20 most recent innovations in nature

New Technology Lets Wave Riders Be The Board

Thu, 21 Jan 2016 00:00:00 Z

Six years in the making, WaveWrecker is launching a specially designed wetsuit that changes the human shape into a hydrodynamic and streamlined wave catching machine – letting wave riders “Be The Board!”.

The WaveWrecker suit incorporates 11 built-in fins precisely placed to improve buoyancy, specifically targeted control surfaces to reduce drag, and rails to grab and hold waves – boosting performance to the extreme. The suit also uses proprietary neck and o-ring-like wrist closures, which prevent water intrusion, and neoprene thicknesses 2mm, 3mm and 4mm areas to maximize strength, mobility, buoyancy and comfort. Because of its buoyancy, WaveWrecker dramatically shortens the bodysurfing learning curve for beginners, and helps parents feel more confident about their kids’ safety in the water.

After testing the WaveWrecker suit, 2015 World Champion Bodysurfer Makena Magro commented, “I felt a lot faster in the water, and the suit’s added buoyancy made it much easier to concentrate on maneuvering across the face of the wave.” She added, “WaveWrecker let me spend less time and energy treading water, and focus on catching waves.”

WaveWrecker creator and San Diego resident Nick Gadler, a longtime bodysurfer, came up with the idea for the wave-riding suit while teaching his son to swim in their backyard pool. Exhausted, treading water in the deep end waiting for his son to swim over, Gadler grabbed some pool noodles to prop himself up and float in the water.

“It was then I thought, ‘Man, if I could be naturally buoyant like this in the ocean, imagine the waves I could catch’,” said Gadler. “It’s extremely rare that something totally new and never before seen comes along and completely changes the landscape, actually the waterscape, but WaveWrecker is transformative technology in motion – a complete game changer.”

Berry Inspires Color-Morphing Clothing

Tue, 03 Dec 2013 00:00:00 Z

Inspired by a tropical fruit, a team of materials scientists have created a new kind of fiber that changes color as it stretches. The multilayer fiber turns from reddish to blue as you put increasing strain on it.

Researchers from Harvard University and the University of Exeter in the U.K. released their findings earlier this week in the journal Advanced Materials. This could pave the way for smart fabric that could change appearance in response to heat or pressure. By studying the fruit of Margaritaria nobilis, a South American tropical plant commonly known as the "bastard hogberry," scientists identified the structural origins of the seed's color, a bright blue.

The vivid color of the bastard hogberry is designed to fool birds into eating (and spreading the seed) of the non-nutritious fruit, thinking it's a more delicious competitor. The plant doesn't change color, but by combining its properties with an elastic material, scientists made a fiber that could be stretched into various different colors.

Due to the way its surface structure manipulates light, "the fruit of this bastard hogberry plant was scientifically delightful to pick," said principal investigator Peter Vukusic, an Associate Professor in Natural Photonics at the University of Exeter.

Cells on the skin of the seed have a curved, repeating pattern that interferes with light waves and creates colors, much like the bright colors you can see in soap bubbles. The team of researchers copied the vital structural elements of this system using thin fibers rolled up in a polymer bilayer like a high-tech Hostess Ho Ho.

In the future, it could be used to create a shirt that changes color under muscle tension or alerts you to heat strain.

"Most Waterproof Material Ever" Is Inspired By Nature

Tue, 03 Dec 2013 00:00:00 Z

A team at MIT has what it says is the most waterproof material ever, taking inspiration from the plant and insect world. The scientist heading up the research, Professor Kripa Varanasi--he brought us LiquiGlide, squeezing every last drop out of our ketchup bottles last year--says this new super-hydrophobic surface could be used in next-generational waterproof clothing, and revolutionize the energy and travel industries. Airplane engines, for example, could use the material to fly planes through extremely cold conditions.

Tiny ridges similar to those found on both nasturtium leaves and the wings of the Morpho butterfly were added to a silicon surface, which made the water droplets bounce off up to 40% faster than existing waterproof substances. The more intersecting ridges you have, the more the droplets of water break up. Smaller droplets mean less water on the surface, making it more waterproof. "I'm looking forward to working with the fabrics industry to develop new clothing that stays dry longer," said Professor Varanasi.

