Nature provides many examples of good engineering that can be used to inspire human designs.
"Lauga and his team demonstrate that water snails have to distort the surface in order to move. "If they don't, they won't go anywhere," said Lauga, who explained that these water snails naturally rise up due to their low weight, and therefore do not have to work to remain near the surface.
Lauga and his colleagues said their finding could lead to a new method of propulsion. One of Lauga's colleagues, Anette Hosoi of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has already imitated the adhesive/ lubricating propulsive method of land snails to drive a robotic device. Now, as a result of this new water snail finding, the researchers said it may be possible to build similar devices that walk on water.
"The water snails show us that this is possible, and therefore one can design biomimetic systems taking advantage of that movement," Lauga says.
