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00:00Speed, a competitive strategy.
00:03While humans obsess over how to achieve it
00:05in even greater quantities,
00:07for the speed demons of the animal kingdom,
00:09evolving to become the fastest
00:11has been a matter of life and death.
00:14When we look to these creatures for inspiration,
00:17not only do they wow us with their sheer ability,
00:20they can give us unexpected clues
00:22on how to improve our own lives and technologies.
00:47The Cheetah in Motion.
00:50Breathtaking to watch.
00:51Graceful, almost airborne.
00:54They are the race car of the Savannah.
00:58Cheetahs can reach up to 112 kilometers per hour.
01:01I don't even drive that fast on some highways.
01:03So imagine a cheetah, you know, blowing past you
01:04while you're cruising down.
01:06It's mind-blowing.
01:07But it's their incredible acceleration
01:09that earns them the title speed demon.
01:12A cheetah can go from zero to about 100 kilometers an hour
01:16in three seconds.
01:17So just think about that.
01:18Three seconds to get up to what we would normally think
01:21is a highway speed, you know, for us in a car.
01:24It can do that in three seconds, not as a machine,
01:27but as an animal.
01:29That puts them squarely in the ballpark
01:31with some of the fastest cars on Earth,
01:33which claim zero to 60 in 2.4 seconds.
01:37Even with the technology we have as humans,
01:39almost non-performance vehicles struggle
01:41to reach the acceleration of a cheetah.
01:43And they do it, you know, hardly without breaking a sweat.
01:45In land animals, the cheetah is the epitome of speed.
01:49They're the quickest hunters on land.
01:51And they are biologically engineered for speed and agility.
01:56Cheetahs evolved to their present
01:58from about 200,000 years ago.
02:00But the branch of the family they come from
02:02broke away from their common ancestor
02:04a little more than eight million years ago.
02:07In that intervening six or seven million years,
02:10evolutionary engineering honed the cheetah
02:12into the ultimate speed demon.
02:16There's nothing that really compares to them.
02:18And a lot of that is because there is a biological arms race
02:22between the cheetah and its primary prey,
02:25which is the Thompson's gazelle.
02:26The cheetah is the fastest land animal in the world.
02:29The second fastest land animal in the world
02:31is the Thompson's gazelle.
02:33They're very much tied together, those two species,
02:36in that they're linked as the speed demons of the world.
02:39Just like a race car, an incredible amount of engineering
02:43went into creating an animal this specialized.
02:46And to get a better idea of how the cheetah works,
02:49we need to take a look under the hood.
02:52When you're an animal that can run 112 kilometers an hour,
02:57you're not going to be bulky.
02:58You want to be as aerodynamic as possible,
03:01and that's the way the cheetah is built.
03:03The most astounding feature to me the first time I saw a cheetah
03:06was how small its head was.
03:08That's really interesting to me as an engineer because
03:10if I have to accelerate a cheetah and maintain speed
03:16and try to keep a level head so that it's not bouncing
03:19all over the place while I'm trying to catch the prey,
03:22it has to be light.
03:23It doesn't have that pure muscle mass like a lot of other cats do.
03:27It's specifically built to run very, very quickly.
03:30And so it has this, you know, incredibly flexible form.
03:34At times, at its top speed, a stride could be every 25 feet.
03:39That is insane to think about, but that's how fast they are going.
03:44In their hind legs, they have fast-twitch muscle fibers
03:47that allows them to increase those stride lengths
03:49and increase its frequency as well.
03:51Their rear and their front legs overlap when they're galloping,
03:56similar to a rotary gallop like a greyhound animal.
03:59They have a very flexible spine, which I think is the ultimate factor
04:03when it comes to allowing them to reach such high rates of speed
04:06because it acts like a spring.
04:08The shoulder bones are disconnected from the collar bones
04:11to give it more flexibility as it's, you know,
04:14putting its body really through incredible motions
04:16to reach these top speeds.
04:18That level of acceleration provided by the cheetah's sleek frame
04:22requires a fuel system that's equally aerodynamic.
04:25It has a huge chest cavity.
04:27That chest cavity is built to take in a lot more oxygen
04:31as it reaches its top speed.
04:33So normally, the big cat, if it's not moving,
04:36would be about 60 breaths a minute,
04:37and it moves up to 150 breaths a minute.
04:40When we start expending energy, a lot of the time
04:44we're really dependent on that oxygen
04:45and how fast we can get oxygen into our system.
