competitions & quizzes...pit your wits & win with Planet Science
biomimetic quiz
NATURALLY INGENIUS
Who says humans have all the best ideas? Other animals and plants have been coming up with solutions to their own lifestyle problems for millions of years...
Much of their ingenuity is brilliantly adaptable to the human world - and scientists and technologists now routinely look to nature for novel design ideas. Take Velcro, or cats' eyes, or solar sails...
Here are 10 questions to test your BM-IQ! Get them all correct, and you could be one of three people to win this strange-looking but brilliantly useful CamelBak (TM) hands-free hydration kit. With one of these strapped to your back, you'll be ready to head out into the countryside to ponder some natural design solutions yourself ... and you'll never be thirsty again.
Ready? Here are the questions:
GOOD LUCK!
01 Computer programmers use neural nets while trying to develop artificial intelligence. Which organ are neural net patterns based on?
The ear
The liver
The brain
The islets of Langerhans in the pancreas
02 Speedo's Fastskin™ swimsuit has v-shaped ridges that reduce drag and turbulence in the water. What marine animal is this feature copied from?
Tadpole
Mermaid
Great kelp seaweed
Shark
03 What is ‘RoboTuna’?
A brand of tuna fish in a self-opening tin
Arnold Schwarzenegger's latest film
An energy efficient submersible robot from MIT modelled on the bluefin tuna
A bionic tuna fish
04 Until the 19th century, paper was chiefly made from cotton or linen. Which animal's wood-based paper nest suggested the idea of using wood pulp to make cheap paper?
Woodchucks - they generate a wood pulp that they use as nest material
Wasps - they chew up wood and spit it back out again
Origami pandas - almost extinct but still found in some parts of China
Paperclips - small termites which build papier-mâché nests
05 The Victorian Marc Brunel developed a revolutionary design for a tunnelling machine. He is said to have been inspired after observing a shipworm with a bony head that helped it to burrow whilst in prison for debt. What tunnel did Marc Brunel build?
The Channel Tunnel
The first tunnel under the Thames
A tunnel from his prison cell to Brighton
A tunnel under the Pennines to keep ramblers dry when it rained
06 In 1868 Michael Kelly patented an invention inspired by nature that helped to tame the Wild West. What was it?
The six-shooter revolver - inspired by the motion of tumbleweed plants
The pony express - inspired by the relay based hunting patterns of vultures
Saloon bar doors - inspired by the rapid opening of cactus flowers
Barbed wire - inspired by the thorny hedges used to pen in cattle
07 Not all designs inspired by nature work. In the 19th Century, inventors attempted to make human-powered flying machines by directly copying the feathers and flapping wings of birds. Why did these never work?
The wax sticking the feathers together always melted
Human muscles are too weak to lift the weight of a human in this way
When feathers are removed from a bird, they no longer have any lift
People couldn't run fast enough to achieve a good take off speed
08 Scientists are designing a new syringe needle that will cause less pain as it pierces the skin. Which animal feature is the highly serrated edge of this needle copied from?
The quills of a porcupine
The fangs of the snake
The teeth of the piranha
The proboscis of the mosquito
09 Bees are incredibly industrious creatures, not only do they produce honey but they also construct honeycomb. Honeycomb is very strong and has been used as the basic design for what structure?
The Eiffel Tower
The Pyramids
The Large Binocular Telescope in Arizona *
The International Space Station
10 Joseph Paxton was the Victorian architect who designed the glass covered Crystal Palace building for the Great Exhibition of 1851. What design feature for his glasshouses did he copy from the giant African lily, Victoria regia?
The curving shape of the lily’s petals was duplicated on the roof to catch rainwater
The giant lily pad's array of supporting cross ribs inspired the strong iron frames
The noise absorbent flooring was based on the cells which made up the leaves
The foundations were shaped like the roots of the aquatic lily to provide stability
Answers:
1= The brain • 2= Shark • 3= Submersible robot • 4= Wasps • 5= Thames tunnel • 6= Barbed wire • 7= Muscles too weak • 8= Mosquito • 9= Telescope • 10= Giant lily pad
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