28 July 2010, 10:02 am
In recent years, scientists and engineers have allowed plants and animals to teach in the true sense of the word. They study and copy the design details of various creatures (a field known as Biominética) to create new products and improve the performance of existing years. Examples: The fins of the Whale - What aircraft designers can learn from the humpback whale? Apparently a lot. A humpback whale adukta weighs about 30 tonnes - the weight of a loaded truck - and has a relatively inflexible body. Still, this animal is very agile in the water. What intrigued the researchers was as adamant that animal body can swim in circles incredibly closed? They found that the secret is in the shape of the fin whale. The front edge of them is not smooth, like the wing, but, serrated with a row of bumps called tubercles. As the whale glides through the water, these tubercles increase lift and decrease the resistance of water. Offers practical applications that this discovery? Apparently, the wings of airplanes designed according to the shape of the fin would not need so many flaps or other mechanical devices to alter the course of the air. These wings would be safer and easier to maintain. John Long, an expert in biomechanics, believing that it is likely that one day all Avios commercial jet has wings with similar projections of the humpback whale. Leg of the Seagull The Seagull is not cold, not even when he is standing on the ice. Because this bird retains body heat? Part of the secret is a fascinating detail: The "heat exchanger in counterflow. To understand this, imagine two water pipes placed lying close to each other. In one runs hot and cold water in another. If both the water and the cold flow through the pipes in the same direction, about half the water heat quenteserá transferred to the cold. But if hot and cold The water flow in opposite directions, almost all the heat from the hot water is transferred to the cold. When the gull steps with his feet in ice, the heat exchangers in your legs warm blood when he returns from the cold feet of the bird, keeping your body warm. Arthur P. Fraas, mechanical and aeronautical engineer, called this project "One of the most effective regenerates" heat exchanger "in the world." This project is so sophisticated that some human engineers to copy. Nature helps with so many good ideas that researchers have created a database that has indexed thousands of different biological systems. The systems maintained in these databases are known as "patenting of nature." From where nature took all these ideas brilhanes? Do you agree with the microbiologist Michael J. Behe who wrote for the newspaper "The New York Times of February 7, 2005:" A strong indication of the existence of design allows a simple argument: If something looks like a duck, walks like a duck quacks, then, unless evidence otherwise, we have reason to conclude that it is a duck, similar to the existence of a project should not be overlooked just because it is so obvious. " What do you think?... Read More »
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