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師法自然 沙漠集水器
沙漠中甲殼蟲用一種特殊的方式獲得水源。它每天清晨會爬上沙丘頂部，利用身體與空氣的溫差，讓霧氣在其外殼表面形成露水來飲用。設計師受此啟發，設計了這個碗狀露水收集器。光滑的金屬頂面和帶有波浪紋的側面能夠更加輕易地捕獲空氣的小水滴，並增大接觸面積，以獲得更多的露水。在曲面和儲水罐之間還設計有一道Y字形的槽，目的是過濾空氣中的沙塵，保證水質的清澈。此外，這款集水器倒過來還可以當作臉盆使用。
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Aviation industry learns from nature
(CNN) -- "The largest bird on Earth that can fly weighs 15kg", said Michel de Gliniasty, Scientific Director at ONERA the French Aerospace Lab. "A condor, and it is something like less than four meters in wingspan."
"That is small compared to the airbus A380, which is 80m in span, and 500 tonnes in weight. So, nature is small."
Gliniasty was talking to CNN about biomimicry, during a recent Earth's Frontiers shoot. We went to France to see how developments in aviation and flying machines there are being inspired by the natural world.
"Most of human inventions come from the observation of nature. This is true for flight," said Gliniasty.
Michel de Gliniasty's team are working on drone technology. They are hoping that they can create unmanned devices which can move through the air like a dragonfly. Biomimicry is a new way of talking about how we can learn from nature to solve our modern problems. Scientists and engineers around the world are increasingly asking: what would nature do?
Gliniasty was explaining how complicated it is to replicate the hundreds of little details and functions inside a living creature. But ONERA, along with others in France and throughout the world, are trying to do just that. ONERA opted for a dragonfly -- one of the largest insects on the planet.
"When you think flight, you think immediately birds," Gliniasty said. "The structure of the wings is really complex. You have muscles everywhere, you have the feathers which can be moved."
"We thought that it is better to try to mimic insects. Because when you look at the wing of an insect, the wing is nearly inert. All the living parts are within the thorax, and this is much easier to handle."
When finished, these machines will be used for defence purposes, as well as helping out humans in tricky situations.
"You can use these small drones to move in places where humans cannot go because it's toxic, or it's dangerous. Or if the drones are small enough, you can use them in small ducts."
The French aviation company Dassault took their lead from eagles, when designing their latest business jet, the Falcon 7X. And for aviation engineer Oliver Caldara, it was the motion of birds in flight which inspired him to design a new, more efficient, type of paraglider.
Gliniasty is very optimistic about the possibilities for this area of research: "You cannot really reproduce nature, but there is one thing you can do. It is to try to reproduce some natural phenomena with human technologies. And for me biomimicry is exactly that. You reproduce natural phenomena, but with human technology."
