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SPEAKER_01: Hello 50 Things listeners, I'm Patrick I and I've got some news and something for you to listen to. I'm the host of 30 Animals That Made Us Smarter, the wildest original podcast from the BBC World Service and I'm so excited to say that I'm bringing you 30 more incredible animals and discovering the amazing, unexpected things they can do that have inspired new technologies that make us humans smarter. That's right, I'm back for season two and I thought you might like to hear the first of my new episodes. In this season, I find out how the punch of a mantis shrimp could revolutionise future aircraft, how telescopes in space are inspired by the eyes of lobsters and why jumping robots based on the snapping jaws of ants could one day save your life. So here's the first episode of the new season. It's about everyone's favourite gentle giant, the elephant. If you enjoy it and want more, search for 30 Animals That Made Us Smarter wherever you get your podcasts. Imagine, just for a moment, that you've been born with a long fat noodle attached to your face. You understandably have no idea how to move this giant noodle around. In fact, it seems to have a mind all of its own. Over the next few months, this appendage will at times prove to be, let's say, a little awkward. However, life without it would undoubtedly spell doom for you and your fellow kin. Sounds kind of odd, right? Well, you've now entered the world of every baby elephant to have walked the planet. An elephant's trunk requires precise coordination to use correctly. Luckily, elephants have evolved their biggest brains of all land mammals, although when they're born their brains only weigh half of what they will be once they're fully grown. To develop and strengthen the neural pathways from their brain to the rest of their body requires time. So, as you can imagine, for newly born elephant calves, their trunks may seem more of a floppy, awkward obstacle than a life-changing tool. Now I have to admit, I found it hard to believe when I discovered that elephants have to learn how to use their trunks, but that's precisely what I witnessed on a visit to the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Nairobi, Kenya. This orphanage project works to rescue, rehabilitate and reintegrate orphaned elephants into a new family herd. To help the young calves through this journey, keepers look after them and guard them round the clock. Some even sleep overnight in the stables with the baby ellies. Rather than sleeping, feeding is an essential part of the process when it comes to bonding with their surrogate human herd members. It was also the perfect chance for me to get involved and to get up close to see their trunks in action. Armed with a four litre bottle of milk, the sight of what can only be described as a train of 20 elephant calves, thundering towards the feeding station, all lined up single file one behind the other in the golden morning light was one I'll never forget. The thing I was most surprised about was their size. Standing next to the two year olds who were already at shoulder height was quite intimidating as they jostled for position around myself and the keepers. In fact, one of the older calves, clearly unimpressed by my feeding skills, slowly coiled its trunk around the bottle and proceeded to remove it from my hand in order to feed itself. The difference between the more experienced calves and those much younger was very clear to see. One of the orphans, just months old, was so small it had its very own blanket that the rangers would drape over its back to keep the little elephant warm. She fared at a much slower pace and was far more hesitant when using her trunk, which on occasion moved so awkwardly it looked like it was being controlled by someone else. In the wild, it takes elephants about 10 years to learn all the skills and knowledge they'll need to make it to adulthood. And it's the lesson of using their trunk, which takes at least a year to perfect, that's arguably the most important. Because when it's mastered, the elephant's trunk becomes its most vital, strongest and most skillful tool. So it's no wonder that scientists wanted to replicate this strength and dexterity to create a manoeuvrable but soft arm that would revolutionise the world of robotics forever. Hello, I'm Patrick Ihe and welcome to the very first episode of the second season of 30 Animals That Made Us Smarter from the BBC World Service. It's a series about animals and also about us, humans all around the globe. More specifically, it's all about the remarkable things animals can do and how we might copy them to solve problems in our own world. You see, the natural world is full of problem solvers. After all, they've had millions of years to test things out, to learn and adapt from trial and error. So in this season of podcasts, you'll hear the very best stories from across the globe of animals that have made us smarter. I really hope you like what we've got in store for you. And where possible, please rate us and why not leave a comment too? On social media, we're using the hashtag 30 animals. We're also super keen to get some of your expertise too. So what examples do you know when it comes to animal inspired advances in design and technology? Why not write down your ideas and either send us an email at 30animalsatbbc.com, contact us through our website bbcworldservice.com slash 30animals or as I mentioned on social media, it's hashtag 30animals. Speaking of getting in touch, that is exactly what happened after the first season when one listener who was only seven years old Pranav from India emailed to suggest we look into a story he'd seen about how an elephant's trunk has inspired a new robotic arm. And Pranav, my good friend, you'll be pleased to hear that's exactly what we're doing now. An elephant's trunk is a truly marvelous thing. Soft to the touch, it's reinforced with cartilage, which is the same stuff that human joints are made out of. And this provides a trunk with strength, toughness and durability. The best description I can think of to describe the texture of the skin is across somewhere between velvet and very, very light sandpaper. Up close, it kind of resembles the type of ribbed hose you'd expect to find on a vacuum cleaner. The upper or forward facing side of the trunk is covered in hundreds of lightly bristled hairs, whereas the rear facing side is more flattened and is lined with small bumps that run along its length. To my eyes, these folds and ridges of skin reminded me of miniature mountains and valleys. When the elephants stretch out its trunk, they'd run out like an open plane. There is something about an elephant's trunk that leaves everyone that sees one completely mesmerized. Perhaps it's the way it appears to move with its own intent. The finger-like projections at its tip searching and investigating nearby surroundings, like a leech searching the air for the warmth of its next host. Well, without the creepy bloodsucking part. So, what's it made of? Well, here are some top facts and big numbers to get us started. The elephant's trunk contains a whopping 40,000 muscles. It's strong enough to push down trees and lift over 300kg in weight. But it's also sensitive. At the tip of the trunk are those fingers I mentioned. An African elephant has two, whilst an Asian elephant only has one. These fingers allow the trunks to perform delicate maneuvers like picking up a blade of grass. The trunk has two long nostrils that guide scent to one of the best olfactory nerve centers in the animal kingdom. Olfaction is the ability and process of sensing smells, and elephants are brilliant at this. They can even sniff out water from a distance. And when the elephants get to a lake or river, the trunk doubles up as a snorkel, which is perfect when it needs to cross through deep water. Not only is the trunk a super-sniffing device, it's also sensitive to vibrations, and elephants can use it to detect the presence of distant herds and even thunderstorms simply by resting it on the ground or by lifting it up into the air. Of course, I have to mention the trunk's incredible ability to hold water. 