The actress Hedy Lamarr was advising Howard Hughes on how to redesign his planes in the 1940s so they would fly faster. She offered suggestions based on her understanding of how the fastest fish and birds were able to exploit principles of fluid dynamics to get the job done. She was a smart cookie.
She was indeed! and that? was the least of her achievements! she invented a form of radio frequency-hopping for secure transmissions that is STILL used today :D
There is also this great example of biomimicry from my country. There was this industrial facility that caused a lot of noise and terrible smell. Just really awful, coming to local villages from northwesterly direction in a kind of amplitudinal fashion. Local politicians and industry captains looked into the nature for some solution and they found one: they saw how wolf doesn't care about how sheep feel. They applied it in praxis and it worked!
I'm so happy to see a video posted about this!! My mom graduated college with a biology/civil engineer degree and has taught biomimicry for almost a decade now!
Something I noticed when riding the Shinkansen, is that if you lean your ahead against a window as the train enters and exits tunnels, you can actually feel the hull expand and contract very slightly with the changes in outside air pressure.
I rode the trains in Japan also. I read somewhere that not only was the sound for the neighbors a concern, also that some passengers and crew of the trains could get nausea and virtigo from the concussion dynamics through tunnels so they devised a pressure regulation system for the hull of the trains. Before entering the tunnel pressure would be slightly reduced and then released before exiting to equalize the effects.
I’ve also been fascinated by the biomimicry produced by artificial intelligence when you combine it with solid modeling and 3D printing. After giving it certain parameters, it runs millions of simulations (which is basically instantaneous natural selection and generational evolution), the AI tends to produce all of these organic structures that look like bone marrow, honey comb, tree roots, or other naturally optimized structures that nature has perfected over billions of years. Then you can print any part you want with the 3D printing and have an optimally designed part for your application. It is fascinating to me the idea that the more optimized our engineering becomes is the more natural it will seem.
This is called topology optimization and it is already used a lot in the car industry. As an engineer I used couple of times and it still amazes me. And if you try it for example on a drone and compare the structure with the bone structure of a flying squirrel it is kind of similar.
makes me realize how the peak of human engineering will basically be creating a biologically perfect human indistinguishable from normal humans in almost every way, or animals too
Hey Joe Scott, there's one you didn't include that's like really way cool: Nanotape. From the microscopic structures on gecko feet. Washable & reusable. Same thing is used for silicone scar tape.
Have you heard of the book "the geckos foot?" I read it back in my early 20s and it was a fantastic intro to bio mimicry.... It also talked about "spider goats".... truly fascinating stuff, although now there's probably much more out there about these things
@@MattAngiono I remember the spider goats. Geneticists altered the ghosts DNA so that it produced spider silk instead of goat milk from its utters. Spider-goat.
Hey Joe! Great video. Quick note, my dad's team at NASA was the team that needed a non-magnetic way to attach things inside the capsule. My dad also developed the strap that went around the astronaut's chest to measure respiration and heartbeats. He then took that technology to SwRI in San Antonio and modified it to help babies that may be affected by SIDS and helped Dr DeBakey and others with the artificial heart. Keep creating amazing videos!
I lived really close to a railroad growing up. I spent most of my time at my grandparents and a railway bordered their property. It’s actually kinda soothing. Now that I have moved away I really miss the sound.
I click like before I watch. I can always unclick like or even click dislike afterwards. With Joe I do not think I ever changed my mind. I may not like a subject or what he said about it, but it will always be thought provoking and interesting.
@@JaOzrenRadovanovic i feel you, usually I do that as well but this time I forgot. Took me 2 minutes to realise again how amazing his content is and remember to like it.
Joe Scott is a great example of the commitment to the joke being more valuable than the quality of the joke. They're objectively bad dad jokes, but I laugh every time because he's confident and committed, and that's how real comedy works
I'm 57 and really enjoy your videos. You are never too old to learn things. I'm grateful that you do the research and educate us. Thank you. Learning new things never gets old. It's fun.
whether or not humans want to see the universe as a living being or not, no one can deny that the universe is freaking ancient! if I met a 13.5 billion year old human, I’d definitely listen to them.
So what's the language of the universe? Can you listen to it? Maybe that's what experiments are: asking the universe. The result is its answer. How long does it take a tennis ball to fall down when I let go of it from 1 meter? Just take your tennis ball, hold it one meter high and let go - the universe gives you the answer. Not in language, but in action. Science then is just figuring out how to ask questions to the universe.
It's absolutely insane how your perfect blend of your humor, and interesting topics in science, and your ability to cover them so coherently, that start my week like a cup of coffee. Everyone hates Mondays but schedule wise for my job, they're the most tedious. Thanks for helping me to keep my cool.
@@alphagt62 agreed, staying independent on TH-cam may be the best course for longevity tho given that younger generations stream or only watch TH-cam videos for streaming. His videos will probably reach more people streaming as mainstream media continues to evolve in medium. The same could be said of sooo many content creators. It's funny how somebody with a camera in their own home can have twice the charisma as people who are considered experienced professionals.
@@dugsbunnyog3544 while Joe staying on TH-cam may be the best thing for us, and for the integrity of his content, TV hosts make insane amounts of money! If Joe were offered $10M a year to host a tv show, I doubt he could refuse it?
8:38 LOL He is a marine biologist with the surname name ‘Fish’. This reminds me of an underground construction expert with the surname ‘Burrows’ and a lawyer named ‘Sue Yoo’.
Wait.. what!? How did you manage to make a smiley size image of Joe.. and even more importantly, how could you add it and make it stick in your comment!?!🤯😵
my grandparents live right next to a train track and the train often has to use its very loud whistle to scare bears off of the tracks, and I find the sound very comforting when falling asleep! I think because we're used to it, we're able to fall asleep to it, but in the morning it also wakes me up sometimes, so for me it is a win-win.
