Design
The greenhouse that acts like a beetle and other inventions inspired by nature
When Brent Constantz, CEO of carbon capture company Blue Planet, was looking for a way to process carbon dioxide emissions, he found inspiration in nature. “Coral reefs and rainforests, the largest natural structures on the planet, are made of carbon,” he says. Reefs, in fact, not only Read More...
Janine Benyus looks to nature for design inspiration
Janine Benyus is the founder of Biomimicry 3.8, a Missoula, Mont.-based design consultancy named not after a version of some proprietary software, but rather the 3.8 billion years nature has been doing its own design “R&D.” The firm is the product of Benyus’s landmark 1997 Read More...
What can the sea snake teach us about Viagra, boat hulls and desalination?
Let’s say you decided to live in the ocean. Can you imagine the challenges you would face? Lot’s of land animals have done exactly that, though the transition from land to sea happens gradually through vast generations of evolutionary time. Whales, seals, manatees, otters, penguins, and Read More...
Inspired by ants, tiny robots can move a 2-ton car
Ants can move mountains together. Researchers have observed that ants get great cooperative force by each using three of their six legs simultaneously. Taking this “biomimicry” example, they have programmed six micro robots, weighing just 3.5 ounces in total, to pull a car weighing 3,900 Read More...
The innovators: the smart plug socket that saves you money and peace of mind
Snuggled up in bed, Yasser Khattak wanted to turn off the light without getting up. It was his lightbulb moment. That teenage frustration gave him the idea for a household plug socket and light switch where the on-off button is flicked remotely via a smartphone, so appliances such as TVs and lights Read More...
High-speed video shows how water lily beetles sprint on water
Water lily beetles are little speed demons, flitting from one pad to another at half a meter (1.6 feet) per second. Now, thanks to a study conducted by Stanford bioengineering assistant professor Manu Prakash and his students, the secret to its mode of flight has been unraveled. Turns out the Read More...
The tyre of the future is here... and it's completely spherical
Goodyear, the long-standing American tyre manufacturer, has finally unveiled prototypes of a design that's been decades in the making - spherical tyres. The Eagle-360 is an incredible feat of engineering and could well be the tyre that carries us into the future of self-autonomous cars. And when we Read More...
6 high-tech refugee shelters that can be deployed in an instant
Each year, tens of thousands of people around the world are displaced from their homes by natural disasters, war and, increasingly, the effects of climate change. When this happens, emergency-response teams are tasked with the challenge of housing these refugees in a short period of time. Designers Read More...
The end of automobile dependence: How cities are moving beyond car-based planning
For several decades now, Kenworthy and Newman have been examining the impact of transport on urban sustainability. 1985 saw the publication of Cities and Automobile Dependence, and in the following decade each author published a paper in Environment and Urbanization drawing out this theme. While Read More...
How NASA accidentally found a way to make buildings safer during earthquakes
NASA technologists are typically focused on making it safe for humans to explore outer space. Now the space agency says it’s found a way to make earthquakes safer for people on the ground. NASA developed a new stabilizing technology, known as the LOX Damper, in 2013 after working on a violently Read More...