(wind blows)
There's one material
that even after millions of years of evolution
has defeated all but a handful of creatures.
Sand.
Which is why I'm here.
I'm convinced that the key
to revolutionizing how we get around
lies hidden within the creatures
that are masters of movement.
Can I go this way?
Yeah. Follow this road.
(gasps) (honks horn) Argh!
(gasps) I'm going back.
(laughs) I'm done with this.
(gentle music)
Just my luck.
I'm on the hunt for an animal
that's adapted to moving in the desert.
And I'm stuck in the desert.
This is a perfect example
of how poorly adapted we are
to living in loads of different environments
including the desert.
You know, we need all these different devices and technology
just to live here and be able to move in this environment.
But then when it goes wrong,
it can be pretty catastrophic,
'cause we've got nothing else that we can rely on.
If you want to find animals that have come up with
some really neat solutions to living,
best place to look is an extreme environment.
If it's extreme and inhospitable,
anything that lives there (Patrick dusts off hands)
must have come up with a really clever solution.
One solution may be hidden in the neighboring dunes.
(snake hisses)
This snake begins her day
by journeying across the shifting sand.
Unlike us, she manages the crossing with grace and poise,
thanks to a method of movement
that's taken millions of years of trial and error
to perfect.
She even makes use of this sand to help catch her prey.
(snake hisses)
She begins by writhing and twisting,
slowly sinking into the sand.
There, she waits.
(anticipatory percussion music)
Her eyes, located at the top of her head,
are the only indication
that this venomous viper is even here.
(slow anticipatory percussion music)
Prey.
A shovel-snouted lizard struts nearby.
They too have developed their own adaptations
to deal with the desert.
This lizard alternately lifts its legs
off the scorching sand
to prevent it from overheating.
The snake times her strike to perfection.
(dramatic musical chord)
Venom delivered by the snake's needle-like fangs
paralyzes the lizard in moments.
(foreboding music)
Satisfied, she retreats,
using that unique sidewinding ability
to glide across the sand.
(lively music)
(energetic music)
Movement is life.
It's the difference between eating and being eaten.
For 3.8 billion years,
nature has pitted one creature against another
in an evolutionary arms race.
And only the fittest survived.
There's such beauty and engineering brilliance in nature.
You can't ignore it.
This journey is the culmination
of my years in the wild.
I want to prove that only by studying nature's best movers
can humanity usher itself into a brighter future.
Could we design machines that can travel
across all types of terrain?
This could be used for inspection
of nuclear power plants, for example.
Or upgrade our bodies to move faster
than we ever dreamed possible.
You're literally like superhuman.
Even reinvent flight
to start cleaning up the skies.
We start with that most treacherous of landscapes,
the desert.
Buzzy!
Patrick! (door slams shut)
How's it going, bro? I see you found us.
Yeah. Just about.
Hey, they don't give you a good enough map?
(laughs) Got a bit lost.
Yeah? Yeah.
Look at this, man. These dunes are massive.
If you or I were to try and run up to the top,
it would take so much energy.
That sand is really slippery. 100 %, yeah, yeah.
So that's kind of what I'm here for.
I want to know how can we explore landscapes like this
in a way that is fast and efficient.
Probably spend a couple of hundred million years evolving,
(Patrick laughs)
and then you learn to do what is called sidewinding.
So we got a number of different sidewinders
around the world. Correct.
But here you have
one species that's endemic. We have one.
What's its name?
Bitis peringueyi. Oh my God.
"Bite" I-S, not "bite us." (Patrick laughs)
Sidewinders are completely at home on the dunes.
And so in the spirit of scientific inquiry,
I'm gonna see just how hard it is to climb one.
Ahh wow. (sighs and exhales)
(Patrick laughs)
God, hardly got anywhere, have we?
When you look at the dunes, like,
it looks like you should be able
to run up them really quickly.
It's not that far.
No.
The problem is the density of the sand.
You go one step forward,
And two back! and keep sliding back.
Exactly. Yeah.
It is literally just like, No, it's just-
like a fluid. No, it's 100%.
And even if you dig quite far down, it's still there.
There's nothing hard underneath.
You literally just sink.
This desert is vast
and the snake is not only small,
it's a camouflage expert.
Luckily its movement is so unique,
it leaves behind a telltale sign.
