Living Machines
The locust's belly dance, the case of the jerry-built barnacle, and how butterflies blow smoke rings, are all discoveries of a new kind of science-natural engineering. Biologists and engineers are pooling their ideas to understand how nature's machines work.
What materials are plants and animals made from? Why are they the shapes they are? How do they move?
Nature has invented efficient air-conditioning systems, energy storage devices and corrugated aerofoils. It has even invented the wheel. Certain creatures have recently been found to have rotary bearings and tiny electric motors. Tonight's programme reveals nature's designs with the help of unique film taken by the scientists themselves.
Narrator Paul Vaughan
Film editor MICHAEL FOALE
Editor SIMON CAMPBELL-JONES
Written and produced by ROBIN BATES