to just copy nature's work, but to take the best parts of it and apply it elsewhere.
Oh-oh-oh, sweet mystery of life - at last I found you!
Imagine if the creatures of the Earth were to continue like they are now for one million years. I bet they would become VAST improvements of what they are now. Nature is not currently in its final draft, but instead it is constantly improving itself. Nature is a lot like software in this respect, just not as buggy in its current iteration.
Nature is not the end-all be all of design, but there is definite value in studying it. There is incredible beauty to be found in a snowflake's delicate crystal. There is amazing strength in the geometry of the honey comb. Nature should be used as a resource, but definitely not exclusively.
Information wants a fueled airplane waiting at the hangar and no one gets hurt.
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.
Specialization is for insects.
-Robert A. Heinlein
How many of those can be done by robots? Not as many as you'd like to think.
Saying this demonstrates a profoundly naiive understanding of the Theory of Evolution. There is no "perfect" in biology. There is just genetics. Something happens and you have genes to take advantage (or simply avoid disaster), then you survive to reproduce your genes. Over time, your genes survive. Perfect isn't anywhere in this equation.
NOTE TO SCIENTISTS: Learn to properly represent Evolution. There are lots of idiots out there who already want to bend and twist it to fit their theist agenda!
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
From the post, "Bandyopadhyay stresses it is important not to just copy nature's work, but to take the best parts of it and apply it elsewhere."
Of course, just because a specific plant or animal is effective at killing off an unwanted pest doesn't mean it's a good thing to use it somewhere else. An example in point would be the use of certain poisonous snakes which ended up killing off songbirds on islands that had no defenses either, or the use of certain diurnal creatures to hunt nocturnal creatures - and then end up eating the diurnal protected species instead.
Just because we can do something, doesn't mean we should do something. Nuclear fission taught us that.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
It was stuck in velcro, of course
This is further proof of my theory that almost every major technological innovation is motivated by the government's responsibility to protect the public.
Fortunately, with time, these innovations move down the security restriction list, allowing GPS, the Internet, Google Earth, and other such goodies to reach public usage. Even if the military gets them first, I'm still glad to have these things.
Did anyone check to make sure that Mother Nature didn't get a patent on all that IP? I mean, imagine the damages that such a suit might incur.
OTOH, one might say that God already granted the rights to use His work, so there could be a bit of a legal battle about who owns what...
Meh, a real sig would take too long, and I have an MMORPG to play with....
I kid, I kid. Mostly.
It isn't a theist agenda, but a fascist one. Haven't you heard about Norman Lowell?
-- nt --
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