"If grass eaters defecate on the soil where they eat, more grass will grow. Is it the grass eaters making more grass to eat? Or the grass growing more to get more fertilizer? Or is it the soil getting the other two to feed it and cultivate it so there is a more better condition of the soil?" YES, all the above.
I remember learning the fact about bees doing the boogie dance to signal feeding locations from Geordi La Forge, sorry, Levar Burton, on an episode of the Reading Rainbow show from PBS in the early 80's. That show was excellent at teaching children cool and interesting things. That, and Mr. Wizard. Also, "Oh! He got the Velcros!" Absolutely priceless!! What a great episode you've provided your viewers this week, Joe. Thank you, sir.
Thanks for this, JS. I had heard about the biomimicry that went into efforts to reshape the front end of Japan's Shinkansen trains. The entire episode was equally compelling... right down to the Warby Parker segment!
I used to live right near train tracks, and I always looked forwards to it coming by because for some reason the deep rumbling was really soothing to me
2:23 the reason being that low-tech prototypes were made thousands of years ago… pls make a video about ancient engineering and alchemy that was actually just chemistry for aesthetics (again) lol
Alchemy was chemistry in the same regard as Da Vinci's flying machine was an airplane. Yes they may have gotten a few aspects right but it just didn't work because our overall understanding was still too limited.
@@ku8721 completely true but it WAS the precursor to modern chemistry and was quite useful in making small amounts of dyes. Maybe it isn’t that their understandings were limited but their resources and methods were too inefficient. It’s also an A1 grade philosophy of self-improvement with spiritual alchemy rather than the puffer non-sense most alchemists would make jokes about puffers (people whom would spend days at billows to make gold)
I love how someone finally came up with something based on those seeds. I feel like people have been waiting for someone to use them for something since they were first seen by someone
Evolution can only improve incrementally. This often leads to local maxima where an evolved ability reaches the best it can for the chosen path, but is incapable of transitioning to an alternative method that is ultimately superior. Eg. Compound eyes on dragonflies.
Earwigs have super compact wings that we recently discovered & are studying to apply to folding up solar sails for satellites. Blew my mind when I found out.
I've been sporadically working on a paddle that uses the tubercles idea for a couple years. Also I'd go with the Perkins, but then I'm not a fan of aviators
Speedo has some hand paddles that seem to be inspired by the humpback whale fin (Speedo Nemesis Contour Paddles), increasing surface area along the paddle's edge. Apparently, it pushes more water and creates a smooth pulling trajectory.
Thats a great lesson " with nature nothing is ever wasted" A lesson man has yet to learn. Greed and waste are our two biggest faults but as Joe points out nature has been around long before us so its in our best interest and survival if we can learn to adapt to our planet instead of thinking the planet has to adapt to us being here. Another great brain thinker Joe.
Oh, no, there's a lot of waste in nature, it's just that waste in nature pretty much always provides an ecological niche to be exploited in utilizing said waste. When the first photosynthetic bacteria arose, they started producing a highly reactive waste product that wiped out almost all life on Earth, the majority of the ones that survived were the ones that had resistance to the said waste product, some of which could utilize it to, more efficiently create energy from organic compounds, now, with many different types of organisms creating the waste product in question, it makes up about 21% of the atmosphere, and you'd die without it, ...it's oxygen. Nature is at times wasteful and it is potentially self-destructive, it's just very opportunistic (greed works here too) and resilient, and so damn old that it had a lot of time for said opportunism to exploit all the unexploited (wasted) niches, and for its biodiversity to recover.
1:17 but Wikipedia says "The etymology of kingfisher (Alcedo atthis) is obscure; the term comes from "king's fisher", but why that name was applied is not known."
"How would Nature...?" If we'd been thinking like this from the beginning The world would not be nearly as fucked up as it is now. Oh well, at least we're finally starting to catch on.
well, we are part of nature... why do people keep thinking we are so unique and different? Nature makes loads of mistakes - evolution is just throwing stuff on the wall over and over and over again and keeping what sticks. We are part of that. So far at least.
Not really. Most of the worst problems of our society is caused by evolution. Nature made us selfish, xenophobic, and violent. Our good side also has roots in evolution (group selection), but it's mostly human invention.
And really, the world is not fucked up, just humans. I mean when we get to the point where our own hubris kills us off, Nature will shrug and move on as if saying "Well, that didn't work..." One more trial and error experiment failure, on to to next one. Something else will evolve and move into the vacuum. That's what Nature does. Always.
It's our own failure at recognizing our interrelationship with nature that's caused the issue. We are both a happy accident that's gained great strides in seeing the possibilities, but also highly ignorant in recognizing the externalities and destruction unleashed by our hubris. Because of our unique consciousness combined with immense power, we are still far from operating within a balanced system. One only need look at the opposing narratives around climate change and environmental destruction to see that we aren't the great sense makers we once believed ourselves to be. I would gather that's mostly because the system we've designed is highly extractive, self centered, prioritizes short term benefits that offset the consequences, fuels competition over cooperation (instead of balancing them), and mostly leads to extreme mentalities, either hedonistic happiness, deep seated depression, and even psychopathic narcissism.... We need everyone with a head and a heart to recognize this isn't working, and instead become antidotes to the ailments. I believe this starts with conversation, honest debate, self discovery and healing, and most importantly working TOGETHER to deal with the obvious issues of global warming and habitat loss.... If anyone has time, please check out my original comment under this video. I describe some of these potential solutions more in depth and would appreciate your input! 🙏
@@CorwinPatrick I think this is just perspective.... certainly, looking at psychedelic fungi that can brainwash insects into becoming their breeding grounds are pretty f*ed up.... But that's just one more perspective. There are an infinite many in how we can see the world. The scariest thing if you ask me, is that humans have f*ed up so badly that we not only threaten our own existence, but that of the majority of complex life on this planet.... It's likely true that nature will find a way without us, but we may have turned back the evolutionary clock billions of years in the blink of a geologic eye.... And as of yet, as far as we know, we are the only experiment that has made it to this level of complexity. It will be truly sad if we can't solve this predicament and in turn make a nuclear wasteland of this one beautiful home to so many complex creatures. It's really time for a much needed great awakening of humanity, which means compassionate species..... Can we extend our care to support this biological brilliant system before it falls?
