Grand Designs
By Rhiannonw
Amazement at the complexity of design in nature, indicating a Designer: designs that help and inspire human designers of machine improvements etc.
- Log in to post comments
- 3814 reads
The ups and downs of an 8 ft. neck
(of the giraffe!)
- Read more about The ups and downs of an 8 ft. neck
- 8 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 2690 reads
Bacteria-popping surfaces!
re Cicada wings On the surface of the wings an hexagonal array of blunted spikes, nanoscopic pillars – don’t look potential killers; … a safe, non-chemical disinfectant!
- Read more about Bacteria-popping surfaces!
- 11 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 3395 reads
Biochemistry
— The extreme intricacy of the structure of living tissue!
- Read more about Biochemistry
- 4 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 1987 reads
Biomimetics
The yellow desert scorpion survives when sand whirls, whips; electo-microscopy has shown fine detail that equips and halves the rate of sand-erosion (checked out by computer simulation)
- Read more about Biomimetics
- 6 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 1929 reads
Biomimetics 2: “Shrilk”
A ‘plastic’ called shrilk, made from shrimps and silk: clever designers discovering Creator’s designs, mimicking. The cuticle of arthropods is an exoskeleton
- Read more about Biomimetics 2: “Shrilk”
- 13 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 3296 reads
Brr!! Woof!! and Penguins
Brr!! Woof!! Why don’t the little doggies’ paws freeze when its icy out of doors? their pads have freeze-resistant fat but also, and on top of that
- Read more about Brr!! Woof!! and Penguins
- 7 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 2735 reads
Such Surprising Things (IP)
It is a suprising thing that birds can sing so well. It is a surprising fact to tell that they have tracked their way around our sphere – their brains do not appear sufficient size
- Read more about Such Surprising Things (IP)
- 10 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 2672 reads
of crickets and grasshoppers …
Hear the little cricket ‘sing’, using teeth upon its wing (raised to help acoustically), ‘heard’ by membrane on its knee. Grasshoppers upon a farm –
- Read more about of crickets and grasshoppers …
- 6 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 2638 reads
The Elephant’s Trunk
40,000 muscles in a powerful limb that can branches rip, pick a single pin, with its mobile tip, yet can dig for moisture, without skin’s rupture. It’s a long sucking nose
- Read more about The Elephant’s Trunk
- 8 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 3460 reads
Woodpecker’s shock-absorbers
Hammering rapidly: force on its head that is greater than 1000 g*. (If banged at just 300g, we’d be concussed, or our brains would be messed.) Specialised structure of bones and tendons,
- Read more about Woodpecker’s shock-absorbers
- 10 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 3053 reads
Leafy lifecycle
When comes the end of winter’s cold, squeezed-up tiny leaves unfold, … The cooling of late summer air activity triggers to prepare … When comes the end of winter’s cold …
- Read more about Leafy lifecycle
- 9 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 2831 reads
The Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder (IP)
… if such a fading face should smile, just like a Cheshire Cat a disembodied mouth profile we’d see – who’d fancy that?! …
- Read more about The Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder (IP)
- 6 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 2427 reads
No more ‘junk DNA’
The ‘brain’ of each cell has DNA-genes, chemical coding builds, guides its ‘machines’. “Ninety-eight percent useless junk”, they thought , “– evolution’s left-overs
- Read more about No more ‘junk DNA’
- 12 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 3878 reads
The Plant Hopper’s Gears
The plant hopper hops from leaf to leaf, two legs together, or they’d come to grief, with a lop-sided jump they’d just have a bump, so the legs move...
- Read more about The Plant Hopper’s Gears
- 7 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 2598 reads
What those Galapagos finches don’t teach
Darwin observing natural selection of finches with different beaks, thought this a picture of life’s evolution, but there never was any brand new information …
- Read more about What those Galapagos finches don’t teach
- 6 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 2316 reads
A is for Aardvark –
with a nose like a pig (though longer); it’s stronger, and able to dig; its burrow is made at speeds that exceed six men who are digging at speed...
- Read more about A is for Aardvark –
- 12 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 4028 reads
No Crash-Landings!
How does the busy little bee land neatly on the breeze-blown tree? The engineer scratched his head, ‘Why do our robots crash instead – we’ve done...
- Read more about No Crash-Landings!
- 10 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 2787 reads
Amazing Archer!
Hawkeye of the world of fishes, powerful arrow rarely misses: looking out from under water somehow knows just where it oughter …
- Read more about Amazing Archer!
- 10 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 2931 reads
What am I?
I have a special bubble in my bladder …
- Read more about What am I?
