Engineers always get inspiration from nature. Leonardo da vinci wrote in the16th century: "Human spirituality will create all kinds of inventions, but it will not make these inventions better, simpler and clearer; Because natural products are just right. "However, the exemplary achievement of bionics is not only the imitation of nature, but the result of trying to explore the principles and mechanisms behind natural systems and then applying them concretely. In fact, simply copying biological tissues will lead to mediocre and terrible engineering design.
Think about all kinds of failed ideas of human beings making airplanes. The Bai brothers successfully crossed this difficulty. They did not simply imitate the posture of birds, but examined the delicate state of their wings when they took off and landed and glided, and then transplanted them to planes with fixed wings.
There are many famous examples of applied bionics in the history of invention. Most vividly, in the 1940s, Swiss engineer George Mestraw got inspiration from Xanthium plants that touched his pants and dog ears and invented velcro. More recently, in 1995, Intel Freescale, one of the largest carpet companies in the world, produced a carpet that imitated the surface of woodland. Also, the lobster with sensitive sense of smell provides people with the idea of making odor detectors; A parasitic fly, with a keen hearing organ like a microphone, has contributed a lot to the design of better hearing AIDS. And geckos and lizards. Geckos rely on the molecular attraction of beards on their toes to attract walls and ceilings. The combined force of hundreds of millions of molecular suction on gecko feet can theoretically bear 60 pounds, which provides an encouraging prospect for manufacturing reusable adhesive tape.
A similar example is that the colloid produced by mussel with its protein is so strong that it can stick itself to rocks even in cold seawater. This colloid can be used in all fields from surgical suture to ship maintenance. Recently, a bionic product "Letsey" has a silica gel coating, which also draws lessons from the self-cleaning function of Lotus. The German manufacturer of this paint claims that only a brush and a bucket of water are needed to remove the dirt from this household paint.
Jenin Benas, a popular science writer, wrote in the book Bionics in 1997: "Unlike the industrial revolution, the bionic revolution brought us not an era when we dug from nature, but an era when we learned from nature."
In this world, perhaps nothing is more elegant and efficient than silk in a spider's web. In the office of Wyoming State University, molecular biologist Langdon Lewis showed a computer anatomical map of a golden web spider. Six independent filament glands in the abdomen of spiders secrete different protein solutions or mucus. They produce six kinds of silk through the power of spider spinneret: one is to wrap eggs, the other is to ensure hunting safety, the third is to weave webs, and the most elastic one is traction silk, which spiders use to weave webs or walk. Traction silk is the toughest silk that animals can make. Theoretically, a pencil-thick spider tow can hook a jet plane landing on an aircraft carrier, and its elasticity is the same as that of nylon. The toughness and elasticity of spider silk are five times that of bulletproof vest fiber B.
Spider silk is so magical, but it is not easy to produce. Everyone wants to keep spiders, but no one can do anything, because spiders put together will eventually eat each other. In a farm building outside Montreal, USA, Jeffrey Turner, a molecular biologist and president and CEO of Nicosia Biotechnology Company, is trying new methods.
Things have to start from the beginning. 1998, Turner learned that Lewis and others had isolated the gene of this spider. Noting that researchers have produced drugs through goat's secretory system, he can't help wondering why goats can't make spider silk in their milk. After all, the silk glands of spiders are very similar to the milk glands of goats. "So I called Langdon and asked him to help me study the spider silk gene," Turner recalled.
Technicians in Nicosia first extracted hundreds of fertilized eggs from dozens of goats, then implanted spider silk gene into fertilized eggs, and then implanted these fertilized eggs into goats again. This summer, these fertilized ewes became mothers, and Nigerian technicians were able to extract their milk (this stage is like maple syrup). However, so far, Nekosia has not done anything revolutionary. "Simulating how spiders spin silk is the most difficult thing," Turner said. In its spinneret, the spider somehow turns mucus into a constantly pulling filament-it is neither wet nor brittle, but it is quite tough and elastic.
Nekosia and its research partner, experts from the US Army Biochemical Command, are trying to put spider mucus into a syringe-like container and extrude braided filaments. In a recent experiment, many properties of the silk made by the company were almost the same as those of natural spider silk, but the company admitted that its strength was only 30% of that of natural silk. Of course, Turner is still optimistic about this. He thinks this kind of silk can become stronger, and he intends to apply for a patent for this experiment in the next few years.
There is more than one way to climb the railing, and so is the simulated spider silk. David Kaplan, a professor of student engineering at Taft University, has been studying biological filaments for many years, and he has high hopes for the application prospect of tow. He said that although silk is not as tough as spider silk, it can be used in the field of medical devices relatively quickly and can also be obtained on a large scale.
In his laboratory, Kaplan showed a large shallow metal box called a winding reel, which looks like the internal organs of a grand piano and contains more than a dozen small motors. Four-foot-long fibers are stretched on motors at both ends of the reel, and each bundle of fibers consists of 10 filaments. The computer controls each motor to twist the fibers at different revolutions per inch, so that each bundle of fibers obtains different strength and elasticity. "If you bind and twist it in a proper way, you can get all kinds of attributes you want," Kaplan said.
He believes that human tissues will grow around these fibers and produce new ligaments. He is now focusing on the research of artificial replacement of anterior cruciate ligament, and the knee joint tissue has always been a difficult problem for athletes. "In theory, silk should be used for any tendon and ligament, but also for other tissues," he said. Estimate? The experiment of smokers will be carried out in the next two or three years.
Society may accept genetic engineering or abandon it because it is too dangerous. However, nature will still inspire designers, scientists and other innovators. These lively and lovely little goats in the experimental corral of Nicosia Company may one day produce some rare materials for making bulletproof vests. Bionics seems to have a bright future!
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