I used to live ~50 yards away from a train track that crossed a road. That meant every time a train went through, it had to blow it's horn in warning at that intersection of the train track and the road. Believe it or not, you get used to it. You get SO used to it, you sleep through both the horn and the train causing the ground to tremble every time it went past. That's an amazing mental adjustment your system goes through!
The train comment at the start makes me think of a story my dad told me when I was 13 or so, he and his family lived right next to tracks and the trains were deafening when they first moved there. Eventually they moved, and they couldn't sleep. Without the train sounds every night they found it hard to sleep.
Great video! You wonder somethimes how we went for so long without seeing some of these. We're even mimicking nature in the digital world. Increasingly the algorithms that are out there aren't the code that people have written, they're the products of software evolution factories. You know how this video was recommended to you? You don't, and neither do I, or anyone else for that matter. It's the software that was tweaked by software that was tweaked by software that won in the ongoing battle of survival of the fittest, with youtube engineers just plugging in what fitness means. Evolution is a cruel business, but you can't argue with its outcomes.
As far as I know, the Shinkansen trains to date do not use magnetic levitation. They are just fast trains. Same for the TGVs in France and similar trains in other parts of Europe. A faster, maglev-based train is proposed in Japan, and short versions do exist here or there. It's still a much newer deployed technology than anything in 1989.
This is so often the source the question arises do we really innovate anything at all? Are we even capable of it or just refined mimicry. I mean it is hard to compete with millions of years of tests and re-engineering. If we had access to an alien biome I wonder what advances would be available to us.
We do learn a lot from nature, but i don't think there are any other creature out there building jet engines or rocket engines or transistors or many other inventions that humanity have developed
Watched it on Nebula over the weekend, great job guys. There are so many designs we can borrow or adapt from nature, the limits are only our creativity (and materials). ;)
I don't know where in the world you came from but I have been watching your videos for over a year and I enjoy them so much I subscribe to your channel with all 5 of my channels lol
Legend says that the wheel actually came from the famed Wheeled River dolphin of the Amazon which we killed off in the early 17th century while trying to harvest their wheels.
That's funny, I was just talking to my family about this a few days ago; that nature, as well as human communities, develop an equilibrium with everything and everyone around them to create a well-balanced society. However, when a person or a small group (like politicians and such), thinks they know more than they do, and tries to "improve" on the community, it usually ends in disaster and/or the collapse of the community.
8:43 you should do a video about nominative determinism! its the theory that people gravitate towards professions that relate to their name (a tailor named taylor, a blacksmith named smith, etc) and is a super interesting concept with a bit of research behind it!
I lived 20 feet from train tracks for a few years in college. Everything shook when the trains went by, but you got used to it really quick and almost came to like it.
I used to live maybe 100m from a train line, and as trains passed they would already be slowing down for the station ahead, the sounds of the midnight freight cars always helped me to sleep...
Hey Joe! I'm in Houston and live about the same distance from Train tracks. *And* one is going by right now! I didn't even hear it until you mentioned it.
I used to live directly next to train tracks in Central Texas, and I got used to it personally, but my parents didn't really like it, as you'd imagine any person would react. We moved a few blocks down the neighborhood after a few years, and we were still able to hear it from time to time, but it wasn't enough to bother anyone.
I live 2 city blocks away from a freight train line, and not only can we hear it in our 2nd floor apartment, it literally shakes the entire building, and we can feel it. Couldn't tell you how many times the horn has woke me up at night when they blast the horn to clear dear and send the warning as they're crossing Intersections... its atleast once, if not twice a day
Just to nitpick a bit, the clip used at 0:26 is the maglev train in Shanghai, not Japan. It's just a small semi-experimental line connecting the city to one of its airports, nevertheless it is the only maglev line in the world in commercial operation. The clips starting at 0:43 is of the Japanese maglev. It's much newer, much more advanced, quite a bit faster, and would carry its passengers a heck lot further, but it's still under construction.
I am a mechanical engineer working in a lab that does legged robot locomotion. We talk about bioinspiration as a distinct subset of biomimicry) and it is huge in trying to understand how animals run, walk, jump, climb etc in order to apply it to robots. The distinction lives in distilling the necessary building blocks for behavior or attributes, e.g. if I tell you to copy cockroach 🪳 legs, do you need the little hairs to run or can those be removed cause they aren't necessary for the goal of running. Great video! 🤖
David Davis used nature to design wings for Consolidated Aircraft by studying the shape of raindrops as they fell through the air. He called his shape a Fluid Foil but it became known as the Davis Wing. The B-24 Liberator bomber is the most famous user of the Davis wing, but it was really the first usage of Laminar Flow, which went on to be used on aircraft because of the low-drag propensities of air flowing over the surface of the aerofoil.
