Abstract
Regardless of whether a product is the result of organismic evolution or man-made, if it claims to be optimally functional while at the same time being economical, it is often given the adjective ‘intelligent’ in the current language. ‘Intelligent’, of course, refers only to the initiator: in the one case, evolution with its intelligent play with chances and selection; in the other, the creativity of the ‘mammal’ Homo sapiens. A certain parallelism in the construction and functionality of independently developed devices and systems is remarkable. Or constructions provided by nature serve as a model, which has led to bionics as a scientific discipline of its own. In this article, only a few intelligent problem solutions out of an enormous abundance will be demonstrated. At first, they concern everyday objects. They are, for example, salt shakers suitable for breakfast eggs, adhesive devices such as suction cups, sticking attachment pads and—above all—hook-and-loop fasteners. With regard to the stability of surfaces, especially in terms of scratch resistance, various possibilities can be demonstrated in the case of plants. Mechanical stability under the influence of strong forces, e.g. wind or weight load, is provided by a folded surface as we find in palm leaves, instead of a flat one. Folded structures closed into a cylinder allow a considerable change in volume while the surface area remains the same; such a bellow or accordion effect allows ribbed cacti to absorb water (in rain) or lose water (through evaporation) without causing tissue tension. Lightweight construction and yet stability are demonstrated by the huge floating leaves of the Victoria water lily. More safety in the event of a shipwreck by having as many tightly sealed bulkheads as possible is something technicians can learn from floating seeds. More safety when building houses in earthquake areas architects can learn from trees with buttress roots and from grass blades. Camouflage for protection or attack reaches the ultimate perfection in insects and spiders. Even flowers deceive and cheat by sophisticated (= intelligent) adaptations to certain behavioural patterns of insects for the purpose of pollination. Conclusion: Evolution is intelligent, but knows no ethics!
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Notes
- 1.
The manuscript sheets are part of the ‘Codice sul volo degli uccelli’, also known as the ‘Codex Turin’, in the ‘Biblioteca Reale’ in Turin (Italy).
- 2.
The English term bionics is derived from ‘bios’ (Greek for “life”) and the suffix ‘-onics’ meaning ‘study of’.
- 3.
The female takes over the entire brood care: collecting pollen and nectar, depositing the brood provision into a tubular brood cell made by itself from ‘mortar’ (in band ceramic manner), and closure of the cylindrical cup after laying a single egg. Often several such ‘brood cylinders’ are built next to each other and finally are ‘plastered’ with additional mortar to a unit.
- 4.
Francé did not have in mind to construct a perfect salt shaker. If he had intended to do that, the poppy capsule would not be a good model: You want your salt at the point where you aim for, e.g. on your breakfast egg and not spread evenly over your table. See Fig. 3.7.
- 5.
When in hanging flowers the pollen grains trickle down from a ‘shaker-box’ as soon as an insect touches the latter with its proboscis or head, such pollen release mechanisms are often somewhat inaccurately summarized under the term ‘buzz pollination’. This term, however, describes in a stricter sense such cases in which the pollinator causes the release of pollen from cones of poricidal anthers (e.g. in Solanum-type flowers such as bittersweet, tomato or potato) by rapid vibrations, which produce a sound (= ‘buzz’), of their thoracic muscles in a certain frequency (e.g. Michener, 1962; Buchmann, 1983; De Luca & Vallejo-Marín, 2013; Vallejo‐Marín, 2019). Diverse bee taxa, in particular bumble bees, are involved in buzz or vibration pollination. On flowers of borage, bumble bees show typical buzzing behaviour (Corbet et al., 1988). Honey-bees (Apis mellifera), however, are not able to buzz (King & Buchmann, 2003).
- 6.
As it seems to us, the three species Parthenocissus tricuspidata (native to East Asia), P. quinquefolia (native to North America) and P. inserta (native to North America) planted in Central Europe cannot be clearly separated from each other (probably cultivated varieties).
- 7.
Preliminary results are available that it is a composite adhesive of polysaccharides, callose and mucilaginous pectins (Bowling & Vaughn, 2008).
- 8.
For de Mestral, the burrs in the fur of his dogs provided the template for the hook-and-loop fastener.
- 9.
- 10.
The main component of the cuticle is cutin. Similar to the suberin (component of cork), which replaces cutin in secondary dermal tissues (periderm), i.e. the barks in woody plants, it is a lipophilic copolymer. It forms the matrix for waxes embedded in the cuticle.
- 11.
Like the sanded roofing paper, the sanding also protects against solar radiation; the sand chips reflect the sun’s rays and, in this way, prevent excessive heating on sunny days.
- 12.
Phoenix theophrasti occurs only in a few locations on Crete and on the southwest coast of Turkey.
- 13.
In addition to the fan shape (fan palms), there is the pinnate shape (pinnate or feather palm, e.g. date palm, Phoenix), which is also due to tearing. The latter is less stable in wind.
- 14.
In Chamaerops humilis, additional dividing stripes appear from the periphery of the leaf at each edge.
- 15.
Equally tall, or even somewhat taller, is the cardón (Pachycereus pringlei) with a similar distribution area (but the two cactus species never occur side by side).
- 16.
A compromise is always to be expected when a problem solution is in a ‘conflict of interests’, or better a conflict of goals, with further adaptations. Technology can also learn a lot from compromises.
- 17.
We were able to convince ourselves of the bending strength in the restaurant on the 40th floor, when during a violent typhoon the building began to sway noticeably.
- 18.
Ecosystems are communities of life in which producers (green plants), consumers (mostly animals) and destroyers (e.g. microorganisms) are in momentary equilibrium.
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Erbar, C., Leins, P. (2022). The Intelligent Play with Chances and Selection. In: Holm-Hadulla, R.M., Funke, J., Wink, M. (eds) Intelligence - Theories and Applications. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04198-3_3
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