It's interesting how much we can learn from the way natural selection has designed things.

This reminds me of the kid who built a solar tree which produced much more energy than normal 'linear' solar panels[0].

[0] http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/08/boy-genius-13-year-ol...

Which was thoroughly debunked: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2011/08/blog-debun...

We also rarely never see 360 degree rotating objects in animals, which is why hearts pump instead of containing rotating impellers, like newer artificial heart designs: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/technology-blog/artificial-heart...

I hadn't read about that artificial heart design before. I'm guessing it's going to turn out badly though. There's probably some unrecognized dependency on the pumping behavior in some part of the circulatory system. Like, maybe arteries will harden much more quickly if they aren't regularly stretched, or cells won't dump their waste as efficiently without the changes in pressure in the capillaries around them.

Interesting, I didn't realize it was debunked. Thanks!

Aside from the fact that the solar tree was debunked (as someone else pointed out), Stanford students doing something with a high speed camera is somehow less heartwarming than a 13 y.o. kid doing it for a science project.

Awesome. I love parrotlets. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgPRp0VaQ0s

now, if they add some kind of smoke [non-damaging to birds of course] to visualize airflow or some modernized version using some safe laser of something like this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlieren_photography

Similar flight studies have been done in flies:

Visually mediated motor planning in the escape response of Drosophila. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982208...