04:48So the cheetah has that big chest cavity
04:51so it can suck in vast amounts of oxygen.
04:54So big chest, but it's narrow again.
04:56It's not a big, wide, bulky chest, but narrow and streamlined.
04:59But that specialization has meant sacrifices.
05:03For one, the large nasal cavity uses up real estate
05:06where more teeth could be.
05:09To accommodate for an enlarged nasal cavity
05:12actually makes their bite quite poor.
05:16And their jaw sockets where their teeth are located
05:18aren't very strong,
05:19which is why when it comes to acquiring their prey,
05:22they're found to not be quite effective at defending it.
05:25The cost of being the pinnacle of speed on an alien,
05:27they can't fight.
05:28They're not muscular.
05:29They can't defend themselves very well.
05:31And so they're very vulnerable to other animals
05:33stealing their kills.
05:34It's estimated they lose up to 10% of their kills
05:36to other animals on this event.
05:38So hyenas, lions, leopards,
05:41notorious for bullying cheetahs
05:44off of a fresh kill that they've made.
05:46Fortunately for the cheetah,
05:48it can fall back on its speed
05:49when threatened by other predators.
05:51When you run that fast,
05:55you know, you don't have to worry as much
05:57about being prey to anybody
05:59because nobody can catch you.
06:00But like any good sprinter,
06:02it can only run for so long.
06:04There's a consequence reaching that top speed.
06:06And so after 12 seconds,
06:08the body shuts down.
06:09It has to basically rest for about 30 minutes.
06:12It just sits there panting to get to recover
06:15from putting its body through that energy taxing situation.
06:24The amount of energy expended in that period is immense.
06:28It's beyond human understanding with respect to our own bodies
06:31and really is getting into that super car,
06:34something that we can only do with extreme mechanics.
06:38While race car top speeds are difficult to control,
06:42the cheetah has that sorted.
06:44When we're driving, we're in specially designed cars
06:46that are driving along specially designed roads and surfaces.
06:49I think it makes it even more incredible
06:51when you start to think about,
06:52they are specially designed for these uneven savannah surfaces.
06:55Most big cats, almost every cat retracts its claws.
06:58Cheetahs don't.
06:59Their claws are permanently un-retracted.
07:01It's similar to like soccer cleats where they're able to grip the ground better
07:05when they're running around.
07:06Having flat pads instead of puffy pads allow them to move faster.
07:11They have their tail, which among big cats is quite unique
07:15and being quite muscular and quite long.
07:18And they use this like a rudder, like a counterbalance.
07:20When you watch it run, the tail is flopping everywhere.
07:23And at first it looks random, but then you look a little closer
07:25and you realize every time it turns
07:27to catch this antelope that's juking in front of it,
07:30you know, the tail swings out.
07:31And it uses that to turn almost on a dime
07:34at these incredibly high speeds.
07:36And the cheetahs can de-accelerate even more quickly than they accelerate.
07:40Varying speeds quickly as they change direction
07:43to stay on the tail of their prey.
07:45Almost as if the cheetah were shifting from low to high gear.
07:50Thompson's gazelle will take off, but it's not going in a straight line.
07:53It's going to try and make a quick turn and have the cheetah overrun it
07:57so that it can't get back to it.
07:58So the cheetah has to be able to cut that corner as fast or faster
08:03than the Thompson's gazelle to catch it.
08:06When it comes to speed demons, no land animal can touch the cheetah.
08:11Fast, sleek and powerful.
08:13Able to accelerate, de-accelerate and corner in the blink of an eye.
08:17In every way, the race car of the savannah.
08:22But while the cheetah is the fastest animal on land,
08:26we only have to look to the sky to find the fastest animal on the planet.
08:31And anyone who has seen a peregrine falcon catch its prey
08:34knows why this creature has inspired such awe in engineers.
08:39Their diving speeds can surpass 320 kilometers an hour,
08:44and the aerobatics of these dives can boggle the mind.
08:47It's a very dramatic event.
08:49What you see is a flash and then a poof of feathers,
08:53and then the peregrine rapidly slows down and flies off.
08:56It may not be as massive or brutally forceful
08:59as some of its raptor cousins.
09:01But much like the cheetah,
09:02this creature is exclusively designed for speed.
09:06Compared to a lot of the birds of prey that we immediately think of,
09:09things like bald eagles,
09:10the peregrine falcon is really small.
09:12This bird of prey hunts by day.