Well joe, the last few months I have been extremely fascinated by planes, and how we see these giant metal creatures that if you didn’t understand the depth, would be perceived as the same size as birds in the sky. So the thumbnail itself sparked a personal interest, thanks
there's a major tribe in Indonesia, called Minangkabau, they have a saying of "Alam takambang jadi guru" which means literally "nature evolve become the teacher". in my own opinion, this saying said nature would become a teacher if we let it to, so i guess biomimicry is our best option. regarding to my field of work in aviation, this is the most effective way to follow for the best performance and efficiency
Another shark-based innovation are the new swimsuits based on shark skin. It had always been thought that the way to go with swim suits was to be as smooth as possible. But someone noticed that sharks can swim very fast but their skin is actually very rough. So you saw Olympic swimsuits go from skimpy to almost full body suits made with this "shark skin" texture. Which apparently causes micro turbulence at the surface which then the rest of the water slides over. Some of these suits have now been banned in competition because they're seen as giving an unfair advantage.
i live about 130m (420 ft lol) from some train tracks (northeast corridor). it's actually really cool seeing trains all the time. noise isn't even annoying lol
I used to live 75 feet away from a main cp rail line. 4-5 1 mile long trains would pass all day. This was back in like 99-2003 it would cut the dial up internet when it passed by. The house would vibrate and you could feel it in the concrete foundation. It took a couple months to get used to but eventually I could sleep thru the trains and everything.
The modern chainsaw blade was possible due to careful study of how wood-boring beetle grubs tear through trees. The solution was to make not a conventional blade (which was inefficient and required constant repair), but something chisel-like, like the grubs' mandibles. It totally revolutionized the lumber industry.
If you find this interesting Joe, try learning a bit about Genetic Algorithms and Neural Networks, they're pretty much bio mimicry applied to algorithms
Speaking of the Singularity, you might want to do a story about Hans Moravec, the creator of that term and professor at Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute
Went to see Dune and one the aircraft used on Arakkis was the omnicopter. It was based of the dragonfly, the best aircraft in nature. So I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought imitating narure is a wise idea. Nature is developping itself for millions of years to perfection. It's kinda arrogant to think we can do better.
I've always found sharks' immunity to cancer is really interesting. It's probably so deep down in their genetics that we can't really apply it ourselves but it's worth a look
It's just a Guess but if that's how their skin Grows they prob vibrate at a certain frequency that kills the cancer, some meGalithic sites like stone henGe or Adams calendar have been known to cure people of illness even cancer in some cases.
Fun Fact: Velcro is a brand name and is used as the name for the hook and loop system in the same way as Band-Aids is used for adhesive medical strips or hoover is used for a vacuum cleaner. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hook-and-loop_fastener
The actress Hedy Lamarr was advising Howard Hughes on how to redesign his planes in the 1940s so they would fly faster. She offered suggestions based on her understanding of how the fastest fish and birds were able to exploit principles of fluid dynamics to get the job done. She was a smart cookie.
She was indeed! and that? was the least of her achievements! she invented a form of radio frequency-hopping for secure transmissions that is STILL used today :D
And she was hot too.
True, but wrong way round. Hedy Lamarr was an engineer, who also happened to be an actress
I didnt intend to put one over the other, just 2 or more things can be true! She was beautiful and talented and really frikken smart!
@@JohnnyWednesday She probably missed out on a lot of money because the work ended up classified for many years.
There is also this great example of biomimicry from my country. There was this industrial facility that caused a lot of noise and terrible smell. Just really awful, coming to local villages from northwesterly direction in a kind of amplitudinal fashion. Local politicians and industry captains looked into the nature for some solution and they found one: they saw how wolf doesn't care about how sheep feel. They applied it in praxis and it worked!
I'm so happy to see a video posted about this!! My mom graduated college with a biology/civil engineer degree and has taught biomimicry for almost a decade now!
You mean Teaching
@@idzkk Compare 1930s Nazi Germany Vs 2020s Communist China IN YOUR NEXT VIDEO Project before it's too late
What an awesome job
@@matpk Politically your two examples are polar opposites.
Something I noticed when riding the Shinkansen, is that if you lean your ahead against a window as the train enters and exits tunnels, you can actually feel the hull expand and contract very slightly with the changes in outside air pressure.
I noticed that too both times I visited.
I rode the trains in Japan also. I read somewhere that not only was the sound for the neighbors a concern, also that some passengers and crew of the trains could get nausea and virtigo from the concussion dynamics through tunnels so they devised a pressure regulation system for the hull of the trains. Before entering the tunnel pressure would be slightly reduced and then released before exiting to equalize the effects.
Wow...that's so cool!...and so are the other two comments...
Hi...from Scotland 😁
Everyone knows that Velcro was invented by the Vulcans and sold to humanity in the 1950’s.
Exactly what I was thinking..
I guess that’s sorta answered the whole Roswell thing then.
Yes, but where do I get transparent aluminum!!!
@@joshuahadams Roswell was the Feranga.
Duh!
I’ve also been fascinated by the biomimicry produced by artificial intelligence when you combine it with solid modeling and 3D printing. After giving it certain parameters, it runs millions of simulations (which is basically instantaneous natural selection and generational evolution), the AI tends to produce all of these organic structures that look like bone marrow, honey comb, tree roots, or other naturally optimized structures that nature has perfected over billions of years. Then you can print any part you want with the 3D printing and have an optimally designed part for your application.
It is fascinating to me the idea that the more optimized our engineering becomes is the more natural it will seem.
That's amazing!
>dives into the research rabbit hole
Makes you wonder what an advance civilization might look like ... Maybe we would think they are biological But they are actually 3D printed
This is called topology optimization and it is already used a lot in the car industry. As an engineer I used couple of times and it still amazes me. And if you try it for example on a drone and compare the structure with the bone structure of a flying squirrel it is kind of similar.
makes me realize how the peak of human engineering will basically be creating a biologically perfect human indistinguishable from normal humans in almost every way, or animals too
Hey Joe Scott, there's one you didn't include that's like really way cool:
Nanotape. From the microscopic structures on gecko feet. Washable & reusable.