12 litres of it at any one time. Although contrary to popular belief, the trunk isn't used directly for drinking. It's used for moving the water to the elephant's mouth, where it can then take a drink. Naturally, as an elephant, it comes in handy for spraying and splashing other members of the herd during playtime in the lakes. What's maybe most surprising, but perhaps not so unexpected, is that trunks can be seen as an object of affection and comfort for elephants. Mothers will wrap their trunks over their calves' legs and belly whilst making a soothing rumbling sound. Elephants are even known to pet and cuddle themselves with their own trunks to make themselves feel better. It is the elephant's trunk's versatility, its ability to grip, be strong and flexible, that's called the eye of engineers at the Bionic Learning Network, a research project set up by a consortium of universities, institutes and development companies, including the German industrial and automation company Festo. You see, the scientists noticed a problem with the massive robots used on manufacturing lines like the ones you see assembling cars in factories. You might have seen videos of these robots performing their tasks to stellar degrees of accuracy. They're powerful, precise and almost balletic in the way they move. But although brilliant at performing exact tasks at exact times, if their sharp metal surfaces ever come into contact with humans, the result is, well, painful for the human. And so robots and humans in these scenarios need to be kept well apart. But this isn't always practical. And there are times when you'd want to get close to a robot, let's say if it was being used in a medical surgery, for example. So in 2010, the German-led team decided to develop a robot that would be far less dangerous, and yet just as flexible and strong. And that's when they started looking at all the special properties of an elephant's trunk. The engineers wanted to imitate the softness of the trunk in their robotic arm. So instead of using hard metals like steel or iron to construct it, they decided to use a lightweight plastic called a polyamide. And to actually construct the arm, they employed what was revolutionary technology at the time, and still is if you ask me, a 3D printer. Instead of the arm being a solid mass of plastic, the engineers designed it to contain lots of hollow chambers stacked one on top of the other. This lighter design, the team say, makes the robot far less likely to hurt a human being, even if it were to accidentally hit someone with some force. And so the bionic handling assistant was born. Having solved the problem of creating a lightweight arm, the engineers now had to work out how to make it as flexible and as strong as an elephant's trunk. They had their mind set on the fact that their robot shouldn't contain anything hard or hazardous. So they decided they'd make it work using just air. Yep, that's right, the air you and I breathe every single day. Now in everyday life, air seems pretty unremarkable. But if you put it under pressure, in other words, if you compress it, it becomes a very powerful way of lifting heavy loads and moving things around. So to turn air into compressed air, the team built a series of valves and a control unit which they stored at the base of the robot, out of harm's way. They use these valves to send compressed air up into the hollow chambers inside the arm. So imagine what these chambers look like. Think of lots of tiny little empty balloons inside the length of the arm. The valves are used to inflate and deflate these balloons with differing amounts of air, and in this way move the arm around. So for example, if the valves inflate the balloons on one side of the arm, these would stretch out and elongate just like a balloon would. This has the effect of pushing the arm in the opposite direction. And there you have it, a robotic arm that's lightweight can move in any direction and is strong enough to pick up heavy loads. But this isn't the only way the bionic handling assistant mimics an elephant's trunk. At the tip of the soft arm, the team installed three fingers, just like the fingers at the tip of an elephant's trunk. These are also inflated and deflated with compressed air to make them move. They're made from a soft material that can mould itself around any object, even if it's extremely fragile. This means the fingers have no problem picking up something as delicate as an egg or as thin as a blade of grass, just like an elephant can. Back in 2010 when the bionic handling assistant was first developed, its soft and flexible qualities were pretty revolutionary. Since then, it's inspired many other robots that are even more flexible. In fact, in the last few years, the field of soft robotics has exploded and there are hundreds of different models now being developed. And it's not surprising because that means these human-friendly machines can be used in many situations which they couldn't before. In the future, we might even get used to soft robotic arms taking over everyday tasks we find a bit boring or dangerous. How about a soft robotic window cleaner? Or a toy collecting robot for the kids' room? The possibilities are endless. All this inspired by the strong, sensitive and flexible noodle that hangs in the middle of an elephant's face. An elephant's trunk is a truly marvellous, inspirational thing. Head on over to the BBC World Service website for more information on this episode. You can find it at bbcworldservice.com slash 30animals. And in the next episode of 30 Animals That Made Us Smarter, episode number 2, Squid and Self-Healing Materials, I'll be hearing how the suckers of a squid have inspired materials which could repair themselves. Yep, really, repair themselves. In the meantime, if you have any suggestions of animals like the elephant that deserve more credit, let us know why and don't forget to spread the word. It's hashtag 30animals. Thanks for listening. Well, that was awesome. And just a reminder, that's episode 1 of the new season and there's a lot more where that came from. But you won't be able to listen to the rest here. Just search for 30 Animals That Made Us Smarter wherever you get your podcasts.
