bioinspiration

Other materials stories that may be of interest

By / February 5, 2013

What an active field! Oxygen tolerance of an in silico-designed bioinspired hydrogen-evolving catalyst in water (PNAS) Certain bacterial enzymes, the diiron hydrogenases, have turnover numbers for hydrogen production from water…

Read More

Crocodile scale formation—more materials science than biology

By / February 1, 2013

Crocodile skin sections (left) indicate that cracks correspond to epidermal bulges that reach the stiff underlying tissues. Immunohistochemistry (right) indicates increased cell proliferation (green) within the skin grooves corresponding to…

Read More

Can a fish in the Amazon inspire ‘flexible’ ceramics?

By / February 10, 2012

An armorlike arapaima fish scale resists being fractured by a piranha tooth that is slowly pressed into it. In fact, it is the tooth that fails. Credit: Meyers Group: Credit:…

Read More

Monday materials fun: Robotic flying ‘maple seed’ vehicle with two moving parts

By / August 22, 2011

I used to imagine a lot of the bio-inspired ideas, such as flying maple seed pods (above) and artificial jellyfish arose on Thursday or Friday afternoons around happy hour time…

Read More

Video of the week: Smart materials and ‘bioinspiration’

By / February 17, 2010

[flash https://ceramics.org/ceramictechtoday/wp-content/video/blottman_bioinspiration_ema.flv mode=1 f={image=/ceramictechtoday/wp-content/video/blottman_bioinspiration_ema.jpg}] As mentioned in a January post, mechanical engineer John Blottman gave one of the keynote presentations at ACerS’ recent Electronic Materials and Applications conference held in…

Read More

John Blottman on bioinspiration and jellyfish

By / January 21, 2010

I’m blogging now from ACerS’ Electronic Materials and Applications conference in Orlando, where it is a pleasant 70 degrees. Next week I shift over a few miles to Daytona Beach…

Read More