Here we go,- Yes.
we're in business.
Brilliant. All right.
So you can see it's coming from-
That might come from all the way,
that direction, looks like.
(dramatic drum roll)
Somewhere nearby lies a venomous sidewinder.
(dramatic drum roll)
Oh. It's sitting right here.
Ooh, where?
Below the tip. You see it?
I'm gonna stick my face in there,
(laughs) Better you than me. I'm trying-
Be careful.
So there you go.
If you come around here now, you can see.
Ooh, yeah. Yes.
It's such a small snake.
It doesn't mean it's less venomous because it's smaller.
Quite the opposite can sometimes be true.
There we go. A great view there.
On sand, she's a deadly combo of venom and speed.
Catching her safely is going to be tricky.
Oh, they can move very fast if they want to.
Ooh, stop. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.
Ooh. Not a happy camper this morning, eh?
Finally up close,
I'm starting to see what makes this snake so special.
Out here, we have another species, a horned adder.
And we've actually noticed that there is
what we think is hybridization.
So this is cool, this is groundbreaking science, really.
Scientists are only just realizing the role
that interbreeding of different species
can play in the creation of new ones.
And it could be happening right here.
So the whole point of what we're doing here
is to try and get a DNA profile.
So we need to get a sample
Correct. from this snake.
What I need you to do,
grab a snake as close to the head as you can, please.
I will try and lift her out.
Just clamp down slightly, there you go. (indistinct)
Perfect. (Patrick whoops)
You can actually see,
she actually had a crack at your finger.
She has actually unloaded a little bit of venom
onto the glove.
If that was your finger,
I'd really know about it.
there'd be a pork-sausaging as we speak now.
We are just going to take-
The best way to get our DNA sample
is to snip off the very tip of the tail.
But don't worry. The snake is barely affected.
And Buzzy is being super-careful to take the tiniest snip.
Got it. Perfect.
Up close like this,
I can see all the different elements
that make it perfectly adapted
to moving around in the desert in this sand.
Considering how small it is, it's really strong.
This is where all that searching pays off.
I can finally witness her mesmerizing movement for myself.
There we go. Nice and slow, there she goes.
And she doesn't disappoint.
(Patrick laughs)
That is brilliant. And look at the impression as well.
We can see that very clear definition
of contact on the ground,
no contact on the ground,
contact on the ground.
It's almost literally like steps.
100%.
You can actually physically see the distance she travels
with each little movement.
She seems to effortlessly glide across the sand.
But how does she do it?
My research has led me to a scientist in the US
who runs something called the BIRTH Lab.
(dramatic beat)
The BIRTH Lab.
Knock knock! (knocks on door)
Hey Patrick.
Dr. Hamid, nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you too.
For most people,
if they were told they'd be invited to the "Birth" Lab,
they'd be expecting something
a bit different, (Both laugh)
like a maternity ward or something.
BIRTH stands for
"bio-inspired robotics technology and healthcare."
And the idea is, we want to give birth
to new technologies inspired by nature.
The lab is full of animal-inspired robots
and experimental hardware.
For a bio-mimicry geek like me,
it's like being a kid in a candy store.
We have a project on studying
snake locomotion on sand,
because
they are the champion animal. Ooh.
Our colleague at Carnegie Mellon University,
they have developed this wonderful snake robot
that was capable of doing different modes of locomotion.
But whenever they put it on sand,
it had difficulty moving,
and especially climbing on loose sand.
Okay. Well, let's see this thing move.
Sure.
Please tilt it to around 5 to 10 degrees,
then we can start the climbing tests.
(machine whirs and whines)
Whoa.
Okay, this is gonna be cool.
(machine stutters and stops)
All right. So let's try that.
So as you can see,-
Yeah, so it's not moving anywhere.
Exactly. So it's just sliding all over the place.
Actually, in fact,
it's probably digging itself deeper into the sand.
Exactly. Exactly.
Programmed with only horizontal movement,
this robot is probably
where the sidewinder started its evolutionary journey.
So how did the real snake learn how to move up dunes?
We did some field work with sidewinder rattlesnakes.
We collected six of those animals,
we shipped those all on a plane back to Atlanta.
You had snakes on a plane?
Exactly.
(Both laugh)
We had this animal that can readily handle
all sorts of sandy hills.
