Forget textbooks. Engineers are advised to look to nature for teaching. In particular, according to scientists and researchers, engineers can learn a few things from ants, bees and Zen-fully smelly cabbage.

Through millions of years of evolution, many species have provided a variety of solutions to problems that affect humans, particularly engineers. As such, perhaps engineers’ new teachers should be insects and plants.

We should care about insects “because human life depends more and more on engineering systems that must solve similar problems to function efficiently,” explained Francis Ratnieks of the University of Sheffield in England, in a Christian Science Monitor article last week.

Insects probably have evolved a variety of solutions to the foraging problem, Dr. Ratnieks said, as the biologist then cited the foraging strategy of pharaoh’s ants.

In a Nature journal article earlier this year, Ratnieks noted how pharaoh-ant foragers’ efficient movement to and from a food supply exemplifies how “natural selection has made insect societies good at solving a problem that is simple to state but hard to solve [...].” The problem frequently confronts designers of traffic flow, electronic messaging, electricity transmission and other network systems, Christian Science Monitor pointed out.

How do pharaoh’s ants know which way to go? Because social insects have been solving this complex dynamic problem for millions of years, they have probably evolved some simple and elegant solutions.

The CSM article explained:

By laying out a chemical trail in a pattern in which the junction of three trails forms a Y. The stem of the Y leads to or away from the nest. It also intersects the two arms at a wide angle while the arms form a smaller interior angle of about 60 degrees. The ants have enough geometrical instinct to sense the difference in angles and follow the right trail.

The article also noted research published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that showed “honey bees and bumble bees have some wisdom to share.” (Bees actually are flying insects closely related to ants.) These small insects’ flapping flight “carries aerodynamics into a region where conventional theory fails.” These bees have actually evolved a flight system different from that of most small flying insects: while some insects swing their wings in large arcs in order to fly, the bees’ wings move in significantly shorter arcs while flapping at a relatively high frequency. This short-arc high-speed wing motion gives the bees a much wider power range than other insects enjoy. Perhaps this knowledge may be advantageous in the aerodynamics field’s advancement.

Finally, there is the skunk cabbage. Yes, engineers could possibly learn quite a bit from this, a species of arum lily (whose Japanese name, Zazen-sou, means Zen meditation plant). The smelly skunk cabbage can maintain its own internal temperature at a comfortable 16-24˚C in all weathers, even on a freezing day. In fact, said a recent New Scientist article on the subject, the plant “can even melt snow as it warms itself to protect its delicate flowers. The plant generates heat by burning starch in special cells,” but it is a mystery still exactly how it controls its internal thermostat.

According to one of the authors of a new study, reported news from the American Institute of Physics, only one other plant species — the Asian sacred lotus — is homeothermic, that is, able to maintain its own body temperature at a certain level.

Research suggests that the regulation operates in accord with an algorithm based on mathematical chaos theory, explained Japanese scientists Takanori Ito and Kikukatsu Ito in the November Physical Review E. Using a statistical technique called non-linear forecasting, the two scientists found the temperature fluctuation varies in a way specified by a unique mathematical algorithm.

New Scientist magazine reports that the two scientists have now built and are testing a temperature control that incorporates the algorithm.

Design problems may simply be solved by looking to nature for guidance. Ants may help with traffic patterns, bees may offer insights into aerodynamics, and skunk cabbage…well…skunk cabbage may reveal new ways to keep us warm during these frigid winters of which we are soon to see more.

References

Nature teaches engineers new tricks
by Robert C. Cowen
Christian Science Monitor, Dec. 1, 2005

Nature journal article

Zen and the art of central heating maintenance
by Stephen Battersby
New Scientist, Nov. 19, 2005

Zen and the Art of Temperature Maintenance
by Phil Schewe and Ben Stein
American Institute of Physics, Nov. 9, 2005

Nonlinear dynamics of homeothermic temperature control in skunk cabbage, Symplocarpus foetidus
by Takanori Ito and Kikukatsu Ito
Physical Review E, Nov. 7, 2005