For decades, humans have modeled technology on observations of the natural world.
When the camera detected a signal, it triggered an email alert.
Plants may have a lot to tell us.
Were now just learning how to get the message.
French designer Sandra Reys curiosity about that light inspired her to bring it up and out of the sea.
To create oceanic light on land,Gloweetechnicians insert the bioluminescence gene from the Hawaiian bobtail squid intoE.
colibacteria, then cultivate those bacteria.
The lights current limited lifespan makes them well suited for events or festivals.
Ultimately, Rey has grander plans for bioluminescent lights.
Sure, improvements in energy efficiency may help contain lightingsenvironmental footprint.
Rey may have just plucked one answer straight out of the ocean.
The UW team has instead harnessed the bees mechanics rather than venture to copy them.
When they go back to the hive, the data are uploaded and the battery recharges wirelessly.
Mice, martens, snakes, and other creatures curiously fled town, he recorded.
As a high-school student, zoologist Martin Wikelski translated ancient Greek and Roman texts.
Each collar housed both a GPS tracking unit and an accelerometer.
He observed warning times of between 2 and 18 hours, with longer times corresponding to more-distant epicenters.
He is in the process of publishing more details on his findings.
Moving forward, hes interested in better understanding the mechanism by which animals perceive these natural phenomena.
Instead, rocks under high stress before a quake force charged particles out of the minerals.
Theres a charge in the air, he says, and thats possibly what the animals are sensing.
Further, Wikelski wants to tap into a larger web link of tagged animals around the Ring of Fire.
Hes applied for a patent for a disaster-alert system based on animals collective aberrant behavior relative to a baseline.
The insights they can provide, hes discovering, may prove more valuable than ever.
This article was originally published onAnthropocene Magazineby Lindsey Doermann.
She is a science writer based in Seattle.