And that's why we kinda picked that particular animal
to see what's the trick
that the animal uses to climb.
What Dr. Hamid discovered
was that sidewinder locomotion
is actually comprised of two distinct movements.
Firstly, there's that horizontal slithering.
Secondly, to avoid slipping,
the snake also moves up and down vertically.
Both these waves travel along the snake's body,
lifting it to the next position
and leaving behind those telltale tracks.
And so snakes have become pioneers of this ingenious method
of moving across difficult sandy terrain.
I'm changing one parameter in particular,
and that's the amplitude of the vertical wave.
Vertical, yeah.
And as you can see, it's climbing up.
Oh, wow. Look at that.
It's generating those two waves,
in horizontal plane, vertical plane.
It's lifting the body enough to be able to move forward.
Yeah, and it's making
the same impressions in the sand
as a real sidewinder, as well. Exactly.
The part that's moving forward
is actually clearing the ground,
and it's not touching the ground.
So that's why it's able to move forward.
Every time we change a parameter,
really, when we look at what's happening in biology,
that equates to thousands,
and in some case, millions of years of evolution,
Exactly. this is trial and error.
Can I- So do you
wanna play with it? Yeah,
let's reset this robot,
let's get it back to where it was.
Yep.
All right.
There you go. Yes!
We have a sidewinding robot. That is so cool.
I gotta say, it's awesome.
What's the future applications for this kind of thing?
We can take this
to a wide range of different applications.
For space robotics, for example, right?
For search and rescue applications,
for exploring even parts of the planets
that might be difficult for humans to access.
This could be used
for inspection of nuclear power plants, for example.
And the fact that it's been inspired by an animal,
a deadly venomous snake,
which we're so used to thinking
about these animals killing us,
potentially could not only help us explore,
but also save us in the future.
Exactly.
Hacking the sidewinder's ability
could help us move in environments
that we're otherwise ill-equipped to handle.
But it's clear that sand isn't the only type of environment
that has us humans completely stumped.
(inhales) All right, I'm trying to find my way back
to my hotel.
But it's got me thinking,
we as humans don't even need
to be plunged into complete darkness
to realize how helpless we are in the dark.
We're so well-adapted to daytime living,
but we are utterly useless in environments
that we can't see well in
without something like a torch or a flashlight.
And it's in times like these,
when you've got a phone with a dwindling battery
that you can't help but envy those animals
that can find their way around
even in the darkest of night.
Some animals don't need light.
They have a super sense.
(foreboding music)
(ethereal music)
This bat relies on the sound of water ripples
to locate her favorite prey.
Fish.
She moves through complete darkness
as easily as you or I in broad daylight.
Some 50 million years ago,
the bat's ancestors took the night shift
to beat the competition
and avoid predators.
In doing so, they developed their own internal sonar.
This bat emits pulses of high-frequency sound,
and listens for the returning echoes.
These echoes create a mental map of her environment.
They're her window into this dark world.
(dramatic music)
But this ability is bad news for this little insect.
(lively music)
(dramatic beat)
As this horseshoe bat draws closer to her prey,
she emits up to 200 pulses every second,
(two dramatic beats)
helping her to catch as many as 1000 insects in an hour.
Part of her secret
seems to be this fleshy adornment surrounding her nostrils,
called the nose-leaf,
which helps to direct her echo-location calls.
Combined with enormous ears
that swivel like satellite dishes
and locate the returning echoes,
these clever adaptations have enabled these bats
to move with perfect confidence through the night.
Engineers have already taken inspiration
from the bat's echo-location skills,
but instead of bouncing sound waves,
they bounce light waves.
It's called lidar, and it's revolutionizing how we move,
helping us navigate in poor visibility and darkness.
It's already being used in self-driving cars.
One day soon they could improve road safety for everyone.
And we may soon be taking this bat-inspired perception
quite literally to new heights.
Flying autonomous cars are no longer
bound to stories of the imagination.
Their designs are packed with safety features.
They continuously send and receive signals
containing information about their position and airspeed.
And just as bats use sound waves
to build a 3D picture of their world,
these new-age aircraft bounce pulses of light
off their surroundings
to map their environment.
Maneuvering safely around other objects in the air
with absolute precision.
So you may be sitting in a bat-inspired vehicle
sooner than you think.
