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Science Imitating Nature

Science Imitating Nature

Researchers Develop Nanotube Ethylene Sensor to Determine Fruit Ripeness

by Rollin Bishop | 2:00 pm, May 19th

Getting ripened fruit to your local supermarket is actually a pretty complicated process. Many fruits ripen when ethylene binds to a particular receptor. That means that if the fruit is exposed to too much ethylene, they’ll be overripe when they hit the stands. If not enough, they’ll be sitting there looking just shy of ripe and therefore less likely to get purchased. Thank goodness for Timothy M. Swager and the folks on his team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They’ve developed a carbon nanotube-based sensor that should eliminate our fruit ripening woes.

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Science Imitating Nature

13-Year Old Uses Fibonacci Sequence for Better Solar Power UPDATED

by Max Eddy | 12:35 pm, August 19th

While walking through a forest in the winter, 7th grader Aidan Dwyer thought he saw a pattern in the way leaves and limbs grew from trees. Some photography, measurements, and investigating the work of other naturalists confirmed that plants produce new growth following a Fibonacci sequence.

This pattern, where the previous numbers are added together to make the next number in sequence (1+1=2, 2+1=3, 3+2=5, 5+3=8, etc.), and its corresponding golden ratio have been observed all over the nature world. This got Dwyer thinking about why trees grew in this way, and if there was an evolutionary advantage in doing so. He knew that trees, like all plants, use their leaves to photosynthesize and decided to make that the focus of his investigation.

To do so, he constructed a “tree” using the sequence of leaves found on an oak tree. Except on his tree, Dwyer placed photovoltaic cells instead of leaves.

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