- 14 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 4145 reads
Brains
Thoughts struggle, buzz, boggle – intensive scientific gaze can’t grasp or fully know, the detail of activity in minute, infinitesimal maze, as...
- Read more about Brains
- 11 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 3182 reads
Weeds …
… may be destructive to perfect swards, but focus your view and see how attractive the shape and the hue, the markings and texture, the details of...
- Read more about Weeds …
- 6 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 2587 reads
Biomimetics (3) ‘Gecko-type’ tape
They imitate those gecko feet with their microscopic hairs* – the tape’s stick’s strong, but they can’t repeat attachment and detachment long …
- Read more about Biomimetics (3) ‘Gecko-type’ tape
- 4 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 1681 reads
What Am I? (IP)
…and each season my changes will charm again
- Read more about What Am I? (IP)
- 8 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 2322 reads
Sleep Refreshment
but when we are asleep … removing bad things, internally flushing, refreshing and clearing the mind …
- Read more about Sleep Refreshment
- 8 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 2748 reads
What’s the odds? (IP)
of a series of unlikely events?
- Read more about What’s the odds? (IP)
- 6 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 3109 reads
How many molecular switches in your brain?
How many stars in the Milky Way? How many nerve links in part of my brain? How many switches, – well, now they can say more than the number of computers and routers,
- Read more about How many molecular switches in your brain?
- 2 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 1333 reads
The tiniest motor
In all the trillions of your cells there are motors nano-size … they spin around, so squeezing … co-ordinated circles of chemical activity
- Read more about The tiniest motor
- 6 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 2338 reads
The Mimic Octopus*
This octopus can mimic as its body morphs like plastic: it can flatten out, and trail its arms, and swim like a banded sole; it can make itself look...
- Read more about The Mimic Octopus*
- 6 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 2102 reads
That Myth!
There once was a myth that all fauna were derived from a kind of amoeba …
- Read more about That Myth!
- 2 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 1871 reads
Amazing ‘eyes’ that hypnotize
‘Eyes’ that mesmerize – apparent stillness in the midst of rattling tail of stunning iridescence …
- Read more about Amazing ‘eyes’ that hypnotize
- 4 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 1950 reads
The Golden Ratio
Mathematical analysis of aesthetically pleasing shapes … golden ratio … beauty – why?
- Read more about The Golden Ratio
- 10 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 2999 reads
???? …
How does a caterpillar change and all its innards rearrange into a dainty butterfly? …
- Read more about ???? …
- 11 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 3447 reads
Mystery in the Chrysalis
How does the caterpillar change, and all its innards rearrange? Emerging from its egg with lumps, inactive miniscule disc-bumps to one day form leg-...
- Read more about Mystery in the Chrysalis
- 7 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 2506 reads
Enablers for the special 10
…for sensitive surgery and superb creativity of music and art.
- Read more about Enablers for the special 10
- 14 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 3763 reads
Where did all our water come from?
… Their guess for this cooling sphere so hot doesn’t have a solution to how we have got these oceans so vast of this simplest solvent, their only suggestion that somehow it came by meteor or comet again and again impacts in their thousands battering the sphere … no ‘bang’ came from nowhere to make us appear …
- Read more about Where did all our water come from?
- 6 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 1415 reads
How does the little beetle spring?
More than 200g g-force experienced at take-off (– extremely extreme); and each time it can jump over 200 times its body length, (like a man jumping...
- Read more about How does the little beetle spring?
- 2 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 616 reads
The Evolutionary-creation Myths
There once was a myth that mutations … There once was a myth of long ages … There once was a myth that ‘pooh-poohed’ … There once was a myth of a gradual emergence, from nothing, of animal and plant life evolving …
- Read more about The Evolutionary-creation Myths
- 3 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 630 reads
The Shrimp's Eye
Biomimetics 4) Deep in the bottom of the ocean (light level low) …they hadn’t thought of the ‘genius’ of the shrimp solution …
- Read more about The Shrimp's Eye
- 6 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 1473 reads
The Impossible Move
They seem to think life started in the sea – somehow, but plants appeared on land, and then – unplanned some moving creatures in the water thought...
- Read more about The Impossible Move
- 8 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 1479 reads
How did it arise?
Exquisite the painting, admired, bestowed delight for the viewers and compliments flowed … but not to the artist whom none of them knew, though...
- Read more about How did it arise?
- 2 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 482 reads
The lesser light
What a wonderful moon we have: silvery glow – we watch it grow and shrink, rise and glide, and slowly sink calm for lovers and travellers’ guide in...
- Read more about The lesser light
- 12 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 1482 reads
Gadgets amazing!