(dramatic music)
(birds sing and call)
(lively music)
I'm on a mission to prove
that nature's solutions to moving over any terrain
can deliver true benefits to humanity.
And when it comes to moving over land,
there's one animal that's head and shoulders above the rest.
Marlice, you know cheetahs are one of my favorite animals.
The reason why I'm here
is to find out how these cheetahs can run so fast.
Oh man, look at that.
This is Athena.
Where is the boy?
Can you spot the male? They're just so elegant.
Oh, look.
We've got another one here, to my left.
We're literally sat about, what, 10 meters away
from these cheetahs.
It's incredible seeing what they're doing.
They're walking through this grass,
but their eyes are trained on the horizon.
Of course, they're trying to find a meal in this grass.
This is perfect for them because they just, whoo, blend in
and they just seem to disappear.
Look, we can't even see them.
Can you see 'em? (chuckles)
Yeah, they are at that big tree.
Okay, I can see some movement. Ah, there we go.
Oh, she just climbed up.
Boom. Wow!
And you know what, that probably-
Up, he's up the trunk. It's up on the tree
trying to get a better vantage point.
Yup, and you see the left one,
the one on the bottom is scanning the left.
It looks like they saw something.
(dramatic music)
A herd of springbok nervously graze
within range of the cheetahs.
These two species have been locked in a deadly game of chase
for millions of years.
Where cheetah have evolved to hunt,
springbok have evolved to flee.
Having developed agile reflexes
and a top speed of 55 miles per hour,
the springbok display their youth and vigor to predators
by springing and bucking into the air,
hence their name.
Athena and her sibling
will need to use all their hunting prowess
to get within striking distance.
She's using the bushes on the side of the airstrip.
She gonna try and sneak up on the springbok?
Yeah, she's trying to sneak up.
Cheetahs will lock onto one specific individual.
And they'll focus and hone in on that one individual.
So I wonder if there's cheetahs
just going through their process,
having a look at the herd,
trying to pick out the one that
is gonna make the perfect meal.
(ominous music beat)
(energetic music)
Yep. Ooh.
From zero to 60 in just three seconds.
But Athena can only sustain this speed
over a short distance,
and the energy she expends is enormous.
These ancient rivals are so evenly matched,
that her odds of a kill are about fifty-fifty.
(dramatic music)
Oh my goodness.
That is fast.
Athena's so fast, I'm barely able to keep track of the hunt.
If I really want to understand
how nature has adapted these animals
with such formidable speed,
I'll need to get closer.
Johannes!
Good morning. How's it going, my man?
Yes sir. You all right?
Yeah.
Much closer.
Look. We've got live cheetahs in here.
Are you sure it's safe?
Everything is fine.
Johannes works with cheetahs
that have been rescued and rehabilitated.
And today he wants me to help them get some exercise.
Is it four cheetahs in here, Johannes?
Yes, it's four.
We could have any one of four cheetahs
come out of nowhere.
And we know that these cheetahs have been rescued,
so they're habituated, they're used to human interaction.
But there's always that level of uncertainty.
It doesn't take long for our cheetahs to get curious.
(intriguing music)
Hey, hey, look. Just turn to, look to your left.
We got a cheetah following us. (cheetah growls softly)
Okay, so
I reckon she's interested. (cheetah growls softly)
Johannes, does she know what we're doing?
Yes, they know. Yeah?
Because they like they are chasing that thing.
Cheetahs are highly adapted runners,
and as such, they need regular exercise to stay healthy.
But sometimes they need a little incentive.
Our cheetah here is really, really interested
in this lure pulley system.
You can tell that she wants to run.
(machine beeps and whirs fitfully)
Ooh, this is nice.
I reckon she's waiting to see the lure,
which is gonna come up now.
Okay, here we go.
Woo hoo hoo!
Oh wow, this is cool. I love this.
Full speed.
She's also anticipating where the lure's gonna go.
(dramatic music)
Quick turning around.
Wow.
Cheetah Scalextrics. This (laughs)
Press a button, watch a cheetah run. (laughs)
What stands out for me right now,
from this angle, watching them here,
is their tails.
Their long tails, which act as a counterbalance,
which means they can change direction really quickly.
Also when they're running at full speed
which is 70 miles an hour,
their spine flexes so much.
It extends, it compresses,
and all in all, that helps the cheetahs
to cover up to seven meters with each stride.
