08Jun 2020 by Post

Make Like a Scorpion, and Other Arachnid Designs

amebocytes, American Chemical Society, arachnids, Australia, cancer, cephalothorax, City of Hope Cancer Center, daddy-longlegs, death stalker, Delaware, dragline silk, horseshoe crabs, Huwentoxin-IV, immunotherapy, Intelligent Design, Journal of Natural Products, Jurgen Otto, Limulus Amebocyte Lysate, mating season, mites, Nature Communications, peacock spiders, pedipalps, scorpions, spider web, spider-silk, spiders, Tachypleus gigas, tarantulas, ticks, toxins, University of Melbourne, University of Queensland, venom, β-sheet
Arachnids (a class of invertebrate arthropods, most with six pairs of appendages, of which four are usually for locomotion) make up some of the scariest creepy-crawlies to most people. The class includes spiders, daddy-longlegs, mites, ticks, scorpions, and horseshoe crabs. They have simple eyes, unlike the compound eyes of most insects. Also different from insects, arachnids have a fused head and thorax (the cephalothorax) and abdomen; the cephalothorax is often covered by a hard carapace.  The first pair of appendages in spiders, the pedipalps, help hold prey; in scorpions, they act as pincers. Lacking jaws, spiders suck the juice out of their prey and discard the exoskeleton. Some hunting spiders have exceptional vision, with eight eyes looking in all directions. Horseshoe crabs, only recently added to the class of arachnids…
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29May 2020 by Post

Applied Intelligent Design: Engineers Know Engineering When They See It

American Chemical Society, biologists, Biomimetics, biomimicry, butterfly wings, China, coral, Duke University, engineers, fish scales, geckos, George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Tech, Intelligent Design, Johns Hopkins University, leaf, leaves, Life Sciences, materials science, Michael Varenberg, Nanjing Tech University, nanowires, New Scientist, polymers, Teflon, telescopes
Engineers of all types (e.g., mechanical, electrical, hydraulic, civil, software) are focused on how to get things to work. They need to pull together all that is known about materials and properties, and organize them to perform a function. They need to meet design requirements: a company or government says “Here is what we need to do; how can we get it done within the limits of cost and time available?” Knowledge of engineering principles grows as the needs of a society grow, often becoming more sophisticated, pushing the boundaries of know-how. Engineers are trained to see design and judge good design. Human engineers must also navigate intellectual property laws, because many engineers want to patent their designs and protect them from theft. There’s a lot of angst going on…
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