Sticky berries adhere with strength and ease
51. Controlled crystal symmetry: Calcareous sponges
"Organisms can exert a remarkable degree of control over crystal growth. One way of achieving this is by the adsorption of specialized macromolecules on specific planes of the growing crystals. With continued growth of the crystal, the macromol...
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Email52. Nests made of paper: termites
"Three animals, for instance, have independently invented the making of paper…Some termites also make paper from wood particles, but they use their saliva or excreta as a cement to make a substance that resembles carton." (Pallasmaa 1995:20...
53. Sycamore™ ceiling fan
A one blade ceiling fan moulded in plastic with a design inspired by the shape of a falling sycamore tree seed pod.
54. Fine filaments filter water: peacock worm
"A feeding peacock worm…has a fan of radiating tentacles fringed with fine filaments to sieve food particles from the water currents." (Foy and Oxford Scientific Films 1982:25)
55. Shell is tough armor: golden scale snail
"During the second ever expedition to hydrothermal vents in the Indian Ocean, biologists spotted a snail with a strange-looking foot. Many snails can close the opening to their shell with a flat, round bit of shell called an operculum. But this sn...
56. Spicules help resist fractures: sponges
"That comment about thin elastin fibers brings up still another way not to crack, one implied in the words about thin glass filaments…Use materials that are divided transversely to the direction of the load into thin fibers or filaments or,...
57. Adhering to multiple substrates: blackberry
"One of the most mobile of plants…is the blackberry. An individual, once established, immediately starts to seek new territory for itself. It puts out exploratory stems…They begin to advance directly and purposefully…Each stem...
58. Fastskinz MPG-Plus car covering
The car covering is covered with tiny divots that create a layer of turbulent air over the entire FastSkinz surface. Similar to the way that divots on a golf ball cause it to fly farther, this turbulent layer of air reduces the drag on the vehicl...
59. Hairs absorb ultraviolet radiation: edelweiss
"The filaments forming the hair layer have been found to exhibit an internal structure which may be one of the few examples of a photonic structure found in a plant. Measurements of light transmission through a self-supported layer of hair pads ta...
60. Photonic Solar Reactor
The processing of molecular dissociation of a combination of water (H2O) and Carbon Dioxide (CO2) through the passage of these elements in a reaction zone, producing Methanal (CH2O). Through the absorption and concentration of solar radiation, in ...
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