Biomimicry

When it comes to developing robots that can move efficiently through water, scientists regularly turn to creature’s like jellyfish for inspiration, and a UK research team has just produced one that can swim with the best of them.

We've already heard about small flying or wheeled robots that cooperate on tasks by working in collaborative "swarms." Harvard University researchers have now gone a step further, by developing tiny underwater robots that school together like fish.

As anyone who has grown climbing plants will know, the things are great at grasping onto thin objects such as strings or bamboo poles. A new robotic gripper, inspired by such plants, could find use in the handling of small, delicate items.

If you're trying to eradicate disease-carrying mosquitos, it's important to know when and where the biting females of the targeted species are present. An experimental new device could help, by mimicking the insects' hearing apparatus.

No matter how good we humans have made something, chances are nature did it better. Rather than compete, scientists have now tapped into a natural sensor with the Smellicopter, a drone that uses an antenna from a live moth to sniff out its targets.

A new understanding of the way bumblebees change their body orientation to squeeze through tight spaces has a team from Australia's University of New South Wales imagining how flying robots could be made to do the same thing.

If you want to know the local soil conditions, it would be good if you could just ask an earthworm. Given that that's an impossibility, though, scientists are now working on the next-best thing – earthworm-inspired soil-analyzing agricultural robots.

By getting up close and personal with the intricate mechanics of bird flight, scientists continue to unlock secrets that can aid in their pursuit of advanced aerodynamics, and that may include aircraft that generate a lot less noise.

Even though they don't have flexible tongues, catfish are still able to rotate captured prey within their mouths. A new understanding of how they're able to do so could ultimately lead to more dextrous underwater robots.

Materials stay cooler when water evaporates off of them, but once all the water is gone, the cooling effect stops. Bearing this in mind, MIT scientists have developed a camel fur-inspired material that could keep items cool without using electricity.

When plants perform movements such as curling their leaves, they do so by drawing water into the cellulose fibers in that part of their "body." Scientists have now replicated that technique to produce self-folding paper structures.

A team in Australia has tapped into the world of biomimicry to build a new type of robotic gripper modeled on an elephant’s trunk that has the ability to pick up and release objects even when they’re tucked away in confined spaces.