Fingers sense touch detail, caress; delicately manipulate surgeon’s scalpel, artists’ brush, musical melodies fast and intricate. Nerve networks back and fore from … handle and use with care!
- Read more about Gadgets amazing!
- 13 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 1554 reads
Diamonds of truth
I remember a child (about 8 years old) in Sunday School saying something like ‘It’s a good idea to say you believe in God – if it’s wrong you won’t...
- Read more about Diamonds of truth
- 8 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 1328 reads
The Age of Discovery
From new-born breath ’til still of death: Hearing sounds and conversation, gazing round in exploration … mouth contortions … life-long, look and think …
- Read more about The Age of Discovery
- 15 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 1973 reads
The Amazing Molecule!
Surprising simple structure bafflingly suitable properties unusual medium essential for living cells for transportations and chemical reactions … and lighter when frozen … don’t stand on that ice until you know it’s thick enough, tough enough! But how is there so much on earth? …
- Read more about The Amazing Molecule!
- 12 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 1323 reads
Don’t say ‘cheese’!
Is it made from green cheese, that friendly moon up there? or did it from a young earth squeeze, or join us from elsewhere? The moon probes told us ‘...
- Read more about Don’t say ‘cheese’!
- 2 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 561 reads
Pacific Golden Plover
Golden Plover flies across the ocean – cannot swim, and so in constant motion, eighty-eight hours with no land to rest; somehow knows just how much...
- Read more about Pacific Golden Plover
- 7 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 676 reads
Moving to new areas!
Dandelion’s parachute lifts the seed to travel far; sticky goosegrass*, hooked barbs of burs cling to clothes and hairy furs; berries – food-wrapped...
- Read more about Moving to new areas!
- 11 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 1140 reads
Squirting ‘cucumber’ …
Ecballium elaterium even makes David Attenborough laugh out loud!
- Read more about Squirting ‘cucumber’ …
- 8 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 1146 reads
2 Super-sensory-sensitive scrubbing towers
One nose two tunnels through which the air flows as it goes …You value your mouth, ears, eyes, but do you despise your humble nose?
- Read more about 2 Super-sensory-sensitive scrubbing towers
- 14 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 1414 reads
That long nose!
Starfish Girl suggested that as I had written on Nose, and she on Trunk, I should try one on the famous nose. This is a revision of an old one …
- Read more about That long nose!
- 7 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 664 reads
On the 6500+ km journey, twice
I’m a tiny round egg in the Sargasso sea, and hatch to be leaf-like, on currents I float eastward to a continent very remote, many get eaten, but for...
- Read more about On the 6500+ km journey, twice
- 19 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 2451 reads
They aren’t missing!
They used to think that soon they‘d find a ‘missing link’ between mankind and apes; they drew imaginative posture and facial shapes – all from discovered tooth – excitement big, – then found to be the tooth of a pig! Then …
- Read more about They aren’t missing!
- 4 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 557 reads
How does the spider catch its fly?
Little fly that flits around bumps into a web and bound by the glue, with silk wound round when by hungry spider found; but your mind it would...
- Read more about How does the spider catch its fly?
- 7 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 879 reads
What's going on inside?
A fruit fly’s larva has a brain very small but is it simple? …
- Read more about What's going on inside?
- 8 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 821 reads
Precision-Controlled Complex Chemistry
Atomic design ‘solar-system-like’ … atoms share some of their orbiting electrons (to bind together in combination) … and the staggeringly precise complicated-mega molecules found in living creatures …3D folding configurations interlocking … just when and where needed …
- Read more about Precision-Controlled Complex Chemistry
- 6 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 674 reads
Inside one of the bacteria that have a compass and a motor …
Machines, machines, machines galore: molecular machines to … Three-dimensional chemical complexity, beautiful structure, amazing activity!
- Read more about Inside one of the bacteria that have a compass and a motor …
- 5 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 587 reads
His beginning, her beginning:
Two little cells with half the code from him and her combining – a new unique live human has begun, ready to grow, develop, age! A *five week...
- Read more about His beginning, her beginning:
- 7 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 297 reads
Pluto, small, far – very old?
So small, so far - must be old, cold, dead, they said. The New Horizon spacecraft at last got there, took photos. To their surprise they found signs...
- Read more about Pluto, small, far – very old?
- 5 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 258 reads
Time to Rise and Shine!
They say … we better function if we’re woken by music not BUZZ! BUZZ! – it isn’t the words of a song but the pattern of notes that help calm the alarm – …
- Read more about Time to Rise and Shine!
- 12 comments
- Log in to post comments
- 378 reads