Amazing ways Animals using nanotechnology #1

vinamra (54)in #steemstem • 6 years ago

Hey Steemians,

Its been a long time I haven't written a post on nanoscience, So today I decided to just make a different section of my forth coming articles. If you have followed my articles, I have talked about how nature uses nanotechnology and basically how nature inspires us to nanotechnology.

So, I have talked about some of the animals which uses nanotechnology for different functions or you can say nature blessed them with the power to use nanotechnology for their daily life.

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How Sharks Swim fast

Feet of GECKO

Ultra light Aircraft inspired from Toucan beak

Hornet Hive Engineering miracle of Nature

You must have seen yellow hornet, they are different from bees and are more aggressive and attack in group force.

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They build there hive by chewing the woods and then engineering a hive which have several functions.

As I have earlier explained it in my article about how they built it and where nanoscience is involved in it.

They produces nano sized silk fiber and these silk fiber are being used in the development of their hives. They are known to regulate temperature of the hive, provides luminescence property to the inner silk of hive and thermovoltaic and photovoltaic property of silk.Image Source

They are self powered super bugs

Some of the species build their hive in open air whereas some species of it make it underground. As most of the wasps are active in day time and slow down considerably at midnight. Apart from all these unique abilities these yellow hornets are also capable of restoring light energy and can self power themselves using sunlight.

A research group of Tel Aviv University revealed that nanostructures present in insect's exoskeleton happens to form a kind of solar cell, used to harvested light energy that could power the hornet's work. In the brown section of hornet back (abdomen) carries the nano structured grooves. These grooves are arranged in a manner which help in storing the light energy, the sunlight which impacts the surface bounce back to cuticle and the yellow colored band at the abdomen also supposed to absorb light. Xanthoperin is the pigment that gives yellow color and can be used to convert the light into electricity. The conversion is more likely happening inside the body and that tells why they are more active in the sunshine.

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Interestingly when they anaesthetized these hornet by diethyl ether they awake spontaneously in about an hour. However, when anaesthetized the hornets which are in contact with direct irradiation awake much faster and fly out. Light has effect not only on whole body but also on the body parts, be they head, thorax or gaster. But, surprisingly hornet without the gaster region awakes much later than normal. (Gaster is the abdominal part of the hornet body)

Just to further confirm it, they painted that region and covered so as to protect it from direct light and what they found was delay in the awakening of hornet. The hornet cuticle evinces photovoltaic activity even in dead specimens, so upon exposure to light it is possible to record level of 30-180 mV. And the energy produced in the cuticle are transported to the interlamellar membrane and utilized as flight energy by the muscles. So, this explains the importance of gaster region, which itself explains why its absence delays the awakening. This is one of the example where animals uses nanotechnology and more to come. Image Source