Bio-inspired innovation

100 000 starlings move in unison against an autumn sky – not one collides; fireflies light up a wood in Borneo flashing in perfect synchronicity; bacteria communicate around a plant’s roots once the population reaches a certain number while, up in the air, the wings of an eastern amberwing dragonfly have 3 000 sensory neurons, including flow sensors to prevent a stall. What can we learn from these marvels? Currently at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Nico Bruns leads the Sustainable Functional Polymers Research Group. The team is using bio-inspired approaches to design, engineer and develop materials, and nano-systems, with unprecedented new functions. Nico is particularly interested in the properties of the polymer composites making up plant cuticles, which he explored during the Horizon 2020 project, PlaMatSu. Massimo Trotta is based at the Italian National Research Council, in Bari. He is interested in the environmental applications of photosynthetic organisms. Massimo coordinated the EU’s HyPhOE project. Lucia Beccai is a senior researcher at the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa, and head of the Soft Bio Robotics Perception Lab. She is interested in tactile sensing and versatile grasping for soft robotics and is particularly focused on what we can learn from elephant trunks, which was the basis of her EU-funded PROBOSCIS project. For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!gFVK9d