09:15Where many of its fellow carnivorous raptors
09:17feast mainly on land and sea animals,
09:20the peregrine's diet is different.
09:23Studies of peregrine falcons found that up to 99% of their diet
09:27is made up of other birds.
09:29So peregrine falcons have evolved to take advantage
09:31of this very particular food source.
09:34Incredibly, the peregrine catches its dinner mid-flight.
09:37And given that its prey is also flying
09:39once the peregrine targets it from above,
09:42it requires a breakneck speed to pull off a bullseye.
09:48They dive from pretty high heights, even kilometers up,
09:51because of the fact that they use propagational navigation,
09:55similar to how missiles would operate with a target that they aim for.
09:59This allows the maximization of aerodynamic force,
10:03meaning that they're able to maneuver at a very high rate.
10:07In order to be able to pull off its spectacular moves,
10:10Evolution has gifted this falcon with special wings.
10:13The enlarged keel, or their breastbone,
10:17allows them to generate that power
10:18to flap those wings at incredible rates.
10:21The really enormous muscles that are attached to that keel
10:24are capable of really explosive movements.
10:27And that's really necessary.
10:29Just as it begins that stoop to just kind of get its momentum up,
10:33it will do these big flaps.
10:35And, of course, the shape of these wings is beneficial.
10:39Falcon wings of all kinds, and especially peregrine falcons,
10:43are instantly recognizable in a silhouette.
10:46And they look a lot like airplane wings.
10:47One was based on the other.
10:49And so that really stiff, pointed, bent wing
10:52allows them to just get a ton of lift in the air
10:56because of the way that the air will flow over that surface.
11:00Although the peregrine furiously flaps its wings just before a dive,
11:04once it stoops, its wings become remarkable in their lack of flapping.
11:08It's keeping its wings in tight.
11:11It's trying to keep itself compact, keeping its legs in tight,
11:14and then trying to stay as streamlined as it possibly can.
11:17The peregrine has extremely good vision and highly evolved eyes.
11:21It brings its faraway prey into its crosshairs,
11:25and then as it stoops, it remains on its collision course
11:28by tracking changes in its line of sight.
11:31If it visually charts any slight changes,
11:34the falcon turns at a rate proportional to the speed of that change.
11:38The prey is actually moving around,
11:39just like a jet would try and move away from another jet
11:43that's trying to hunt it down.
11:44The ability for the peregrine falcon to calculate those moves
11:47and be able to adjust at such speeds
11:50provides it with this advantage that no other bird has,
11:53and it makes it a pretty phenomenal predator.
11:56Being able to track its target on its descent
11:58requires some extremely fast visual processing.
12:02Luckily, the peregrine's eyes have some incredible adaptations
12:05to help with that.
12:06Their eyes can register changes at 160 frames per second.
12:11So animals really do have sensory systems
12:15that run at different speeds for what they need.
12:18Humans, our perception is about 30 frames a second.
12:21Birds operate at much higher speeds
12:24because if they don't have that processing speed,
12:28they're going to run into other things.
12:30They're not going to be able to adjust our prey,
12:32and the peregrine's at the highest end of that.
12:34In addition, evolution has bestowed it with a third eyelid,
12:38which lubricates its eye as it travels at such high speeds.
12:42They have this naticitating membrane
12:44that will close over their eye
12:46to protect the eyeballs from drying out,
12:48from objects flying into it.
12:50Beyond giving the peregrine its amazing eyes,
12:53nature has designed this speed demon's heart
12:55and respiratory system to be the perfect engine.
12:58The rate of the peregrine falcon's heartbeat
13:00is about 600 to 900 times per minute,
13:03and this allows them to increase that aerobic capacity,
13:06bringing in more oxygen to their lungs
13:08so that they can afford to use that energy
13:10when diving at high speeds.
13:12The peregrine's increased heart rate
13:14lets it flap its wings up to four times a second.
13:18In order to maintain its phenomenal breathing speed
13:21during flight, even the peregrine's nose
13:23has been adapted to maximum effect.
13:26They've developed these little nasal shields
13:29around their nostrils to just kind of disrupt the airflow.
13:32In fact, its nasal adaptation
13:34is being studied by jet aircraft engineers.
13:37When moving at supersonic speeds,
13:40a jet's engine can be choked by airflow.
13:43Could mimicking the design of the peregrine's nostrils
13:46be the answer?
13:48Even among human technological advancements,
13:51this would be an exceptionally advanced vehicle.
