water
61. Plants minimize water loss: desert
"The vegetation of arid ecosystems displays scale-free, self-organized spatial patterns. Monitoring of such patterns could provide warning signals of the occurrence of sudden shifts towards desert conditions…Scanlon et al. 4 (page 209) and ...
Bookmark
Email
62. Kidneys filter impurities: human
"Using a system based on the human body's kidneys - the ultimate in water recycling technology - Singapore and Orange County, CA have developed schemes that will use a dual membrane process to recycle domestic waste water (sewage) to levels that a...
63. Water absorbed from humid air: brown dog tick
"The ability to absorb water vapor from the atmosphere enables ticks to survive without drinking water for many months. The tick rehydrates using a three-stage process. First, it uses its foremost pair of legs to detect microregions of high humidi...
64. Skin protects from dehydration: file snake
"The granular skin of Acrochordus is hygroscopic and imbibes water which moves rapidly over the body surface through interscalar channels. Consequently, the integument is easily wetted to bear a superficial aqueous film = 5.4 mg water per cm²...
65. Reducing surface tension to travel on water: rove beetle
"A small beetle, Stenus, normally walks slowly on the surface. When speed is desired, through, it secretes a substance from its last abdominal segment that locally reduces the surface tension. The result is an asymmetrical force on the beetle, whi...
66. Leaves survive desiccation: Spanish moss
"Almost all the members of the Tillandsia subfamily are epiphytic. The exceptions are a number of thin-leaved species that grow on the forest floor. The epiphytic species mostly have well-developed tanks that function in the same way as those of t...
67. Organs aid navigation: dolphin
"Moving at such speeds, navigation becomes critically important. Fish are helped by their lateral line system, but mammals lost that far back in their ancestry and the toothed whales have instead a system based on the sounds used by shrews and ela...
68. Polar Thermos Cozy
This product is essentially a skin for thermoses in order to insulate them and to especially keep colder water away from the surface of the thermos which can rapidly induce heat loss. This system simulates blubber with insulation in between two la...
69. Membranes desalinate water: mangrove
"Nature did not refrain from using energy produced in the power stations of plants for other important functions of life. One example is the desalination of seawater by evaporation energy. At the edge of shallow coastal waters of tropical seas we ...
70. Anus absorbs water: woodlice
"1. Experiments were undertaken to determine the site of water uptake, and the conditions in which it occurs, in Ligia oceanica, Oniscus asellus, Porcellio scaber and Armadillidium vulgare."2. Besides absorbing water with moist food, all four spec...
search tools
- If you would like to save this search, please login.
