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Our human technology has emerged from ten
thousand years of design, trial, and error. Nature's mechanical
designs, the function of plants and animals, are billions
of years older. Both "technologies" share the
same physical environment -- the same materials, atmosphere,
and temperature range -- and both are subject to the same
gravitational pull. But they've turned out to be wildly
dissimilar.
Human designers love right angles, but nature
is typically round, curved, and its angles are more diverse.
The wheel enables a huge amount of our technology, yet nature's
only true wheels lie within tiny bacteria. Most of our water
vessels sail buoyantly across water's surface, while nature
typically swims submerged. Our hinges turn because hard
parts slide around, whereas natural hinges (such as a rabbit's
ear) turn by bending their flexible materials.
Steven Vogel examines the many questions
that arise from these differences: Why have these technologies
taken such separate paths? Is nature the better designer
or does homo sapiens, being sapient, get the nod? Cats'
Paws and Catapults is about the ways living things work
-- and walk, run, jump, and fly -- and how they grow. It
introduces the reader to the field of biomechanics and explains
how the nexus of physical law and historical accident determine
the designs of both people and nature. It asks, in the end,
how looking at nonhuman -- natural -- technology might enrich
our understanding of what we do and have done.
Steven Vogel is the James B. Duke Professor
of Biology at Duke University. He has been a fellow of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, was
awarded the Irving and Jean Stone Prize for Science Writing
for Public Understanding in 1990, and is the author of Life's
Devices, among other books. His work has appeared in
Scientific American, American Scientist, Natural
History, Discover, and Technology Review.
He lives in Durham, North Carolina.
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