Improved Fog Harvester

Tue, 08 Oct 2013 00:00:00 Z

When we think of deserts, images of barren, sandy landscapes flood our imaginations. While deserts don’t have surface water, there’s still moisture traveling through the air above. For some time people living in coastal desert areas have been using a rather low-tech solution to capture this moisture from the sky – a mesh net. As fog rolls in from the ocean it passes through mesh, which condenses the fog into droplets of water. The condensed droplets fall into collection bins and pool into reservoirs of clear, clear water.

Although traditional fog harvesting nets are effective, researchers at MIT in partnership with the Pontifical Catholic University in Santiago, Chile have created a new mesh material that can improve water collection by up to 10%.

The researchers found that the optimum configuration for a fog harvesting net was a “mesh made of stainless-steel filaments about three or four times the thickness of a human hair, and with a spacing of about twice that between fibers.” To enhance the harvester’s effectiveness the mesh is “dip-coated” in a solution that that makes it easier for droplets to slide into its collection gutter.

WindTracer predicts wind direction with lasers

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 00:00:00 Z

WindTracer systems have been in action around the world for more than a decade, where it is used to detect hazardous winds and aircraft wakes. The thing about wind energy is this, it is extremely difficult to predict the behavior of the wind itself. WindTracer relies on a scanner that utilizes a laser to “trace” microscopic dust particles in the wind.

It fires an infrared laser into the atmosphere at a rate of 750 times per second, Its light travels anywhere from 15 to 30 kilometers, or until it has contacted an airborne particle, it will reflects off the particle and bounces back toward the WindTracer. This reflected signal is the basis from where one calculates the speed of the dust particles blowing in the wind, and hence making a clever prediction of the wind direction.

Fireflies inspire modification to LEDs that makes them 55 percent more efficient

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 00:00:00 Z

By mimicking the jagged structure of a lightning bug’s “lantern” in a layer on top of existing LEDs, or light-emitting diodes, a team of researchers in Belgium, France, and Canada increased the amount of light from the semiconductor device by up to 55 percent.

Much of the light produced by LEDs gets reflected back into the device due to large differences between how light travels through the LED materials compared to air. This reduces “drastically the efficiency of LEDs,” says Annick Bay, a doctoral student at the University of Namur in Belgium and first author on the studies. The bioluminescent light produced by a firefly faces a similar challenge when traveling out of the insect’s abdomen.

The authors examined the microscopic structure of the abdomen of a firefly found in Panama and discovered that the insect’s exoskeleton in this region of the body had jagged, misfit scales. Computer simulations and bench experiments confirmed that the sharp edges of these scales let out more light, the team reported in Optics Express.

In a second report, also in Optics Express, Bay and colleagues at the University of Sherbrooke in Canada describe how a layer of similarly jagged material that they added to a standard gallium-nitride LED increased the amount of light that shone from the device by up to 55 percent. Adding such a feature to existing LEDs could save energy, says Bay, because the craggy coating makes LEDs glow brighter.

A group of Korean researchers reported recently that nanostructures in the exoskeleton of another species of firefly act as an anti-reflective layer, which helps more light shine out of the insect’s lantern. The team built LEDs with unique lenses inspired by these nanostructures that transmitted 3 percent more light.

Unlike the nanostructure-inspired modifications, however, the jagged-scale modification can be made post-production on conventional LEDs. “One advantage of our technique is that it can be coated on nearly every commercially available LED,” says Bay.

De-icing runways, with heat saved from the summer

Mon, 21 May 2012 00:00:00 Z

The heating system, called inter-seasonal heat transfer, uses a network of fluid-filled pipes laid under the pavement to collect heat during the summer months, when runways may reach 122 degrees during the day. These pipes transfer the energy to subterranean "thermal banks" where the ground insulates stored heat. During the long winter, the summer’s solar energy can be tapped by using heat pumps to bring warm fluids back to the surface. Even the heat produced by an airport’s air conditioning system, rather than venting to the atmosphere, can be piped into underground storage adding still more heat to the system.

Glass beads to mimic butterfly wings

Thu, 10 May 2012 00:00:00 Z

Butterfly wing material is somewhat like spider silk, in that they’re both animal-produced substances which scientists are very interested in copying. In the case of butterfly wings, it’s their ability to brilliantly reflect light in a variety of iridescent colors that could prove particularly useful to humans. Researchers from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) are reporting success in replicating the reflective properties of the insects’ wings, using tiny glass beads.

