The Science That Imitates Nature's Mechanisms (2)

By Author: FIRELEAVES
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Electrical system
Theoretically at least we should be able to copy these mechanisms found in nature, for all biological organisms--from mosquito to frog to man are in part actually electrical systems. The sense organs that "connect" all animals to the outside world are merely transducers-strumpets like a microphone, TV camera, or phonograph pickup arm--which convert form of energy into another. A microphone, for example, converts Tag Heuer Replica Watches sound into electrical which are carried to a loudspeaker and converted back into sound waves. Similarly, nerve cells of a man's ear convert a cry for help into electrical pulses which are sped over nervous system to the brain. The brain receives the signal, and then sends an answering el trial pulse message to his legs, where it is converted into muscular energy when he running toward the cry.

We have been slow to profit from this close analogy between a biological organism and electronic system. It was only in the early 1950's that we consciously began to unite biological; with physicists, chemists, electronic ...
... experts, mathematicians, and engineers in a team solve the mysteries of biological machinery. The first formal bionics meeting--called by the U.S. Air Force--was held in 1960. A year later there were 20,000 biologists at work in n search laboratories in the United States more than double the number employed ten years earlier.

Electronic and no electronic

A bionomist can, of course, copy much in nature without resorting to electronics. For exam pie an airplane wing that gives unique stability to a small plane was introduced by the Cessm Company in 1960; the wing tips of a seabird served as the model. An artificial gill to extract oxygen from water and throw off carbon dioxide like a fish's gill is being studied by the Navy for use on submarines. For the Navy, too, the U.S. Rubber Company is making tests of a rubber "skin" for boats and submarine hulls, modeled on the elastic skin of a dolphin.

But the greatest advances in bionics unquestionably will be electronic in nature. Already an instruments laboratory has developed an "eye" that can peer through a microscope and distinguish certain kinds of diseased cells from healthy cells. General Electric Company has an experimental eye, the Visilog that operates on the principle used by the human eye in judging distance as a solid surface is approached.

We humans judge our rate of approach by the changed occurring in the texture of a surface as our eyes get closer and closer to it. This explains why we sometimes fail to see a glass door, but we always stop short of a brick wall. General Electric's eye calculates the rate of approach to any textured surface and contains a device to slow the approach speed. It is being developed, hopefully, to permit a planned moon-probe rocket to make a soft landing on the moon's surface. A small variety of Visilog may also be created for the blind.

Ears, nose, and brain

The owl's ears are fascinating to many bionicists, for the owl has uncanny directional hear-The sense organs that "connect" all animals to the outside world are merely transducers--instruments like a microphone, TV camera, or phonograph pickup arm--which convert one form of energy into another. A microphone, for example, converts sound into electrical signals which are carried to a loudspeaker and converted back into sound waves. Similarly, the nerve cells of a man's ear convert a cry for help into electrical pulses which are sped over his nervous system to the brain. The brain receives the signal, and then sends an answering electrical-pulse message to his legs, where it is converted into muscular energy when he starts running toward the cry.

We have been slow to profit from this close analogy between a biological organism and an electronic system. It was only in the early 1950's that we consciously began to unite biologists with physicists, chemists, electronic Omega Seamaster Replica Watches experts, mathematicians, and engineers in a team to solve the mysteries of biological machinery. The first formal bionics meeting--called by the U.S. Air Force--was held in 1960. A year later there were 20,000 biologists at work in research laboratories in the United States more than double the number employed ten years earlier.