In fact, they're in the air longer
than they are on the ground,
which is quite surprising
for the fastest land-based animal.
(dramatic music)
They really do fly through the air.
But I think the real key, the secret to their speed,
lies in their legs.
You see, there's another more subtle feature
powering the speed machine.
If we were to put on X-ray glasses,
we'd see what looks like elastic bands
strapped onto the backs of those legs.
These are the cheetah's tendons.
With each landing, those tendons become tightly stretched.
When the cheetah takes its next stride,
they ping back to their original position like a slingshot,
propelling the cheetah's body forwards.
These tendons are essentially
storing up energy with each step
and then using it to power the next one.
Okay. This is great.
We've had these cheetahs running
at high speed for a little while.
(Patrick chuckles)
Hello. (cheetah growls softly)
Oh, aww.
That's amazing,
literally having a cheetah coming and (laughs)
lying down right in front of me.
This is brilliant.
Their legs are spring-loaded.
And right now I can get a really kinda good view
of the shape of the legs.
Reckon it's a C shape.
Most of the tendons or ligaments,
that's helping them with each stride.
They're converting that movement into potential energy.
They're storing up that energy.
So it's ready to help them explode on the next stride.
But the awesome thing is
that we as humans have managed
to harness this exact same principle
to make our own leap forward.
(lively music)
To see this in action, I'm on the move to England,
to meet someone who's pushing the boundaries
of what the human body can do.
(dramatic music)
(dramatic music intensifies)
She's won gold medals and broken world records
with a little help from some cheetah-inspired technology.
Sophie, how's it going?
Oh, it's good, thanks. How are you?
Yeah, absolutely pleasure to meet you.
Should we do one of those,
Yeah. or whatever, yeah.
I want to find out more
about this running blade that you've got.
That is cool.
Do you ever consider that your running blade
is inspired by cheetahs?
I suppose I haven't really thought about the fact
that they were inspired by cheetahs that often,
because when I'm running,
I really don't feel like a predator, like a giant cat.
Like I don't feel like that at all.
You're running like one. (Both laugh)
As a Paralympian, you can run, what,
100 meters in 12.9 seconds,
Yeah, that's my PB. which is incredibly fast.
You're literally like superhuman.
It's amazing how far
speeds of all the competitors have come along.
Now everyone's running kind of 12 point something.
Whereas in 2012 I got into the final
having run 14 point something, so.
Oh wow, so that's two-second difference, really.
Or like one, one and a half second difference.
A two-second difference over 100 meters is phenomenal.
Now it's probably a fool's errand,
but I have to at least see what it's like
to run alongside a gold medalist.
How many races are we gonna do?
Um, depends.
If I win the first one,
we'll just leave it at that. (Both laugh)
So basically I've got to try and beat you.
Yeah.
Okay, runners. On your mark.
And three,
two,
one,
go!
(throbbing music)
(footsteps running) (Patrick breathing hard)
I never stood a chance.
That was good.
Especially against an athlete equipped with cheetah tech.
Sophie, that was awesome.
Thanks for the race. I would love a rematch,
but you got training to do.
And so I shall be graceful in defeat.
(Both laugh)
I want to learn more about this technology
and the origins of its inspiration.
So who better to ask
than the people who designed it?
Oh, great to be able to have a chat to you today.
Looking at that running blade,
you wouldn't imagine that it's really a spring,
because it looks so rigid and so tough.
This is quite a lightweight carbonate,
but I almost can't move this with my hand.
So what happens is- Let me give it a go.
Let me try.
'Cause I mean, it's gonna be a lot tougher,
'cause there are spikes. (laughs)
There is that, yeah.
I'll try and avoid the spikes.
And, yeah.
When somebody walks,
they're probably putting
about one, 1.2, or three times their body weight
through their legs.
When someone runs or jumps,
that can almost go up to eight times their body weight.
So if you're 100 kilos, quite a sizable person,
yeah, that's 800 kilos at the maximum point.
And that's when these start to come into their own.
It seems like it is the natural kind of evolution
of when you look at animals
that use biological springs in their bodies,
whether it's kangaroos or cheetahs,
it does accurately reflect what they do.
There's such beauty and engineering brilliance in nature.
You can't ignore it.
I think nature will always win.
I think engineering will come a close second.
