Welcome to my Blog on the WWW. I’m sure many of you are familiar with the show where the title for this blog came from (hint…Futurama), but I’m new to the blogosphere! This is all new to me…and NO, of course I’m not overwhelmed. I’m still trying to figure out how this blogging thing works! So be prepared and enjoy my highly opinionated entries about the newest interdisciplinary field you probably haven’t heard much about… yet (See what I did there?). I’m of course talking about B & B!
You will be getting an earful from me every week about the wonderful world of B & B, while hopefully enjoying my absurd sense of humor. I believe that a little bit of humor goes a long way of making anything scientific more interesting and hopefully, more enjoyable and memorable to a broad audience, no matter if you have a scientific background or not.
Let’s get back to B & B! What is it? No, it is not Bed & Breakfast. I’m talking about Biomimetics and Bioinspiration! Biomimetics might sound odd to you, but Bioinspiration sounds just like what it is: seeking inspiration from biology, or nature! Biomimetics is slightly different, as we seek to mimic, or copy something we see in nature. Biologist and Engineers have come together in this brand new field to work together to improve existing designs or to come up with something completely new!
Before I sign off for the day, I will give you one example of B & B which you use daily, but had no idea that this particular design was borrowed (or stolen) from Mother Nature. I riddle you this: What do reflectors (ex. Like reflectors on the road which divide the lanes) and the tapetum lucidum have in common? Well, one was inspired from the other. The tapetum lucidum is a reflective layer of guanine crystals in the eye of many vertebrates. A mate by the name of Percy Shaw was inspired by reflective cat eyes to engineer these reflectors for the road in the 1930s. So perhaps next time when you hang out with your pets, who knows, maybe you will come up with a new and revolutionary design. Be creative!
Until next time!
JP
You will be getting an earful from me every week about the wonderful world of B & B, while hopefully enjoying my absurd sense of humor. I believe that a little bit of humor goes a long way of making anything scientific more interesting and hopefully, more enjoyable and memorable to a broad audience, no matter if you have a scientific background or not.
Let’s get back to B & B! What is it? No, it is not Bed & Breakfast. I’m talking about Biomimetics and Bioinspiration! Biomimetics might sound odd to you, but Bioinspiration sounds just like what it is: seeking inspiration from biology, or nature! Biomimetics is slightly different, as we seek to mimic, or copy something we see in nature. Biologist and Engineers have come together in this brand new field to work together to improve existing designs or to come up with something completely new!
Before I sign off for the day, I will give you one example of B & B which you use daily, but had no idea that this particular design was borrowed (or stolen) from Mother Nature. I riddle you this: What do reflectors (ex. Like reflectors on the road which divide the lanes) and the tapetum lucidum have in common? Well, one was inspired from the other. The tapetum lucidum is a reflective layer of guanine crystals in the eye of many vertebrates. A mate by the name of Percy Shaw was inspired by reflective cat eyes to engineer these reflectors for the road in the 1930s. So perhaps next time when you hang out with your pets, who knows, maybe you will come up with a new and revolutionary design. Be creative!
Until next time!
JP