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"2021 SP Week 10"
Administration of drugs by the buccal route has attracted a lot of attention in recent years. But, developing systems with adequate adhesion under wet conditions and drug bioavailability remains a challenge. In this article, they propose a mussel-inspired mucoadhesive film as a solution and demonstrate that the adhesion mechanism of this […]
This article is about Epclusa, a new treatment for Hepatitis C, a very effective new treatment for people with Hep C. The drug is a direct’acting antivral oral tablet. One of my best friends whose dad suffers from Hep C, just started this treatment and it has been unbelievably effective for […]
An international research team from the US, Canada, Germany, and Singapore have developed a miniature, implantable light-sheet generator that can be placed in a living animal’s brain. This device, also known as a photonic neural probe, is used to image brain activity in animals. Traditionally, this technology […]
The notion of mimicking natural structures in the synthesis of new structural materials has generated enormous interest but has yielded few practical advances. Natural composites achieve strength and toughness through complex hierarchical designs that are extremely difficult to replicate synthetically. We emulate nature’s toughening mechanisms by combining […]
Rolf Mueller of Virginia Tech has been studying bat ears in relation to human ears to see how bats locate the origin of a sound. He has been able to extract ideas from this natural technology to make a device capable of locating sound in a similar way bats do. This […]
Vine Robots are soft continuum robots design with low-cost fabrication in mind and for the navigation of difficult environments. Unlike traditional robots, which move through surface contact to walk or run, the vine robot relies on growth for movement. Much like a vine […]
The study and imitation of the biological and mechanical systems present in nature and living beings always have been sources of inspiration for improving existent technologies and establishing new ones. Pursuing this line of thought, we consider an artificial graft typical in the bone reconstruction surgery with […]
Caudo-rostral whole-field visual motion elicits forward locomotion in many organisms, including larval zebrafish. Here, we investigate the dependence on the latency to initiate this forward swimming as a function of the speed of the visual motion. We show that latency is highly dependent on speed for slow […]
A team of engineers at Cornell has developed an actuator that can function in a similar manner to muscles. The actuator’s design was inspired by octopus tentacles, and doesn’t require any complex parts. It was made using 3D printing and uses pneumatics and pressure differences to control […]
Artificial recapitulation of the hierarchy of natural protein fibers is crucial to providing strategies for developing advanced fibrous materials. However, it is challenging due to the complexity of the natural environment. Inspired by the liquid crystalline spinning of spiders, we report the development of natural silk-like hierarchical […]
A new flexible, transparent electrical device inspired by electric eels could lead to body-friendly power sources for implanted health monitors and medication dispensers, augmented-reality contact lenses, and countless other applications, researchers report.
When in ground effect, bats are able to fly aerodynamically in a manner that is much more efficient than our own machines. The ripples in the wings themselves allows for significant conservation of energy and could be utilized in many of our own machines as well.
Scientists have long sought to replicate the shock-absorbing and lubricating properties of cartilage, with such a material undoubtedly having a range of applications in engineering and beyond. However, the bi-phase nature of cartilage – whereby it exists in both solid and fluid states, depending on the presence of synovial fluid in […]
A series of interview questions with prominent biologists and medical researchers, designed to help science students find jobs after graduation by teaching them how to present themselves and the research they’ve done in the best possible light. This should be useful to anyone seeking an internship or a laboratory position.