Same thing is used for silicone scar tape.
ooh
Have you heard of the book "the geckos foot?"
I read it back in my early 20s and it was a fantastic intro to bio mimicry....
It also talked about "spider goats".... truly fascinating stuff, although now there's probably much more out there about these things
@@MattAngiono I remember the spider goats. Geneticists altered the ghosts DNA so that it produced spider silk instead of goat milk from its utters. Spider-goat.
@@freetherapy-84 A baby spider goat? It’s an arachkid.
@@freetherapy-84 and yet we don't have any Spiderman tech for swinging around ourselves.....😔
I really enjoyed this episode. I don't think I would be alone in saying a Biomimicry part 2 would be amazing.
Hey Joe!
Great video. Quick note, my dad's team at NASA was the team that needed a non-magnetic way to attach things inside the capsule. My dad also developed the strap that went around the astronaut's chest to measure respiration and heartbeats. He then took that technology to SwRI in San Antonio and modified it to help babies that may be affected by SIDS and helped Dr DeBakey and others with the artificial heart.
Keep creating amazing videos!
Joe, your sense of humor makes my day every time you upload something, keep doing what you do.
"We're living in the singularity." fantastic! Kurzweil can keep waiting. I loved this one, Joe. Thanks!
I lived really close to a railroad growing up. I spent most of my time at my grandparents and a railway bordered their property. It’s actually kinda soothing. Now that I have moved away I really miss the sound.
Same luckily I've always lived where I can at least hear it in the distance late at niGht when is all quiet
2 minutes. That's how long it took me to be reminded why Joe is the best and press the like button in this video.
Bruh you slow!
@@tamie341 For Joe, i press like button immediately! Before i watch!
I gotta earn that ish.
I click like before I watch. I can always unclick like or even click dislike afterwards. With Joe I do not think I ever changed my mind. I may not like a subject or what he said about it, but it will always be thought provoking and interesting.
@@JaOzrenRadovanovic i feel you, usually I do that as well but this time I forgot. Took me 2 minutes to realise again how amazing his content is and remember to like it.
Joe Scott is a great example of the commitment to the joke being more valuable than the quality of the joke.
They're objectively bad dad jokes, but I laugh every time because he's confident and committed, and that's how real comedy works
In my head when he's talking about the microfliers I'm thinking sure you weren't just ripping off twister lol
I'm 57 and really enjoy your videos. You are never too old to learn things. I'm grateful that you do the research and educate us. Thank you. Learning new things never gets old. It's fun.
I definitely watched this entire video and this is a meaningful comment reflecting on everything discussed.
whether or not humans want to see the universe as a living being or not, no one can deny that the universe is freaking ancient! if I met a 13.5 billion year old human, I’d definitely listen to them.
So what's the language of the universe? Can you listen to it?
Maybe that's what experiments are: asking the universe. The result is its answer. How long does it take a tennis ball to fall down when I let go of it from 1 meter? Just take your tennis ball, hold it one meter high and let go - the universe gives you the answer. Not in language, but in action.
Science then is just figuring out how to ask questions to the universe.
@@thulyblu5486 also Math
that would a doctor who companion who visited the birth of the universe
@@tonyanthony5105 Maths is a Science
I think Joe Biden is pretty close to that old, and listening to him is just confusing and depressing.
It's topic like these that you cover @JoeScott which makes me love and thoroughly enjoy your channel and the content you upload1 thanks so much man!!!
It's absolutely insane how your perfect blend of your humor, and interesting topics in science, and your ability to cover them so coherently, that start my week like a cup of coffee. Everyone hates Mondays but schedule wise for my job, they're the most tedious. Thanks for helping me to keep my cool.
Wow, thank you!
@@joescott No sir, thank you.
Why Joe doesn’t have his own show on the History or Discovery channel yet us beyond me. He has way more charisma than any of the hosts on TV today.
@@alphagt62 agreed, staying independent on TH-cam may be the best course for longevity tho given that younger generations stream or only watch TH-cam videos for streaming. His videos will probably reach more people streaming as mainstream media continues to evolve in medium.
The same could be said of sooo many content creators. It's funny how somebody with a camera in their own home can have twice the charisma as people who are considered experienced professionals.
@@dugsbunnyog3544 while Joe staying on TH-cam may be the best thing for us, and for the integrity of his content, TV hosts make insane amounts of money! If Joe were offered $10M a year to host a tv show, I doubt he could refuse it?
8:38 LOL He is a marine biologist with the surname name ‘Fish’. This reminds me of an underground construction expert with the surname ‘Burrows’ and a lawyer named ‘Sue Yoo’.
Or Judge Judge. There is at least one, and he's The Right Honorable Lord Judge Igor Judge. don't think he's an active judge anymore tho
..."before I was a soulless shill"....I laughed out loud in the airport. Then quickly quieted down...
It’s ok molly the randoms at the airport dont know what they’re missing out on
Bro I used to listen to bill burr podcasts at the airport.... I no longer do that
Wait.. what!? How did you manage to make a smiley size image of Joe.. and even more importantly, how could you add it and make it stick in your comment!?!🤯😵
@@Superknullisch (s)hes a youtube member
Kinda surprised they let me say that. :)
Biomimicry has allowed us to build a time machine. Can't tell you how. But hello from the past! The video will release soon ;)
past? :o
Can you tell us the price of bitcoin in the past?
[And hello again from the future]
🤣🤣🤣
Incredible
my grandparents live right next to a train track and the train often has to use its very loud whistle to scare bears off of the tracks, and I find the sound very comforting when falling asleep! I think because we're used to it, we're able to fall asleep to it, but in the morning it also wakes me up sometimes, so for me it is a win-win.
