Dr. Sheila Patek gives lecture on the fastest animal movements on the planet
Titled “Sudden and swift: extreme movements in biology,” this free public lecture by Dr. Sheila Patek presented fascinating information on fast animal movements made by some of the world’s most unusual invertebrates. Dr. Pateks work has been featured on the BBC, National Geographic, and on TEDxTalks where her video has over half-a-million views.
The overarching theme of this lecture presented the observations of these extreme-force generating animals who allow engineers and biologists to work together to create new technologies.
Dr. Patek began by stating her three main goals of the presentation: (1) To talk about the notion of what is fast in biology (in which she jokingly noted that our notions of “fast” usually involve cheetahs and falcons, but boasted that she studied faster animals), (2) To place biology in a broader framework and to present a different way of looking at things, and (3) To search for knowledge for the sakeof knowledge, the enjoyment of science and to use applied research that benefits humanity.
Her research on these creatures was to discover how organisms produce these movements, how they fall into applied research, and how we apply this knowledge of systems for good uses.
The initial focus was on trap-jaw ants that have large jaws with trigger hairs used to quickly circumvent prey. These fast animals can’t just use muscle contractions, but instead use a spring latch system with the acceleration of a bullet. Each ant’s jaw can generate over 400 times their own body weight as a by-product of acceleration.
The evolution of these trap-jaws with spring loaded click mechanisms has evolved several times, and each time evolving to use a different set of muscles and trigger components. Dr. Patek believes that research on the mineralization of these jaws has potential for applied work.
The second animal of Dr. Patek’s focus was the mantis shrimp, a creature with a hammer on their elbow so forceful it can break a snail shell with one blow. The shrimp has a large muscle in this hammer appendage and a latch that keeps the hammer in place, and when the latch releases, the appendage springs out using elastic energy. This is the sort of power impossible to achieve with just muscle contraction alone.
A ruling discussion in this lecture was on the cavitation that occurs with the striking of the hammer appendage. When the shrimps hammer strikes and hits, a bubble forms, and this is called cavitation; the formation and immediate implosion of cavities (bubbles) in a liquid.
In engineering contexts, cavitation is a chronic source of study, and submarines are an example of human technology that deals with it. The propellers encounter cavitation when an area of extremely fast flow exists with an area of slow flow. This results in water molecules pulling away from each other and shifting from a liquid form to a gas form. When the bubbles collapse it generates a great amount of heat (temperatures comparable to the surface of the sun) in a very short time period of time. This sort of energy is sufficient enough to cause recurring stress on the metal and wear it away.
In the context of biology, cavitation creates enough force to wear away mantis shrimp appendages as well, though these creatures have the benefit of molting. But their hammers don’t break on impact, and it was discovered that this is because their hammers have three different regions which dissipate force. Their appendage is wrapped in a compressive layer, similar to a baseball, and is designed in such a way that it dislocates the forces and doesn’t allow it to get into the hard surface layer.
Engineers and biologists can study these uniquely fast and powerful creatures in order to apply this knowledge to other technologies, or to develop new technologies. Dr. Patek used the term “biomimicry,” which takes the examination of nature to either emulate or take inspiration in order to solve human problems, and the term “bio-inspired,” which studies these biological life forms to improve the usage of computers.
Dr. Patek wanted to “… inspire one to think about the earth’s phenomenally long biological history and how this understanding can enrich our daily experience in our present biological world.” No doubt through studying these creatures and through biomimicry and bio-inspired technologies, we can begin to improve or even solve our own human problems. Dr. Patek makes it clear that the marriage of biology and engineering has the potential to achieve great things.