In fact, whales are not the only creatures in nature that can act as "teachers" for human beings.
People used to fight without radar and were always ambushed by planes when they were not ready. Scientists have studied bats for a long time and found that bats have poor eyesight, but they can accurately catch their prey at night. Why? It turns out that every bat can emit an "ultrasonic wave" in its mouth, and this wave will reflect back when it meets an object. Bat's ears are like "receivers", judging whether they are rocks or prey according to the received signals. Scientists invented radar according to this principle. The radar can also send out ultrasonic waves and bounce back when it touches an airplane, so that it can predict whether the enemy is coming to sneak attack.
Flies and spaceships
Nasty flies seem to have nothing to do with the grand space cause, but bionics closely connects them.
Flies are notorious "smelly things". They can be seen everywhere and have a bad smell. Flies have a particularly sensitive sense of smell, and can smell the smell thousands of meters away. But flies don't have noses. What does it rely on to act as a sense of smell? It turns out that the "nose" of flies-olfactory receptors are distributed on a pair of antennae on the head.
Each "nose" has only one "nostril" communicating with the outside world, which contains hundreds of olfactory nerve cells. If the smell enters the nostrils, these nerves will immediately convert the smell stimulus into nerve electrical impulses and send them to the brain. The brain can distinguish substances with different smells according to different nerve electrical impulses generated by substances with different smells. Therefore, the fly's antenna is like a sensitive gas analyzer.
Inspired by this, bionics successfully imitated a very strange small gas analyzer according to the structure and function of the olfactory organs of flies. The probe of this instrument is not metal, but a live fly. A very fine microelectrode is inserted into the olfactory nerve of the fly, and the guided neuroelectric signal is amplified by an electronic circuit and sent to an analyzer; The analyzer can give an alarm as soon as it finds the signal of odorous substances. This instrument has been installed in the cockpit of the spacecraft to detect the composition of the gas in the cabin.
This small gas analyzer can also measure harmful gases in submarines and mines. This principle can also be used to improve the input device of computer and the structural principle of gas chromatography analyzer.
From Fireflies to Artificial Luminescence
Since the invention of electric light, life has become more convenient and rich. But electric lamps can only convert a small part of electric energy into visible light, and most of the rest is wasted in the form of heat energy. The heat rays of electric lamps are harmful to people's eyes. So, is there a light source that only emits light without heating? Humans have turned their attention to nature again.
In nature, many creatures can emit light, such as bacteria, fungi, worms, mollusks, crustaceans, insects and fish, and the light emitted by these animals does not produce heat, so it is also called "cold light".
Fireflies are one of many luminous animals. There are about 65,438+0,500 species of fireflies. Their luminescent colors are yellow-green, orange, and their brightness is different. Fireflies emit cold light, which not only has high luminous efficiency, but also is generally soft, suitable for human eyes, and the light intensity is relatively high. Therefore, bioluminescence is an ideal light source for human beings.
Scientists found that the luminous device of fireflies is located in the abdomen. This light emitter consists of three parts: light emitting layer, transparent layer and reflecting layer. There are thousands of luminescent cells in the luminescent layer, all of which contain fluorescein and luciferase. Under the action of luciferase, fluorescein combines with oxidation to emit fluorescence with the participation of intracellular water. The luminescence of fireflies is essentially a process in which chemical energy is converted into light energy.
As early as 1940s, people created fluorescent lamps on the basis of studying fireflies, which greatly changed the lighting sources of human beings. In recent years, scientists first isolated pure fluorescein from fireflies, then isolated luciferase, and then synthesized fluorescein artificially by chemical methods. Biological light source composed of fluorescein, luciferase, ATP (adenosine triphosphate) and water can be used as a flash lamp in mines filled with explosive gas. Because this lamp has no power supply and does not produce magnetic field, it can be used to clear magnetic mines under the irradiation of biological light source.
Now, people can get cold light similar to biological light by mixing some chemicals for safe lighting.
Electric fish and volt battery
Many creatures in nature can generate electricity, and there are more than 500 kinds of fish alone. People call these discharging fish "electric fish".
All kinds of electric fish have different discharge skills. Electric ray, electric catfish and electric eel have the strongest discharge ability. Medium-sized torpedoes can generate about 70 volts, while African torpedoes can generate up to 220 volts; African electric catfish can generate 350 volts; Electric eels can generate 500 volts. There is a South American electric eel that can generate up to 880 volts, and it is called the champion of electric shock. It is said that it can kill big animals like horses.
Where is the mystery of electric fish discharge? Through the anatomical study of the electric fish, it is finally found that there is a strange power generation organ in the electric fish. These generators are made up of many translucent disk-shaped batteries, called electric plates or plates. Due to the different types of electric fish, the shape, position and quantity of the electric plates of the generator are also different. The generator of electric eel is prismatic and located in the muscles on both sides of the caudate spine. The torpedo generator is shaped like a flat kidney, arranged on both sides of the body midline, with 2 million electric plates. The generator of electric catfish originated from some kind of gland, located between skin and muscle, with about 5 million electric plates. The voltage generated by a single plate is very weak, but because there are many plates, the voltage generated is very large.
The extraordinary skills of electric fish have aroused great interest. /kloc-at the beginning of 0/9th century, Italian physicist Volt designed the world's earliest voltaic battery based on electric fish power generation organ. Because this kind of battery is designed according to the natural generator of electric fish, the research of electric fish called "artificial electric officer" also gives people such enlightenment: if the power generation organ of electric fish can be successfully imitated, then the power problem of ships and submarines can be solved well.
Jellyfish windward ears
"Swallows fly low before the rain, cicadas sing, and the sky clears up in the rain." Biological behavior is related to the change of weather. Fishermen along the coast know that fish and jellyfish living along the coast swim to the sea in batches, which indicates that a storm is coming.
Jellyfish, also known as jellyfish, is an ancient coelenterate that floated in the ocean as early as 500 million years ago. This lower animal has the instinct to predict storms, and every time before the storm warning, it will swim to the sea to take refuge.
It turns out that in the blue ocean, infrasound (frequency is 8- 13 times per second) generated by the friction between air and waves is always a prelude to storm warning. This infrasound is inaudible to the human ear, but the little jellyfish is very sensitive. Bionics found that there is a thin handle in the ear cavity of jellyfish, a small ball on the handle, and a small auditory stone in the ball. When the infrasound before the storm hit the auditory stone in the jellyfish's ear, the auditory stone stimulated the nerve receptors on the ball wall, so the jellyfish heard the rumble of the coming storm.
Bionics imitates the structure and function of jellyfish ears, designs a storm predictor for jellyfish ears, and accurately simulates the organs that jellyfish feel infrasound. This instrument is installed on the front deck of the ship. When it receives the infrasound wave of the storm, it can automatically stop the horn rotating 360 degrees, and the direction it refers to is the direction of the storm. The reading on the indicator can show the intensity of the storm. This forecaster can forecast storms 15 hours in advance, which is of great significance to navigation and fishery safety.