Learning from mother nature
The powerful and bright rays of sun overcome the challenge posed by the windows of your room to caress your sleepy eyes that refuse to open unaware of the fact that the world outside is too beautiful to not look at.The 'early birds' ,that cheerfully fly in the air, rejoice the beauty of nature by the way of their chirpings.The soft and mesmerising breeze sails over you carrying the divine fragrance of flowers that bloom in the laps of mother nature and you wake up on yet another day to enjoy the beauty of scintillating sceneries,glorious greeneries and breath taking valleys.
While I say all this,I know that you could be thinking that I am just imagining of a beautiful world.But, what if I say that there is a place that looks excatly like the way I described above?
I could see the astonishment in your eyes.Thanks to globalisation and urbanisation, we only read of such things and we can hardly recollect times when we have experienced the beauty of nature.Rooster alarm tones wake us instead of the rooster's call, we wake up to see emails that threaten us of deadlines instead of the sun rays that energise us and we take a shower in closed walls rather than refreshing ourselves in beautiful rivers.That's all one side of the coin.On the other side, just like the way highly imaginative poet's thoughts wander around the beautiful nature, the curious eyes of scientists observed nature's ways of doing things, which, if mimicked, can make human life simple and efficient.
From observing the bumps on a whale's fins in developing turbines that reduce drag and noise to imitating the network system of busy bees in complex electrical grids, which helps in balancing loads during peak time of usage of power, from redesigning a bullet train's nose like that of a kingfisher to reduce noise to learning lessons from the V shaped formation of birds while flying to cut down fuel costs, man has showed his curiosity to learn a few lessons from our mother nature.Fortunately, man has not over looked the lessons that the nature teaches him and he is good enough to put in practice the lessons that he learns from the nature.
Our giant friends of oceans, whales and sharks taught us quite a few things.Frank Fish, a biology professor, developed turbines with bumps on the turbine's blades similar to those found on a whale's fins, which helps in reducing drag and noise and increases speed to changing wind direction thereby boosting the power harnessed by 20 percent.Realising the fact that the microscopic patterns called dentricles on a shark's skin help it in keeping micro organisms at bay,products that need to be free of micro organisms are designed with dentricle like nano-scale structures on their surfaces to ensure that they are safe and clean and these products make a positive impact in places like hospitals, restaurant kitchens and public bathrooms.It's not just the biggies of the water world that teach us a lesson or two, even schools of fish have shown us something to learn.Due to the large size of wind turbines, lot of land is consumed for wind farms and they even result in clobbering of birds on few occasions.Just like fish that take advantage of water's movement for forward movement, turbines are placed in such a way that they take advantage of air flow in between them increasing the efficiency of the wind farm.The turbine placement is inspired by studying the wake vortices produced by schools of swimming fish.
Talk of bio mimicking and one of the very few first thoughts would be mimicking a spider.We have developed many kinds of silk inspired by a spider's web but none of them could match the strength of it's web.Yet researchers are on their toes to develop polymers similar to a spider's web which can be used in making bulletproof vests,where thin filaments of very high strength and elasticity are needed.Certain spiders have their unique way of designing their nets.They use a special silk rope that reflects ultra violet rays and when birds come near to the net,they realise that there is some obstruction in their path and take a diversion.German engineers replicated the same pattern on glasses that reflect ultra violet rays which can prevent birds from colliding with glasses.
Creatures like geckoes always amaze us by their ability to climb walls with such ease that the human desire to climb walls like the 'Spiderman' keeps getting intense.Studies show that the tiny hairs in a gecko's feet get into microscopic irregularities thus giving it a grip on walls.Researchers are eyeing to mimck the same property to develop tapes that can be sticked anywhere and removed easily without losing its grip.Using the same to develop gloves can help window cleaners and workers to get to the top of buildings easily with less efforts.
With the advent of technology, bullet trains came into reality and distance is only a word as bullet trains take you to places in no time.In the process of going at unbelievable speeds,they generate a lot of annoying sound but the observation of a kingfisher's beak by Eiji Nakatsu,an engineer from Japan, came to the rescue.His idea to redesign the train's nose imitating that of a kingfisher bore fruits as this idea not only helped in reducing the sound levels but it also reduced power usage and enabled faster speeds.Talk about travelling at amazing speeds and you will be reminded of jet planes.When birds could inspire us to dream to fly in the air,why can't they inspire us to do so in an efficient way?The V-formation that birds use when they fly together caught the attention of Airforces across the world.They realised that flying planes in V-formation or in "Vortex surfing" ,as it is technically called, could slash down the fuel consumption by 10% to 20%.
No one needs to explain how electricity impacts our present day lives.Think of managing the ever growing demand for power with complex human infrastructure.It is such a herculean task but the network of busy bees shows us the way to go.Just like the way bees interact with one another to get the job done,Regen Energy turns a company's appliances and machines into a network, in which controllers communicate with one another to maximise efficiency.
So, is it only birds and animals that inspire us to develop new technologies?Certainly not.Even the green plants that feed our stomachs show us a better tomorrow.Take the example of the very common Lotus plant.Its leaves let water roll down always which helps in removing dirt and keeps it clean.This water repellent property demanded the attention of researchers in mimcking the surface of these leaves in developing products that need to be spick and span round the clock.This could include developing water repellent screens for electronic devices,solar panels that need no cleaning and clothes that ease you of the burden of washing.Dutch engineers designed wind turbines that look like trees and give you the feel of being in a park.In addition to these,the producers have inspired development of surfaces that have anti-bacterial,self cleaning properties.
Global warming is a head ache like no other thing and is the most common topic for any kid who sits to write an essay.The countries of the world are battling out ways to combat it.Two Columbia university students developed a plastic 'tree' that can consume lot of carbon dioxide,a major source of global warming, from the environment and the list goes on.
As great minds said, learning is a continuous process and human beings should continue to keep learning from nature to live life that is sustainable,eco friendly and efficient.With many man made and natural disasters striking us every now and then and with the exhaustion of a few resources,it is the need of the hour to develop technologies that save the planet and the mankind.A kid runs to his mother at onset of any challenge and with so many challenges to overcome,do you think mankind can find any other place better than the laps of our very own 'mother' nature?
-SATYA SRINIVAS J