(dramatic surging music)
It's amazing to think how
learning about just one animal
can completely transform an existing technology.
And it's got me thinking
if there are any other inventions
that could do with a bio-mimicry makeover.
And just as that was coming to mind,
look, I've just spotted these wind turbines.
And boy, it's got me thinking
about one of the biggest conundrums of the natural world.
Now, here's a question for you.
Why are those propellers on those turbines smooth,
when the best propellers in nature
are the complete opposite?
(waves softly flow)
The coastal waters of Alaska.
A pod of humpback whales is on the move.
Big and hulking, this female weighs 40 tons,
the equivalent of 22 cars strapped together.
But wait till you see her move.
Her prey is tiny.
So to get a big enough mouthful,
she's evolved the ability to corral them
into a tight bundle.
With incredible coordination,
she moves together with her pod-mates.
Diving down, she takes position,
her movements intricate and controlled.
The result is a display of synchronized swimming
that surpasses anything you'll see at the Olympics.
(swelling string music)
Working together, the humpbacks
release a wall of bubbles around their prey.
To the fish, it's an impenetrable barrier.
And it allows the humpbacks to eat their fill.
(lively music)
The secret to being
one of the most graceful giants in the ocean?
It's all in the flippers.
It turns out
smooth flippers aren't as great as you might think.
50 million years ago,
as whales evolved from four-legged mammals
and legs were slowly repurposed as fins,
why didn't the humpbacks go smooth?
On a smooth flipper,
water flow breaks up into turbulent vortices
as it reaches the trailing edge.
But humpbacks have developed strange bumps
on the leading edge of their fins, called tubercles,
and these tubercles channel water into a streamlined flow,
creating less drag
and giving her a better grip on the water.
It's this increased control
that's the key to her fancy flipper work.
(dramatic music crescendos)
This discovery could be applied in all sorts of areas.
(propeller whirs)
Underwater propellers would face less drag,
meaning more power and less fuel.
Engineers are already experimenting
with these whale-inspired designs.
And this effect works in air as well.
With less drag, wind turbines rotate faster,
harnessing more energy.
But perhaps the most profound use
we can make of this technology
is in aviation.
Researchers have discovered
that tubercles on the wings of airplanes
produce better lift, and up to 30% less drag,
which means burning less fuel.
And that's got to be good news for the planet.
And as I make my way to my next destination,
I'm reminded of how much we take air travel for granted.
In 2019,
the airline industry released over 900 million tons of CO2
into the atmosphere.
That's more than the entire carbon output of Texas.
Now, we aren't likely to give up air travel anytime soon.
So we have to discover more efficient ways to get around.
And if we want to find better ways to fly,
we need look no further
than the animals that have mastered the skies.
Which is why I'm headed to Hawaii.
We've always looked to birds
to inspire us to get ourselves airborne.
But the thing is,
these feathered friends are way ahead of us
when it comes to their mastery of the skies.
Are there any more lessons that we can learn from birds,
not just when it comes to flying,
but flying more efficiently?
Well, I'm hoping that the answer to that
lies at the end of this bumpy dirt road.
While I attempt to navigate this road,
far out at sea, a lone figure is gliding.
This female albatross has had to venture far from land
in search of food.
So far, in fact,
she's been out of sight of land for almost two weeks.
Surprisingly, she hasn't flapped her wings for hours.
Instead, she keeps them outstretched,
catching the sea wind to stay aloft.
As she glides, she sniffs the air,
searching for the smell of plankton,
where her prey are likely gathering.
For the first time in almost 24 hours,
she furls her wings and approaches the water surface.
She takes this opportunity to drink,
having no problem dealing with the salt
contained in the seawater.
But down here, she's vulnerable to predators.
(ominous music)
A narrow escape, as she takes to the air,
this time heading for shore.
Back at the colony, a lone chick waits amongst its brethren.
Having last ate over a week ago, it's ravenous.
But after so long out at sea,
Mum has to look carefully to identify which chick is hers.
Is it this one?
Nope.
How about this one?
At long last it's Mum, with a much-needed food delivery.
A concentrated mix of squid and calorific oil.
This will last the chick for at least another week,
until Dad returns on a separate trip.
Mothering duties done,
it's time she returned to the comfort of the ocean.
Takeoff isn't that easy for these lumbering birds.