13:55And research on how it flies
13:57could contribute to new aircrafts,
13:59safety in the air,
14:01as well as enhanced aerodynamics and fuel efficiency.
14:04But well before humans made planes,
14:07they looked up to this creature for what was possible.
14:09And since at least Egyptian times,
14:11they knew it was the god of the skies.
14:14You know, we can move around the world
14:16in ways that we, you know, once only dreamed of.
14:19I think it is really interesting to note
14:20that we still can't do it as well
14:21as birds like the peregrine falcon.
14:23That's never to say that we won't be,
14:25and I think part of the way that we get there
14:26is just by learning from and observing these animals.
14:30While observing the cheetah and falcon
14:32teach us all there is to know about sprinting and diving,
14:35there are other ways in which humans yearn to be faster.
14:39For instance, speed is crucial to boxers.
14:42Most crucially, the speed of a boxer's punch
14:45will give the athlete an edge.
14:47If we want to compare ourselves to the fastest boxers
14:50in the animal kingdom, it might surprise us
14:53where we have to look.
14:54When we think of an animal that can cause a lot of damage,
14:59you rarely think of a shrimp.
15:01And then you come across a shrimp called the mantis shrimp.
15:04And this mantis shrimp is probably the Mike Tyson of shrimp.
15:09Some of them are incredibly beautiful and colorful,
15:12but they all pack a punch.
15:14When they are kept in aquariums,
15:17they are often in bulletproof tanks
15:19to prevent any damages that could happen to the aquarium in itself.
15:24Despite a typical length of 10 centimeters,
15:27this tiny creature packs a one-two punch like no other.
15:31With specialized hammer-like forelimbs,
15:33it can strike at speeds of 80 kilometers an hour.
15:37The same acceleration as a .22 caliber handgun,
15:42they can shoot their claws out to smash and beat on any mollusk
15:46or a large fish or octopus
15:48that comes across its territory or burrow.
15:50To be able to move your limb that fast in water,
15:54in salt water at that,
15:55which is even, you know, 750 times denser than air,
15:59moving at that speed provides you that advantage
16:02that will essentially make you become a successful predator.
16:04This prize fighter can smash the shell of its prey
16:08with about 150 kilograms of force.
16:12Remarkably, it wasn't until the early 2nd century
16:14that we began to understand what these blows were made of.
16:18For the longest time, we just had no ability
16:20to see the punches that were happening.
16:23We would see these mantis shrimp, you know, punch a shell
16:26and we would see the shell break apart.
16:28And, you know, we thought,
16:29wow, that must be a powerful punch.
16:31And it was only relatively recently
16:33that we had the high-speed cameras
16:35that could slow down that motion slow enough
16:38to recognize what's actually going on
16:41underneath the hood of these punches.
16:43It turns out it's all done
16:45with two small movements of each forelimb
16:47that together deliver four explosive blows to its prey.
16:51Now, the force of those club-like forearms hitting the prey
16:55has about 1,500 newtons force.
16:58Applying a force equivalent to lifting a 150 kilogram person,
17:02this is no small amount of force that it's able to generate.
17:05It's actually quite amazing that something so small
17:08can generate that kind of an impact.
17:11With a more than 250 million year history,
17:14we know little about how the mantis shrimp's mode of attack
17:17may have been adapted to shifts in its habitat and diet.
17:21What we do know is that it survived five extinction events,
17:25and its pugilistic advantage was likely part of the reason.
17:29And so for the mantis shrimp to have survived
17:31those five extinction events,
17:33including one that wiped out, you know,
17:3597% of marine life at the time,
17:37it's a testament to how perfected an organism the mantis shrimp is.
17:43The claws are not just for show,
17:44they're not just for setting records,
17:46they're for surviving,
17:47and they allow the mantis shrimp to do that very well.
17:49This little crustacean,
17:51who often goes after animals many times its size,
17:54strikes its victim with one claw
17:56and then the other in rapid succession.
17:59But what exactly is going on with the claw's one-two punch?
18:03When these animals punch,
18:05you can see that there is a latch mechanism that they unlock,
18:09and then it punches their prey.
18:10Unlike boxers,
18:12mantis don't use muscles to power their punch.
18:14Their claws are spring-loaded.
18:17Even more remarkably,
18:18this creature capitalizes on an underwater phenomenon
18:21known as cavitation.
18:2350% of the claw force lies inside the tiny bubbles
18:27created by a change in pressure brought on by the initial blow.
18:31Their force can be divided into two parts.