"If grass eaters defecate on the soil where they eat, more grass will grow. Is it the grass eaters making more grass to eat? Or the grass growing more to get more fertilizer? Or is it the soil getting the other two to feed it and cultivate it so there is a more better condition of the soil?" YES, all the above.
Life is a circle
We could all use a little bit of that "more better" sauce.
I remember learning the fact about bees doing the boogie dance to signal feeding locations from Geordi La Forge, sorry, Levar Burton, on an episode of the Reading Rainbow show from PBS in the early 80's. That show was excellent at teaching children cool and interesting things. That, and Mr. Wizard.
Also, "Oh! He got the Velcros!" Absolutely priceless!!
What a great episode you've provided your viewers this week, Joe. Thank you, sir.
Thanks for this, JS. I had heard about the biomimicry that went into efforts to reshape the front end of Japan's Shinkansen trains. The entire episode was equally compelling... right down to the Warby Parker segment!
I used to live right near train tracks, and I always looked forwards to it coming by because for some reason the deep rumbling was really soothing to me
2:23 the reason being that low-tech prototypes were made thousands of years ago… pls make a video about ancient engineering and alchemy that was actually just chemistry for aesthetics (again) lol
Alchemy was chemistry in the same regard as Da Vinci's flying machine was an airplane. Yes they may have gotten a few aspects right but it just didn't work because our overall understanding was still too limited.
@@ku8721 completely true but it WAS the precursor to modern chemistry and was quite useful in making small amounts of dyes. Maybe it isn’t that their understandings were limited but their resources and methods were too inefficient. It’s also an A1 grade philosophy of self-improvement with spiritual alchemy rather than the puffer non-sense most alchemists would make jokes about puffers (people whom would spend days at billows to make gold)
I love how someone finally came up with something based on those seeds. I feel like people have been waiting for someone to use them for something since they were first seen by someone
Evolution can only improve incrementally. This often leads to local maxima where an evolved ability reaches the best it can for the chosen path, but is incapable of transitioning to an alternative method that is ultimately superior.
Eg. Compound eyes on dragonflies.
Love your face when u tell a joke and wait for us to figure it out😂😂😂
Earwigs have super compact wings that we recently discovered & are studying to apply to folding up solar sails for satellites. Blew my mind when I found out.
+
OMG, those damn things can FLY?! 😱 >shudder
Thank you. Learning that they can fly is just what I needed to sleep better at night.
@@railroad5024 haha I'm sorry. However, I believe the studies concluded that the wings serve no purpose anymore or at least not for flight.
@Loki oh thank goodness!
The Frank Fish alliteration is the low key hero of this video.
I've been sporadically working on a paddle that uses the tubercles idea for a couple years.
Also I'd go with the Perkins, but then I'm not a fan of aviators
Speedo has some hand paddles that seem to be inspired by the humpback whale fin (Speedo Nemesis Contour Paddles), increasing surface area along the paddle's edge. Apparently, it pushes more water and creates a smooth pulling trajectory.
Joe (and team) please don't ever stop. More awesome content thanks you.
Thats a great lesson " with nature nothing is ever wasted" A lesson man has yet to learn. Greed and waste are our two biggest faults but as Joe points out nature has been around long before us so its in our best interest and survival if we can learn to adapt to our planet instead of thinking the planet has to adapt to us being here. Another great brain thinker Joe.
Man has learned that he makes more money selling crap that breaks/wears out, and then selling it over again to the same people.
Oh, no, there's a lot of waste in nature, it's just that waste in nature pretty much always provides an ecological niche to be exploited in utilizing said waste.
When the first photosynthetic bacteria arose, they started producing a highly reactive waste product that wiped out almost all life on Earth, the majority of the ones that survived were the ones that had resistance to the said waste product, some of which could utilize it to, more efficiently create energy from organic compounds, now, with many different types of organisms creating the waste product in question, it makes up about 21% of the atmosphere, and you'd die without it, ...it's oxygen.
Nature is at times wasteful and it is potentially self-destructive, it's just very opportunistic (greed works here too) and resilient, and so damn old that it had a lot of time for said opportunism to exploit all the unexploited (wasted) niches, and for its biodiversity to recover.
1:17 but Wikipedia says "The etymology of kingfisher (Alcedo atthis) is obscure; the term comes from "king's fisher", but why that name was applied is not known."
"How would Nature...?"
If we'd been thinking like this from the beginning The world would not be nearly as fucked up as it is now.
Oh well, at least we're finally starting to catch on.
well, we are part of nature... why do people keep thinking we are so unique and different? Nature makes loads of mistakes - evolution is just throwing stuff on the wall over and over and over again and keeping what sticks. We are part of that. So far at least.
Not really. Most of the worst problems of our society is caused by evolution. Nature made us selfish, xenophobic, and violent. Our good side also has roots in evolution (group selection), but it's mostly human invention.
And really, the world is not fucked up, just humans. I mean when we get to the point where our own hubris kills us off, Nature will shrug and move on as if saying "Well, that didn't work..." One more trial and error experiment failure, on to to next one. Something else will evolve and move into the vacuum. That's what Nature does. Always.
It's our own failure at recognizing our interrelationship with nature that's caused the issue.
We are both a happy accident that's gained great strides in seeing the possibilities, but also highly ignorant in recognizing the externalities and destruction unleashed by our hubris.
Because of our unique consciousness combined with immense power, we are still far from operating within a balanced system.
One only need look at the opposing narratives around climate change and environmental destruction to see that we aren't the great sense makers we once believed ourselves to be.