Prof. Shin Jung Hoon led the team, which set out to copy the wings of the morpho butterfly. According to the researchers, the secret to the morpho’s striking wings is that their reflective microstructure is at once ordered and chaotic. Analyzed at the 100-nanometer level, the structure is in disarray. Zoom out to the 1-micrometer level, however, and it becomes uniform.

The scientists replicated this arrangement by first randomly aligning glass beads of various sizes, although all of them measured approximately a few hundred nanometers across. That took care of the chaotic structure. Then, they used a semiconductor deposition process to deposit a thin film over top of the beads. This made the structure appear ordered when viewed as a whole. They sealed the resulting film in thin clear plastic, to protect it and give it more structure.

The biomimetic film can be made to reflect in a variety of colors

The finished product was said to produce a better quality and brightness of reflected light than the butterfly wings themselves. Additionally, the color of the film changes less than that of the wings, when viewed from different angles.

Down the road, the technology could find use in anti-counterfeit currency, ultra-bright mobile device displays, sensors, or even the fashion industry. KAIST isn’t the first institution to copy the reflective qualities of butterfly wings, however. A joint Pennsylvania State University/Universidad Autónoma de Madrid team has had success, as has a group from the University of Cambridge – although using different techniques.

Dual-action wind turbine generates electricity and water

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 00:00:00 Z

Throughout the developing world, millions of people struggle with a shortage of clean water and steady electricity. This wind turbine could solve both problems in one shot by pulling both power and water straight from the wind.

The WMS1000 Wind Turbine was invented by Marc Parent and is built by the French start-up Eole Water. Sitting atop a 24-meter mast, the machine generates electricity with a conventional 30kW direct-drive turbine in a 12-ton nacelle with a 13-meter blade diameter. The WMS1000 can self-regulate the energy it produces, allowing it to provide a steady stream of power even in gusty or choppy winds. Installing an array of the turbines, which each have a service life of 30 years, creates a small-scale, decentralized power grid perfect for remote areas.

A lot of new wind turbines emerge with fresh technical breakthroughs. But the WMS1000 does something that no other wind turbine does—it generates fresh water. Lots of it. The WMS1000 sucks moisture right out of the air that's spinning its blades. The turbine functions as a one-meter wide, 5-meter long A/C condenser with an equally large heat exchanger. After the wind passes the blades, it flows through an intake in the body of the turbine, through a compressor, and then into the condenser. The water flows down a pipe in the center of the mast while hot dry air exits the rear of the turbine.

The WMS1000 has been undergoing field testing in Abu Dhabi, where it has produced 500-800 liters of WHO-compliant water daily since being installed in October of last year. And that's with humidity levels below 20 percent and a respectable 50-percent collection efficiency. Eole figures it can increase water production to 1000 liters a day if the technology is scaled up to a 25-meter diameter blade path, equivalent to some off-shore turbine models.

"The prototype is not yet on a mast because we wanted to check that it could operate in difficult desert conditions first—and so far the results have been very good." said Eole marketing director Thibault Janin. "It would be even better, of course, if it was placed in coastal or offshore areas where there is higher humidity and more wind."

Eole has already garnered a lot of attention from some major players in the energy trade, including Emerson and Siemens, who are keen to help develop the technology.

"Water shortage is a real problem - 1.1 billion people in the world cannot get clean water, and 15,000 die every day due to diseases caused by drinking unsanitary water," Janin says. "Politicians around the world understand this is something that will only get worse. But, with our system, we believe we have something that will help normal people have the means to do something to avert a crisis that could be only five or ten years off." [Tree Hugger - Recharge News - Eole Water - Images: Eole Water ]

Earthquake proof school table

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 00:00:00 Z

This school table by industrial design students Arthur Brutter and Ido Bruno is specifically designed to form a safe shelter for pupils during earthquakes.

It’s common practice for school children to hide under their desks when an earthquake strikes but standard tables are not built for the purpose and can trap those sheltering underneath if they collapse in the wrong way.

The students considered different collapse scenarios and the need to maintain an escape route, as well as the day-to day requirements of teaching and cleaning.