Inspired by the workings of a bat’s ear, Rolf Mueller, a professor of mechanical engineering at Virginia Tech, has created bio-inspired technology that determines the location of a sound’s origin. Mueller’s development works from a simpler and more accurate model of sound location than previous approaches, which have traditionally been modeled […]
Scientists have identified a new phylum of microbes found around the world that appear to be playing an important (and surprising) role in the global carbon cycle by helping break down decaying plants without producing the greenhouse gas methane. In addition to breaking down organic matter, these newly described microbes have […]
For the last four decades, the development of robotic hands has been the focus of severalworks. However, a small part of those approaches consider the exploitation of parallelism of FPGA-based (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) systems or discuss how using bioinspired optimization algorithmscould improve the mechanical and controller components. This work considers […]
Remora fishes have a unique dorsal suction pad that allows them to form robust, reliable, and reversible attachmentto a wide variety of host organisms and marine vessels. Although investigations ofthe suction pad have been performed, the primary force that remoras must resist, namely fluid drag, has received little attention. This work […]
Next-generation editing technologies are necessary in the comprehension of biological systems and industrial developments. Recent reports point to a rich array of computation approaches for more effective biodesign and detection methods that highlight the different ways our current knowledge for decision-making and risk assessment.
A lobster’s underbelly is lined with a thin, translucent membrane that is both stretchy and surprisingly tough. This marine under-armor, as MIT engineers reported in 2019, is made from the toughest known hydrogel in nature, which also happens to be highly flexible. This combination of strength and stretch helps shield a […]
Researchers from multiple different universities and labs are working on creating a sort of guide for future projects that are centered around wearable technology. As technology advances, we continue to make things easier, faster, and more useful, and wearable technology has the potential to be the optimal combination of all of […]
Compliance sensation is a unique feature of the human skin that electronic devices could not mimic via compact and thin form-factor devices. Due to the complex nature of the sensing mechanism, up to now, only high-precision or bulky handheld devices have been used to measure compliance of materials. This also prevents […]
A study conducted at the University of Trento has revealed that dandelion clocks submerged in water have air trapping capacities. The discovery was actually inspired by the high-school daughter of professor Nicola Pugno, who noticed that the soft seed heads of dandelions turn […]
Unusual property of the ultrastrong material could be harnessed for twisting or pulling motions: Spider silk, already known as one of the strongest materials for its weight, turns out to have another unusual property that might lead to new kinds of artificial muscles or robotic actuators, researchers […]
Traditional approaches to sensing have often been aimed at simple sensor characteristics to make interpretation of the sensor outputs easier, but this has also limited the quality of the encoded sensory information. Integrating a complex sensor with deep learning could hence be a strategy for removing current limitations on the information […]
Rolf Mueller, professor of mechanical engineering at Virginia Tech, has drawn inspiration from bats to design and develop a new bio-inspired technology that can determine the origin location of a sound. Unlike previous approaches, which are often based on the human ear, Mueller looked at a bat’s ear to gain the […]
The cheetah and racing greyhound are of a similar size and gross morphology and yet the cheetah is able to achieve a far higher top speed. The researchers compared the kinematics and kinetics of galloping in the cheetah and greyhound to investigate how the cheetah can attain […]
University at Buffalo (UB) researchers have developed a novel 3D printed water-purifying graphene aerogel that could be scaled for use at large wastewater treatment plants.
Engineers at MIT and Imperial College London have developed a new way to generate tough, functional materials using a mixture of bacteria and yeast similar to the “kombucha mother” used to ferment tea. Using this mixture, also called a SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast), the researchers were able to […]
Abstract: The giant panda’s teeth possess remarkable load-bearing capacity and damage resistance for masticating bamboos. In this study, the hierarchical structure and mechanical behavior of the giant panda’s tooth enamel were investigated under indentation. The effects of loading orientation and location on mechanical properties of the enamel […]
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Click here to find out more about our Fall Bioinspired Design Decal and our Spring Bioinspired Design in Action Decal – ALL MAJORS are welcome.Berkeley BioDesign Community
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I imagine that the neurological circuits underlying these processes are governed by both 2d spacing maps with their brains as…
to reduce the impact of car accidents, it may be possible to study the force diverting physics of cockroaches to…
you see this type of head-bobbing stability in many avian creatures related to pigeons like chickens. the head ability to…
not like they taught horses how to run! this is an example of convergent evolution where both sea creatures and…
The brain functions in a similar way with neuronal connections. our brains are able to utilize the multiplicity of connections…