Proof that Oliver cares about the health of our planet? Almost nothing gets him more excited than recycling plastic bottles.
You cannot use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.
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| — | Maya Angelou (via onmyadventure) |
Seahorse’s Armor Gives Engineers Insight Into Robotics Designs
The tail of a seahorse can be compressed to about half its size before permanent damage occurs, engineers at the University of California, San Diego, have found. The tail’s exceptional flexibility is due to its structure, made up of bony, armored plates, which slide past each other.
Researchers are hoping to use a similar structure to create a flexible robotic arm equipped with muscles made out of polymer, which could be used in medical devices, underwater exploration and unmanned bomb detection and detonation. UC San Diego engineers, led by materials science professors Joanna McKittrick and Marc Meyers, detailed their findings in the March 2013 issue of the journal Acta Biomaterialia.
Love that seahorse CT scan — As UCSD’s Michael Porter mentions, seahorses are pretty unique creatures: they have a head like a horse, a snout like an anteater, a prehensile tail like a monkey, a pouch like a kangaroo, camouflage like a flounder, and eyes that move independently like a chameleon.