I would gather that's mostly because the system we've designed is highly extractive, self centered, prioritizes short term benefits that offset the consequences, fuels competition over cooperation (instead of balancing them), and mostly leads to extreme mentalities, either hedonistic happiness, deep seated depression, and even psychopathic narcissism....
We need everyone with a head and a heart to recognize this isn't working, and instead become antidotes to the ailments.
I believe this starts with conversation, honest debate, self discovery and healing, and most importantly working TOGETHER to deal with the obvious issues of global warming and habitat loss....
If anyone has time, please check out my original comment under this video.
I describe some of these potential solutions more in depth and would appreciate your input! 🙏
@@CorwinPatrick I think this is just perspective.... certainly, looking at psychedelic fungi that can brainwash insects into becoming their breeding grounds are pretty f*ed up....
But that's just one more perspective.
There are an infinite many in how we can see the world.
The scariest thing if you ask me, is that humans have f*ed up so badly that we not only threaten our own existence, but that of the majority of complex life on this planet....
It's likely true that nature will find a way without us, but we may have turned back the evolutionary clock billions of years in the blink of a geologic eye....
And as of yet, as far as we know, we are the only experiment that has made it to this level of complexity.
It will be truly sad if we can't solve this predicament and in turn make a nuclear wasteland of this one beautiful home to so many complex creatures.
It's really time for a much needed great awakening of humanity, which means compassionate species.....
Can we extend our care to support this biological brilliant system before it falls?
One of my favorite biomimicry stories is the fact that jet engines were modeled after the nostril of a Paraguay Falcon.
Do you think if someone asked a question around Joe and he knows the answer of, that jingle at the start of the video plays before he gives an answer?
I used to live ~50 yards away from a train track that crossed a road. That meant every time a train went through, it had to blow it's horn in warning at that intersection of the train track and the road. Believe it or not, you get used to it. You get SO used to it, you sleep through both the horn and the train causing the ground to tremble every time it went past. That's an amazing mental adjustment your system goes through!
"The press, the machine, the railway, the telegraph are premises whose thousand-year conclusion no one has yet dared to draw." - Nietzsche
All of the above has been drawn-Savage
The train comment at the start makes me think of a story my dad told me when I was 13 or so, he and his family lived right next to tracks and the trains were deafening when they first moved there. Eventually they moved, and they couldn't sleep. Without the train sounds every night they found it hard to sleep.
Great video! You wonder somethimes how we went for so long without seeing some of these. We're even mimicking nature in the digital world. Increasingly the algorithms that are out there aren't the code that people have written, they're the products of software evolution factories. You know how this video was recommended to you? You don't, and neither do I, or anyone else for that matter. It's the software that was tweaked by software that was tweaked by software that won in the ongoing battle of survival of the fittest, with youtube engineers just plugging in what fitness means. Evolution is a cruel business, but you can't argue with its outcomes.
As far as I know, the Shinkansen trains to date do not use magnetic levitation. They are just fast trains. Same for the TGVs in France and similar trains in other parts of Europe. A faster, maglev-based train is proposed in Japan, and short versions do exist here or there. It's still a much newer deployed technology than anything in 1989.
Hello from the past! I'm definitely not a time traveller I swear
This is for sure, one of the best channels on TH-cam!
This is so often the source the question arises do we really innovate anything at all? Are we even capable of it or just refined mimicry. I mean it is hard to compete with millions of years of tests and re-engineering. If we had access to an alien biome I wonder what advances would be available to us.
We do learn a lot from nature, but i don't think there are any other creature out there building jet engines or rocket engines or transistors or many other inventions that humanity have developed
Watched it on Nebula over the weekend, great job guys. There are so many designs we can borrow or adapt from nature, the limits are only our creativity (and materials). ;)
I would love to give Lasik a shot but unfortunately 'Villain Sans Glasses' just doesn't sound right.
Shiroe, my man!
You can still wear glasses, we won't tell.
Just get it done on one eye and become Villain with Monocle, don't forget you also need a villainous catch phrase.
I don't know where in the world you came from but I have been watching your videos for over a year and I enjoy them so much I subscribe to your channel with all 5 of my channels lol
hey Joe can you make a video on the shipping containers shortage
and love your videos, it shows how much effort you put into them keep going ❤️
We never take the time to thank velcro. Thanks velcro for keeping us together
Legend says that the wheel actually came from the famed Wheeled River dolphin of the Amazon which we killed off in the early 17th century while trying to harvest their wheels.
More of this content is much appreciated
That's funny, I was just talking to my family about this a few days ago; that nature, as well as human communities, develop an equilibrium with everything and everyone around them to create a well-balanced society. However, when a person or a small group (like politicians and such), thinks they know more than they do, and tries to "improve" on the community, it usually ends in disaster and/or the collapse of the community.
i always love your (seemingly) unrelated intros 😊
Hello
I always think the only secular “God” is time itself.
8:43 you should do a video about nominative determinism! its the theory that people gravitate towards professions that relate to their name (a tailor named taylor, a blacksmith named smith, etc) and is a super interesting concept with a bit of research behind it!
Joe, you need to have your own stand up comedy special full of velcro-like humour!
The clip at 1:35 always makes me think of Taking Back Sunday lol
I lived 20 feet from train tracks for a few years in college. Everything shook when the trains went by, but you got used to it really quick and almost came to like it.
I used to live maybe 100m from a train line, and as trains passed they would already be slowing down for the station ahead, the sounds of the midnight freight cars always helped me to sleep...
I actually grew up a block or two away from a train track. The sound is kind of rhythmic and soothing like rain.
Our way of doing things push us toward space Joe, it's not wasted at all.
Hey Joe! I'm in Houston and live about the same distance from Train tracks.
*And* one is going by right now! I didn't even hear it until you mentioned it.