Affordable, smoke-free cooking with “oorja” biomass stove

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 00:00:00 Z

First Energy Private’s revolutionary cooking stoves help save the environment while making life more affordable in rural villages. Finding fuel for cooking is a major problem in many rural villages in developing countries. The most common fuel in India is wood or kerosene. Wood is often hard to come by and in densely populated areas there is the danger of stripping the local countryside bare. Kerosene is expensive and often contributes to air pollution and respiratory problems.

First Energy Private Ltd’s solution is an inexpensive, highly efficient cooking stove, which burns biomass pellets, known as “oorja” that are made from the compressed residue of agricultural by-products and rely on a radically new biomass gasification technology developed and patented by the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. The pellet stoves make it possible for an Indian family to serve a meal for five for roughly one rupee per person.

(Left: CEO and MD Mahesh Yagnaraman speaking at the Annual Meeting of the New Champions 2011 in China)

When the demand for pellets began driving prices up, First Energy introduced technology to spur production locally. Not only are the stoves three times as efficient as conventional stoves, but they are also virtually smokeless. Estimates are that the pellets cut down carbon emissions and particulates in the air by up to 70%. Operating through some 3,000 village entrepreneurs and dealers, First Energy has sold stoves to some 485,000 households in five Indian states and contends that they have already saved around 32,000 tons of fuel. The goal is to reach one million households in the next three years and become a market leader in other developing countries, as well as a significant force in the fight to control carbon emissions.

Wind turbines that use human-like learning to improve efficiency

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 00:00:00 Z

Wind turbines are exposed to a wide variety of wind conditions, from zephyrs to gales, and ensuring the maximum amount of power is extracted from the turbine across a range of wind speeds is a difficult task. Chinese researchers have now developed a biologically inspired control system that uses “memory” of past experience to learn how to best adapt to changing conditions.

Wind turbines are designed with a rated power and a rated speed, which is the wind speed at which the turbine will produce its rated power. For example, a 10 kW wind turbine with the most common rated speed of 25 to 35 mph (40 to 56 km/h) will only generate the designated 10 kW at those speeds.

When the wind falls below or exceeds this ideal range, control systems kick in to alter the turbine system to help keep power efficiency high in low winds and protect the turbine from damage in high winds. These changes can include altering the angle of the blades, modifying the electromagnetic torque of the generator.

Turbine control systems are comprised of three basic elements – sensors to gather data, actuators to carry out changes to the turbine system, and algorithms to coordinate the actuators based on the data supplied by the sensors. While these control system algorithms often rely on complex computation models of the turbine’s behavior, a group of Chinese researchers have developed a control system inspired by human learning models.

The new control system, which is described in the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy uses memory of past control experiences and their results to generate new actions. While simulations of the system produced poor initial results, it quickly learned how to improve to match the performance of a traditional control system, while being much simpler.

The researchers claim their “human-memory-based method holds great promise for enhancing the efficiency of wind power conversion.”

Make it rain with lasers

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 00:00:00 Z

We’ve all heard the arguments about peak oil, but who’s talking about peak water? Crippling droughts have been felt worldwide in the last year, and our water use is growing at an incredible pace. Climate change doesn’t help. For example, a third of the world’s population lives within 60 miles of a coastline; as the ocean level creeps up, freshwater supplies are at increased risk of contamination from increased salinity.

The ability to create rain on demand goes a long way to breaking the crushing effects of a drought, but current methods are costly, environmentally damaging, and not guaranteed to work. Jérôme Kasparian, a French physicist at the University of Geneva, has an alternative, and it’s awesome: He’s developed a method of seeding condensation using powerful laser bursts. The technique is called laser-assisted water condensation, and may be the key to bringing rain with the flip of a switch.

Kasparian explains how weather lasers are more precise than chemical seeding, and have the advantage of being turned off and on with a flip of a switch. And what power that switch has: Each pulse carries several trillion watts of energy. That burst is powerful enough to remove electrons from atmospheric molecules, creating charged particles that water molecules stick to, forming droplets. It’s a crazy concept, sure, but Kasparian’s team has already tested the laser over the skies of Berlin. It worked.

Now, it’s not a cure-all. It can’t magically produce rain out of completely dry air. But in areas facing stubborn drought — and the risky decision to spend lots of money on spraying airborne cloud chemicals — a few trillion watts of laser blasts aimed at the sky may be exactly the recipe for relief.

