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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.
...is it an intelligent design workshop?
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
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
Yeah, but the researchers don't get attached to them like they do with cute furry animals. The same has been shown to be true when using lawyers in experimental work.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?