They're far more at home gliding with the wind.
This act of landing and taking off
will have used more energy
than she would have burned in flight.
But up here, she's serene.
Her energy expenditure, insignificant.
So what's her secret?
I love how these albatross are just lurking.
I know. (laughs) How close they get, wow!
I think from a distance,
in some ways you can't really tell how big their wings are,
but as soon as they kind of just buzz your head,
there're just like a couple of different things
I suppose I'm noticing,
how like graceful and maneuverable they are,
barely flapping their wings.
Yeah, they know how to harness the power of the wind.
And I mean, we can watch this bird
probably for however long he's flying,
and it would be unusual for him
to take a wing beat right now.
So he's just gonna arc and glide
all over the whole thing.
And I can't help but thinking
they're having fun when they're doing this.
I think they are, definitely Especially when they bank.
Definitely.
I suppose all of that comes down to its ability
to lock its wings in position.
Right.
If we were to hold our arms out like this,
I mean, we could do it for a decent length of time,
but after a few minutes,
you're gonna start to get pretty shaky.
And that's kind of the key to how they fly.
They can almost keep their wings out indefinitely,
and they have special tendons and ligaments
in essentially their breastplate
that allow them to lock it open.
So it's not something that's using muscle.
The land component of their life is such a small part.
We have some birds that we banded as chicks
that didn't come back for eight years.
Wow.
This locking tendon is an amazing feat of evolution.
Essentially, it turns a flapping bird
into a fixed-wing glider.
At rest, the wings are positioned as you'd expect.
Folded at the shoulder and elbow joints.
But when the albatross extends its wings,
a special tendon at the shoulder
locks the wing to the chest.
In flight, this tendon prevents the wing from overextending.
The body now suspended from a rigid frame,
like a hang glider.
And should the albatross hit any turbulence,
or need to flap,
the wings can unlock,
giving the albatross total control.
Albatross are an endangered species.
By tagging them, Lindsay can keep track
of their numbers and movement
for conservation purposes.
So we've got some adults over there.
Yeah, so we've got one there,
and then two in the background,
and you can see the chick.
But we'll need to catch one first,
and no, it's not easy.
So right now, if you just want to kneel,
so we don't scare 'em.
Okay.
Am I coming with you?
No, just stay right there. Okay.
Phoo, wow.
So it's not always pretty. (laughs)
It's not, I mean-
I'm actually gonna hand the bird to you.
Okay. So, hand across the bill,
making sure that its nostrils are clear.
I'd say football hold, but that is different than soc-
Whoa, which way? Which way am I going?
You're good. Just hug him.
Okay. Hug the bird.
Hug the bird.
Okay.
So you're all good.
Nice. How does it look
to hug an albatross?
It feels great.
It's really soft. (Lindsay laughs)
I didn't expect I was gonna have my hands
over the beak of an albatross,
and holding it like a baby. (laughs)
I can tell you one thing,
You said you were here to help,
I mean- it's really strong.
I am here to help. (laughs)
I just didn't realize this would be the help. (laughs)
So what we're doing is we're putting two leg bands on.
And so if it loses one band, we still know who this bird is.
So the idea is, we never want to touch him again.
This like two minutes that we're holding him,-
Mm-hmm.
We'll do that.
So that's got a good (indistinct).
Bit of a bump on his leg.
Oh, sorry, sorry. Okay, (laughs) sorry, buddy.
So now what we're gonna do is release him.
Okay.
All right.
Let go of the beak last.
Okay, here we go. So.
(albatross flaps wings and skitters across grass)
Nice.
There we go.
(laughs) That's awesome.
Good job. Nicely done.
As I leave Hawaii,
I can't help but reflect on my time
with these incredible birds
and their ability to fly so far using minimal effort.
Surely there must be a way to adapt this skill
to our own needs.
(camera beeps)
Okay, I've made my way back to England,
to a town called Filton.
Now it might be a small town,
but this place has a lot of history
when you think about the history of aviation.
About a hundred years' worth of planes have been born here,
all the way through to the mighty Concorde.
And I'm here to meet engineers
that are designing the next generation of aircraft
to take to our skies.
(inspiring energetic music)
We've been trying to copy birds' ability to fly
for centuries.
It's probably the oldest form of bio-mimicry.
It's led to some truly weird and wonderful flying machines.