Klymit Inertia X-Frame Sleeping Mat

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 00:00:00 Z

The multiple award winning Inertia X Frame is the world's lightest, most compact, and most advanced full length camping pad available. Designed with body mapping research, it gives you support and comfort in all the key pressure zones, while eliminating unnecessary material to reduce weight and pack size.

Ideal for 3 season use, the Inertia X Frame rolls up to the size of a soda can, and takes only a few breaths to inflate. However, it still offers the adjustable comfort through the use of a dry air pump, which allows you to reach higher pressures than ordinary mouth-inflate pads. The cut out regions of the pad not only reduce the pad's bulk and weight, but is the basis for Klymit's patent pending loft pocket technology. Loft pockets allow the insulation on the bottom of sleeping bags to maintain loft and warmth beneath your body, where it would normally be compacted and useless, while promoting breathability. Built with ripstop 30d top and coated 75d bottom, the Inertia X Frame is also one of the toughest pads on the market with a burst pressure of over 10 psi.

Photonic: the butterfly model

Thu, 16 Dec 2010 00:00:00 Z

The brightest and most vivid colours in nature arise from the interaction of light with surfaces that exhibit periodic structure on the micro- and nanoscale. In the wings of butterflies, for example, a combination of multilayer interference, optical gratings, photonic crystals and other optical structures gives rise to complex colour mixing. Although the physics of structural colours is well understood, it remains a challenge to create artificial replicas of natural photonic structures. Here we use a combination of layer deposition techniques, including colloidal self-assembly, sputtering and atomic layer deposition, to fabricate photonic structures that mimic the colour mixing effect found on the wings of the Indonesian butterfly Papilio blumei. We also show that a conceptual variation to the natural structure leads to enhanced optical properties. Our approach offers improved efficiency, versatility and scalability compared with previous approaches

Touch-sensitive rubber skin

Mon, 08 Nov 2010 00:00:00 Z

By sandwiching a precisely molded, highly elastic rubber layer between two parallel electrodes, the team from Stanford University created an electronic sensor that can detect the slightest touch.

"It detects pressures well below the pressure exerted by a 20-milligram bluebottle fly carcass we experimented with, and does so with unprecedented speed", said lead researcher Zhenan Bao, an associate professor of chemical engineering. "The key innovation in the new sensor is the use of a thin film of rubber molded into a grid of tiny pyramids."

Bionic Handling Assistant

Fri, 05 Nov 2010 00:00:00 Z

For this entirely new biomechatronic handling system, the experts at Festo were inspired by the elephant's trunk. Analysis of its structure and function, together with the use of state-of-the-art manufacturing technologies, have (r)evolutionised human-machine cooperation.

A significant advantage over heavy industrial robots is the fact that direct contact between humans and machines is now no longer hazardous. In the event of a collision the system yields immediately, without becoming unstable. Its design comprising three basic elements, the hand axis with ball joint and the adaptive FinGripper makes for smooth movement, with more degrees of freedom and an unparalleled mass/payload ratio, and enables efficient use of resources in production and operation.

Replacement bones made of wood

Sat, 25 Sep 2010 00:00:00 Z

Scientists in Italy have discovered a way of making artificial replacement bones out of wood.

Early trials on sheep have showed encouraging results.

The team behind the programme hopes the new bones will soon be available for patients whose own bones have been damaged by accident or disease.

Flower vending machine

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 00:00:00 Z

If your significant other is annoyed with you for one reason or another, why not say you're sorry with some conveniently chilled flowers? From a vending machine? It's possible! Bush Refrigeration of Camden, N.J., makes handy "floral display coolers" that keep flowers nice and fresh.

Earth cooling bubbles

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 00:00:00 Z

As anyone who has ever left an open can of soda out too long knows, some things are just better with a little fizz, and the world's oceans may be no exception. One physicist from Harvard University thinks that he's found a solution that may help curb the rate of global warming--and it comes in the form of tiny bubbles pumped into our planets water sources. Such microscopic bubbles, says the scientist, act as "mirrors made of air," reflecting sunlight from the water, generating a cooling effect that could be quite dramatic.

According to a report from Science, micro-bubbles are a naturally occurring phenomenon, and their 'undershine' already contributes to tiny fraction of the total amount of sunlight reflected back to space. The physicist, Russell Seitz, believes that pumping more bubbles into oceans will increase the reflectivity enough to cool the planet considerably - all without further damaging aquatic ecosystems.