Scientists in Cambridge have found that some insects use gears, like a car, while others in Florida are combining spider silk with carbon nanotubes
Top gear for bugs
Engineers taking their ideas from nature is nothing new – from early attempts at flight, to adhesives based on mussels and communications networks that act like hives – but sometimes scientists are surprised to find humans have created concepts, when nature got there first.
The latest comes from Cambridge University, where Malcolm Burrows and Gregory Sutton have found that some insects have "gears" – in principle, much like those in cars. Issus is a genus of insect that hops from plant to plant using unusually powerful legs.
These rapid springs are enabled by structures in their hind legs that intermesh and rotate in the same way as the teeth and wheels in a gearbox.
The structures take the form of a curved strip of about...
Top gear for bugs
Engineers taking their ideas from nature is nothing new – from early attempts at flight, to adhesives based on mussels and communications networks that act like hives – but sometimes scientists are surprised to find humans have created concepts, when nature got there first.
The latest comes from Cambridge University, where Malcolm Burrows and Gregory Sutton have found that some insects have "gears" – in principle, much like those in cars. Issus is a genus of insect that hops from plant to plant using unusually powerful legs.
These rapid springs are enabled by structures in their hind legs that intermesh and rotate in the same way as the teeth and wheels in a gearbox.
The structures take the form of a curved strip of about...
- 9/15/2013
- by Fiona Harvey
- The Guardian - Film News
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