New Age of Printing Bionic Nature Creations with 3D Printing

""Bionic ants and butterflies produced on a 3D printer are just as beautiful — and industrious — as their counterparts in the natural world.

Research efforts into minitaurization, practical adaptation of nature's tactics and functional integration with technology by the Bionic Learning Network will be showcased. The research network links German electronics company Festo to universities, institutes, development companies and private inventors as they seek creative solutions and test new technologies and production methods.

BionicANTs borrow not just from the physical characteristics of ants, but the design also incorporates many of the behavioral features of the highly social insects. The insect-inspired devices are slightly over 5 inches long and weigh just over 1 ounce each.

The artificial ants are created on a 3D printer, forming both the basic structure of the device and electrical connections in a single pass. Each artificial ant is equipped with a small video camera, providing a sense of "sight" for the robotic insects. The robotic insects recharge their internal batteries by placing their antennae against a charging station.

Piezo technology is used to drive bending actuators in the devices, which provide the joints within limbs, allowing the device to propel itself along surfaces. This system also uses little electricity, essential for operating time of the robots.

Autonomous Networking Technologies (ANTs) carry out collective activities in much the same ways as their counterparts in the natural world. The ants use a wireless signal to communicate with each other to carry out their tasks.

eMotionButterflies also use a similar system to carry out social activities, including collective flying. These ultralight flying objects take to the air inside a specially designed room, where 10 infrared cameras detect the position and movement of the artificial butterflies. This information is relayed to a central computer, which coordinates motions of the devices.

"The eMotionButterflies impress with an intelligently employed mechanical system and the smallest possible power units in the tightest space. The reduced use of materials enables the true-to-nature flying behavior," Festo managers reported on the company website.""

Bionic Creations:

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/42790/20150327/3d-printed-bionic-ants-butterflies-industrious-beautiful-real-ones.htm

So Imaginative - So Sentient - So Aware - So Intelligent: The Plants of Earth

Locating Intelligence

""As reported in a recent article in the magazine New Scientist,2 the apparent magic of consciousness in plants seems to depend on several physiological features, particularly those of their root systems. Plant roots include various “zones,” including a “transition zone,” which is electrically active and seems analogous to the animal brain—it contains a mechanism similar to neurotransmitters. Another part of the root, the root cap, can sense various physical properties “such as gravity, humidity, light, oxygen, and nutrients.”3 Most cells in plants can make and transmit neuron-like activity. In roots every cell can do so.

Mancuso says, “If we need to find an integrative processing part of the plant, we need to look at the roots.”4

Plants also produce serotonin, GABA, and melatonin, which act as hormones and neurotransmitters in animal brains, though it’s not yet known what they do in plants. Intriguingly, drugs such as Prozac, Ritalin, and methamphetamines can disrupt these “neurotransmitters” in plants.

Vital Capacities

Plants sense light, but they also communicate with one another using chemicals. They “know” when they’re being touched. They integrate all of this information without the kind of neural system that animals have.

And they have memory—the ability to store and recall an event at a later time. A Venus flytrap, for instance, doesn’t chomp down when it receives its first sensation of a fly; it only closes if the hairs in its trap sense another contact within a half minute or so. It “remembers” the first touch.

More surprising is the result of an experiment that Mancuso carried out with Mimosa pudica, the “touch-me-not” plant. He and colleagues dropped potted mimosas repeatedly onto foam from 15 centimeters (about 6 inches) above. The plants closed their leaves in response to the fall initially, but stopped doing so after four to six drops. It seems that they “learned” that there was no danger. It’s not that they were no longer able to close their leaves—they still would do so in response to touch. They retained this ability to discriminate between the harmless fall and the potentially harmful (about to be eaten) touch after a month.

Consciousness?

Frantisek Baluska at the University of Bonn, Germany, has pushed further into the question of consciousness by suggesting that plants may even experience pain. They release the chemical ethylene when stressed—when being eaten, attacked, or cut. Nearby plants can sense the ethylene. One researcher equated this release of ethylene with a scream. Since plants also produce the chemical in large quantities when their fruit are ready to be eaten, there’s conjecture that they’re using ethylene as an anesthetic (animals can also be knocked out with ethylene, an anesthetic).

Psychologists and philosophers will likely debate the precise definition of intelligence until the end of time. It may in truth blend into the whole continuum of biological capacities—faculties of various kinds, particularly sensation and memory, that seem to exist throughout the animal world. But as we realize that plants have significant abilities in sensation, awareness, integration of information, long-term memory, and adaptive learning, we must at least leave open the possibility that intelligence is certainly not unique to humans and probably not even to animals.""

Complete Informative Article Continues Here:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-green-mind/201412/are-plants-entering-the-realm-the-sentient