And once we gave up on making aircraft
that flap their wings,
we ended up with some pretty successful designs.
But can we take this any further?
Well, there's someone who thinks we can.
Yup, that's the wing from an A320,
an Airbus. Oh my goodness.
Tom, so this is the pinnacle of commercial aviation.
Is there anything that you want to change here,
or is this it?
We ought to make the wings longer,
'cause that's how we get more efficient flight.
How much longer do you want to get them?
So the wingspan of this aircraft is about 36 meters
and we're interested to see
whether we can get beyond 50 meters.
That's almost doubling the length.
So why aren't they that long right now?
If you make a wing longer, it gets heavier.
You have to reinforce it.
So how can you make it longer,
and get the aerodynamic gains,
without having to reinforce and make it heavier?
There have been no major breakthroughs in aviation
for over 50 years.
Until now.
And it seems flapping wings might be back on the menu.
Wow, so this is your creation,
the Albatross One,
but (laughs) I've never seen wings like that before.
Surely this thing doesn't fly.
It does. It's flown six times.
It actually flies, not even just in principle,
this model actually can get up into the air?
Yeah, we prefer to call it a research vehicle.
Wow. It's for scientific endeavor
That's so cool.
In terms of doing wider reading
around high aspect ratio wings
and thinking, how does nature do it?
We realized that the albatross had a solution
which is very similar.
So that kind of gave us confidence
that we were asking the right questions.
A conventional wing transmits huge loads
to the plane's body during turbulence.
This means the wing has to be heavily strengthened,
increasing the weight and the amount of fuel
needed to fly.
But the wings of this albatross-inspired prototype
can avoid these challenges altogether.
And we're about to see how.
Great, all right, let's get these fans on, then.
Here we go.
(fans whir and accelerate speed)
For the purposes of this experiment,
the pilot is operating the wings by remote control.
In normal flight, the wing is fixed,
like any normal aircraft.
But when the turbulence provided by these industrial fans
kicks in,
our stand-in pilot unlocks the wing.
It floats free.
So no more stress from that turbulence.
(urgent string music)
So this is now in turbulence.
So if you-
Gonna come back to that position.
Oh, interesting. Okay, right, yeah.
So it's,
it'll always find the right kind of angle attack
or place to be, really.
Yeah, we call it coasting.
Right there, I can,
these wings are really, like, free-moving.
That's the thing right now.
And so you can imagine that
without that free movement,
all of that energy would be transferred into those wings.
That's right.
And once out of turbulence,
the pilot locks the wings back in position,
just like a real albatross.
So now the wing tips have been locked.
And you can feel it's-
Okay, yeah.
Ah.
Just like a shoulder.
That's so cool.
And if it was this long,
and it didn't have the ability to come up and be hinged,
then you'd risk a failure on this wing, potentially.
In fact we'd just simply have to make the wing
much stronger, and therefore much heavier.
And if it wasn't stronger and wasn't heavier,
what would happen?
We won't fly.
(Both laugh) Yeah.
(fans power down)
Now, there's still a long way to go,
but Tom believes this approach
could lead to a significant boost in fuel efficiency.
It's quite a big deal.
So most of the big improvements recently
have come on the engines,
but on the airframe side,
there's been small improvements.
So that if we can achieve it,
it would be a really big step forward.
I set out to show that humanity
would benefit from nature's solutions to movement.
And here is the proof.
If we could make our planes just 5% more fuel efficient,
we could save over 4.5 billion gallons of fuel each year.
And in terms of carbon emissions,
that's almost as much
as the yearly total footprint of Singapore,
simply by copying one of nature's ultimate gliders.
So how much more fantastic could our aircraft become
through bio-mimicry?
Planes that soar with the true grace of an albatross,
or with the agility of a hummingbird.
But why stop there?
By looking to the animals that are masters of movement,
I see a very dynamic future.
Snake-inspired search and rescue robots
that can master any terrain.
Autonomous passenger vehicles navigating like bats.
The future of movement is definitely animal.
The human species has spread and colonized the globe.
We can go anywhere we want in a matter of hours,
but our movement is taking a toll on the planet.
I've seen that by studying how nature moves,
we can find ways of reversing our impact.
There are many more life-altering solutions out there.
All we need to do is look.
(energetic music)
(jingle plays)
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