I used to live directly next to train tracks in Central Texas, and I got used to it personally, but my parents didn't really like it, as you'd imagine any person would react. We moved a few blocks down the neighborhood after a few years, and we were still able to hear it from time to time, but it wasn't enough to bother anyone.
As always, this is really interesting. AND I can understand more of this one than many of the presentations you make. Thank you
I live 2 city blocks away from a freight train line, and not only can we hear it in our 2nd floor apartment, it literally shakes the entire building, and we can feel it. Couldn't tell you how many times the horn has woke me up at night when they blast the horn to clear dear and send the warning as they're crossing Intersections... its atleast once, if not twice a day
Rent must be cheap there
@13:14 Cool, duuude..
Respect for the alliteration at 8:50!
the only channel where watching through the is worth it
Just to nitpick a bit, the clip used at 0:26 is the maglev train in Shanghai, not Japan. It's just a small semi-experimental line connecting the city to one of its airports, nevertheless it is the only maglev line in the world in commercial operation.
The clips starting at 0:43 is of the Japanese maglev. It's much newer, much more advanced, quite a bit faster, and would carry its passengers a heck lot further, but it's still under construction.
I Love this topic. I am a designer and builder. Good job team! Excellent editing. Oh, and writing, and performance... Joe.
I am a mechanical engineer working in a lab that does legged robot locomotion. We talk about bioinspiration as a distinct subset of biomimicry) and it is huge in trying to understand how animals run, walk, jump, climb etc in order to apply it to robots. The distinction lives in distilling the necessary building blocks for behavior or attributes, e.g. if I tell you to copy cockroach 🪳 legs, do you need the little hairs to run or can those be removed cause they aren't necessary for the goal of running. Great video! 🤖
David Davis used nature to design wings for Consolidated Aircraft by studying the shape of raindrops as they fell through the air. He called his shape a Fluid Foil but it became known as the Davis Wing. The B-24 Liberator bomber is the most famous user of the Davis wing, but it was really the first usage of Laminar Flow, which went on to be used on aircraft because of the low-drag propensities of air flowing over the surface of the aerofoil.
That's one of the reasons I say that, when we find alien life, it's going to seem alien and familiar at the same time.
“everything from fire to file-sharing”....that’s catchy Joe, good stuff!
Well joe, the last few months I have been extremely fascinated by planes, and how we see these giant metal creatures that if you didn’t understand the depth, would be perceived as the same size as birds in the sky. So the thumbnail itself sparked a personal interest, thanks
there's a major tribe in Indonesia, called Minangkabau, they have a saying of "Alam takambang jadi guru" which means literally "nature evolve become the teacher".
in my own opinion, this saying said nature would become a teacher if we let it to, so i guess biomimicry is our best option.
regarding to my field of work in aviation, this is the most effective way to follow for the best performance and efficiency
"Frank Fish found the flipper was fairly....aerodynamic." Joe Scott is now Dr. Seuss
This feels like technology connections made a video on relation of biology with TerraMater and Animalogic. Love it ♥️
Another shark-based innovation are the new swimsuits based on shark skin. It had always been thought that the way to go with swim suits was to be as smooth as possible. But someone noticed that sharks can swim very fast but their skin is actually very rough. So you saw Olympic swimsuits go from skimpy to almost full body suits made with this "shark skin" texture. Which apparently causes micro turbulence at the surface which then the rest of the water slides over. Some of these suits have now been banned in competition because they're seen as giving an unfair advantage.
Funny that they banned me from competing because of my large testis citing “unfair advantage”
haha, love the cheesy CSI opener gag. Keep up the great work guys, another great vid!
3:44
Really? In an evolution video; you had to mention creationism! That is only to get more action in the comments.
Happy to help out!
i live about 130m (420 ft lol) from some train tracks (northeast corridor). it's actually really cool seeing trains all the time. noise isn't even annoying lol
I used to live 75 feet away from a main cp rail line. 4-5 1 mile long trains would pass all day. This was back in like 99-2003 it would cut the dial up internet when it passed by. The house would vibrate and you could feel it in the concrete foundation. It took a couple months to get used to but eventually I could sleep thru the trains and everything.
The modern chainsaw blade was possible due to careful study of how wood-boring beetle grubs tear through trees. The solution was to make not a conventional blade (which was inefficient and required constant repair), but something chisel-like, like the grubs' mandibles. It totally revolutionized the lumber industry.
If you find this interesting Joe, try learning a bit about Genetic Algorithms and Neural Networks, they're pretty much bio mimicry applied to algorithms
I live about 30 feet from the train tracks (deliberately) along the river and love it. 🚂
Great content! Almost anything along the lines of innovation in materials science tech is must watch, here.
8:38 that awesome way to put
Speaking of the Singularity, you might want to do a story about Hans Moravec, the creator of that term and professor at Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute
Went to see Dune and one the aircraft used on Arakkis was the omnicopter. It was based of the dragonfly, the best aircraft in nature. So I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought imitating narure is a wise idea. Nature is developping itself for millions of years to perfection. It's kinda arrogant to think we can do better.
it's not an omnicopter it's an ornithopter. read the book.
I've always found sharks' immunity to cancer is really interesting. It's probably so deep down in their genetics that we can't really apply it ourselves but it's worth a look
It's just a Guess but if that's how their skin Grows they prob vibrate at a certain frequency that kills the cancer, some meGalithic sites like stone henGe or Adams calendar have been known to cure people of illness even cancer in some cases.
Fun Fact: Velcro is a brand name and is used as the name for the hook and loop system in the same way as Band-Aids is used for adhesive medical strips or hoover is used for a vacuum cleaner.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hook-and-loop_fastener
Lets go, Joe! Love Mondays.
fantastic episode, yet again, well done,
4:35 got me SO GOOD 😭😭