Electro sensors inspired by fish who navigate their way through murky waters, robots that dance with the honeybees, and artificial muscles and blood vessels making their way into modern medicine. These are just a few of the research topics that were discussed at this year’s Living Machines Conference that took place from 9th to the 12th of July in Barcelona, Spain.

Chairs of the session  Paul Verschure, from Pompeu Fabra University and Tony Prescott from the University of Sheffield, welcomed delegates to one of Barcelona’s architectural gems; Antoni Gaudí’s La Pedrera building.

During 4 consecutive days, leading scientists in the fields of Biomimetics and Biohybryd systems gathered for pre-conference workshops, lectures, poster sessions, exhibitions and open panel sessions to present their work and discuss issues related to the development of real-word technologies inspired by biological systems.

The first day finished off with a panel-lead discussion centred on the question: why study nature? Co-chair Tony Prescott got dialogue flowing by providing two general reasons: to build technologies that could be useful in solving current challenges, and to better understand nature itself.  While the speakers and audience engaged in the discussion agreed that these are likely the main motives, other interesting opinions surged through out the conversation.

According to Barry Trimmer who specializes in Neurobiology at the University of Tufts,  by attempting to understand nature’s complexity, a biomimetic approach may allow us to bypass the limits of human creativity.

Toshio Fukuda who specializes in Micro-Nano Systems Engineering at Nagoya University is often inspired by particular functions or geometric shapes found in nature to help make devices such as the artificial blood vessels he works on more efficient.

Conversely, as a mechanical engineer specialized in aerodynamics, David Lentink  is not so much interested in biomimetics as an outfit for a design, but rather in specific principles which might make sense from an engineering point of view ¨ We don’t want to look at the final detail of a bird wing to make an aircraft because it’s simply too complex, but some of the principles are extremely useful and they allow scientists to really think outside the box.¨

While a biomimetic approach often involves studying some of the most puzzling aspects of nature scientists have yet to wrap their heads around, there are still many things nature can’t do. ¨ Biological systems satisfy many constraints at one time so they may not be optimal for any one function that we may want to imitate. Flight is a great example because we can do things by optimizing that birds just can’t do and we can exceed the capabilities of birds with jets and planes that we build,¨explained Frank Grasso, director of the Biomimetic and Cognitive Robotics lab at Brooklyn College, New York.

However, Dieter Braun, who specializes in Systems Biophysics at Ludwig Maximilians University, pointed out that it’s really a two-way learning stream and just because ¨evolution did not invent the bicycle¨ nature still has plenty of tricks to teach us and we need not be afraid of its complexity.

Check back to find out more on what what was shared during the 2012 Living Machines Conference; proceedings from the conference will be published in Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNAI/LNCS).

While the human body has proven to be a structure that is adaptable, versatile and resilient, its organic nature makes it susceptible to many diseases and various other factors capable of exposing its fragility. The term biohybrid refers to something that has integrated components of both natural and artificial material. While some of today’s biohybrid technologies seem straight out of science fiction, the idea to blend these alternate elements is actually thousands of years old….

In the year 2000, an Egyptian mummy was found wearing a wood and leather toe in place of one that was missing. Believed to be the first known prosthetic, it dates back from 1069 to 664 B.C. Current advances in biohybrid technology are beginning to have a major impact on a wide range of applications, particularly in prosthetics. However, today’s prosthetics aim to move beyond the simple replacement of a body part by striving to restore a  system to its natural function.

As Todd Kuiken explains in the video above, an issue with traditional prosthetic limbs is that they tend to be awkward, heavy and difficult to move. Often, the wearer must exhaust  other parts of their body in order to produce movement in the area the prosthetic has been placed. To help tackle this problem, in 2002,  a procedure called targeted muscle reinnervation was carried out.  This procedure involves deactivating nervous tissue in a functioning muscle of an amputated patient and later reactivating or reinnervating the area with leftover nervous tissue from their amputated limb. As a result, nervous signals can travel directly from the brain to the newly-wired muscle and onto the prosthetic device via the missing limb.

This month, the BBC is exploring the field of Bionics – the special series kicks off with a comprehensive  introduction to various advances in the field. Another article features the case of Matthew Green, whose  artificial heart is helping him get back to normal life while waiting for the right match for a permanent transplant. You can also watch a video which introduces us to 14-year- old Micheal Kane who uses  a high-tech prosthetic arm and leg.

Additionally, the BBC series includes an article  that revisits the classic 1970′s TV show: The Six-Million Dollar Man which had Steve Austin playing the world’s first bionic man- an Astronaut, ¨rebuilt¨ to be better, faster and stronger than he was before a terrible flight accident. Could something like this be possible in the future? The Japanese company Cyberdyne has already come up with a wearable robotic suit called HAL (Hybrid Assistive Limb).  Designed for use in a variety of applications, Cyberdyne states it could be particularly useful for rehabilitation and physical training as well  for rescue support at  disaster sites.

There’s quite a bit of European research which is incorporating the use of biohybrid technology. The ReNaChip project, completed in 2010, successfully replaced a cerebellar circuit in a rat’s brain through the use of an implanted silicon chip. While this chip replaced the eye blinking response in the rats it was tested on, a similar chip could one day be used to rehabilitate loss of brain function caused by  Parkinson’s or Stroke.

Similarly, researchers at Queen Mary’s University  used a combination of drugs and electrical stimulation to produce normal leg movement in rats with severed spinal cords. They suggest that neuroprosthetic devices similar to one such as the ReNaChip could also be used with their technique to bridge a gap in an injured spinal cord.

If you’re interested in  exploring how  real-word technologies are blending living and artificial systems,  you won’t want to miss the Living Machines Conference being hosted by the Convergent Science Network  July 9-12 in Barcelona.