Two kinds of emergence in animal engineering

Lianne Baker
Thursday 4 May 2023

Two kinds of emergence in animal engineeringDr Hunter KingRutgers University


Analytical thought has allowed humans to become master manipulators of their material environments.  Our construction behavior typically involves intelligently combining elements with distinct roles toward a functioning whole.  Some other animals, such as birds and termites, have evolved the ability to build physical structures with surprisingly complex functionality, without apparent aptitude for abstraction.  I will argue that the genius of their evolved behaviors lies in harnessing emergent phenomena, and try to extract engineering lessons from two examples.  The bird nest will be seen as disordered mechanical metamaterial with tuned, rich bulk properties, and the termite mound as a swarm-assembled, colonial, abiotic organ which harnesses external forces for selective metabolic exchange.


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