published May 22, 2010 and has No Comments
Credit: "Jaws" movie still via Flixster . We're gonna need a bigger wind turbine. Or maybe not. German researchers are using shark skin to make windmills spin more efficiently, and generate more electricity. Not real shark skin, thankfully. This is shark-line skin that can be painted onto wind turbines, airplanes and ships to reduce flow resistance, or drag. Does ...
Read more...
published May 20, 2010 and has No Comments
Image via YouTube video While butterfly populations worldwide struggle to stay afloat as the global temperature rises and changes their migration patterns and food sources, scientists have been hard at work coming up with their replacement - the mechanical butterfly that can survive anything but perhaps an attack of rust. Researchers successfully built and flew a flapping-wing-powered swallowtail butterfly, ...
Read more...
published May 20, 2010 and has No Comments
Image via Popular Science Back in January, we showed you a project that highlighted the intelligence of mold - er, it's efficiency at finding food, at least. This efficiency was used in an experiment to figure out the best routes for transportation in Tokyo . Turns out, the way slime moved across an agar-gel is surprisingly similar to the ...
Read more...
published May 19, 2010 and has No Comments
Image via davitydave and Mariah Power Marine life has proved itself a rich source of inspiration for renewable energy innovation. Sharks and kelp have sparked ideas for harnessing wave and tidal power, and humpback whales have bumpy fins that turn out to be perfect for improving wind turbine blades . Now, researchers at the
Original post:
Fish Inspired Wind Farms ...
Read more...
published May 17, 2010 and has No Comments
Photo by CRhyne Scientists have been investigating how to mimic spider silk for years. The seemingly delicate threads actually have a tensile strength five times greater than steel, and the possibilities for using a similar material in everything from buildings to bridges to cars and even clothing, are practically infinite. The only problem is, the stuff seems to be ...
Read more...
published May 12, 2010 and has No Comments
Photo via lemuelinchrist Bats have an incredible ability to navigate using echolocation, weaving their way around obstacles and finding prey based on the bouncing around of the sounds they emit. Engineers and biologists from the Universities of Strathclyde and Leeds in Britain have decided it's well worth looking in to just how they do it so that the technique ...
Read more...
published February 8, 2010 and has No Comments
Photo: Wikipedia , CC What Can We Learn From The Highways in the Sky Science recently published a study titled " Flight Orienta... Read the full story on TreeHugger
Read the rest here:
Migrating Insects Use Wind to Travel Efficiently at Speeds of up to 60 MPH
Read more...
published February 4, 2010 and has No Comments
Photo via Niffty.. With the help of a scanning electron microscope, Chinese scientists have figured out the secret architecture to spiders' webs that make them incredibly effective at catching dew. Cracking into the mystery could mean that the same structures can be duplicated in fog catchers for developing nations, creating effective yet inexpensive methods for helping communities with scarce ...
Read more...
published December 31, 2009 and has No Comments
Image: dpa Last week, the temporary closing of Frankfurt's airport in Germany, due to bad winter weather, affected 8000 people. In order to fight the ice and snow, the airport used 700.000 litres of antacid to get rid of the three-day snowfall. This is an eco-friendlier option compared to aggressive salt or toxic chemicals, as the antacid is biodegradable ...
Read more...
published December 31, 2009 and has No Comments
Image: dpa Last week, the temporary closing of Frankfurt's airport in Germany, due to bad winter weather, affected 8000 people. In order to fight the ice and snow, the airport used 700.000 litres of antacid to get rid of the three-day snowfall. This is an eco-friendlier option compared to aggressive salt or toxic chemicals, as the antacid is biodegradable ...
Read more...