18:3350% of it is from the blow of their appendages,
18:36and 50% of it is from the cavitation bubbles imploding.
18:40The cavitation bubbles,
18:41they're formed by a decrease of pressure in the water,
18:44and when they do burst,
18:46they release a huge amount of energy.
18:49Anything that's in that way would be stunned
18:51by that imploding bubble.
18:53Cavitation is something marine mechanics are very familiar with.
18:57When a propeller or a high-speed object moves in water,
19:01it can move so fast that the water can't backfill the space
19:05that it's moving out of.
19:07And it's actually creating a vacuum,
19:08and what you're seeing behind that when you see bubbles
19:11are cavitation bubbles,
19:12and they'll usually disappear very rapidly behind that object.
19:15And the crazy thing about cavitation bubbles is when they collapse,
19:19they release an immense amount of energy.
19:21It's actually almost like an explosion.
19:23So if we take ship's propellers,
19:26and we don't design them correctly,
19:27and they start cavitating,
19:29every one of those little collapsing cavitation bubbles
19:32will actually erode the metal off the surface of the propeller.
19:36So we can have hardened steel propellers
19:39that actually get destroyed by cavitation.
19:42The fact that the shrimp is using a mechanism
19:46that has the ability to destroy some of the hardest materials
19:50we have as mankind on its prey is pretty amazing.
19:53Like, these are pretty devastating attacks.
19:56The mantis shrimp's appendages have been specifically designed
19:59by evolution to withstand the crushing force of their blows.
20:03They are made up of three layers of material.
20:06The first two are hydroxypeptide,
20:09similar to the mineral found in hair, teeth, and shells.
20:12One is hard, and the other soft.
20:15The first layer is the hard, rigid, crystalline one,
20:18ensuring the force of the blow is delivered to the target
20:21and not absorbed by the shrimp's clubs.
20:23The second layer after that
20:25is actually a bit of a more spongy, softer layer
20:28that's arranged in almost like a helix and spiral form
20:32that are layers that are rotated slightly.
20:34So if it were to break, it would just break in part and not wholly.
20:38The last layer is made of chitness fibers
20:40and prevents the first from unwanted expansion on impact.
20:44It has been likened to the tape boxers use to wrap their hands with
20:47before putting their gloves on.
20:49It provides support and prevents swelling.
20:51Despite all this, these bruisers do get damaged,
20:54but nature has another backup in the name molting.
20:58Just like any other crustacean, as the mantis strip grows,
21:02any damage to the exoselotin on those appendages will regrow
21:07as that exoselotin is shed and all of a sudden you have a new pair
21:11of appendages that are brand new and ready to strike.
21:14Given that the mantis shrimp spends most of its time
21:17hiding in little crevices and reef pockets,
21:19it's not surprising that we're only beginning to get acquainted
21:22with this tiny fighting machine.
21:25But as a world champion of fast punches,
21:28we can be sure it will continue to surprise us.
21:31If you look at life in the ocean,
21:32we actually know more about space than we do about ocean.
21:35We probably know less than 1% of the animals in the ocean.
21:38We know very little about the mantis shrimp,
21:40and a lot of times it's because of its elusiveness.
21:43It doesn't really come out to play very often.
21:45We're just starting to really understand this type of species.
21:49While the mantis shrimp took more than 250 million years
21:53to evolve into its current state,
21:55there's another tiny creature whose evolution into a speed demon
21:58took only a fraction of the time.
22:01That creature is the hummingbird.
22:04Tiny, charming, iridescently colored,
22:07and the only invertebrate that can hover continuously in still air.
22:12They seem to do this effortlessly,
22:13yet we know that hovering is the most energy-consuming
22:17of all modes of flight.
22:19I love hummingbirds.
22:20It's one of those creatures that we're like,
22:22aw, a hummingbird.
22:24But they're living this extreme life
22:27continuously on a metabolic edge.
22:31They're always at the risk of complete breakdown and combustion
22:35because they expend so much energy.
22:38Their wings beat faster than any other species
22:40in the animal kingdom, up to 80 times a second.
22:43And they also hold the title for world's fastest metabolism.
22:47They subsist mostly on nectar, sometimes insects as well.
22:51But they need to feed almost continuously.
22:54It depends on the species, but at least every 30 minutes,
22:57sometimes up to five times an hour,
22:59they need to be feeding or else they'll drop out of the sky.
23:01They need an extremely dense energy source to continuously output this energy.
23:06And that's what nectar is.
23:08They're essentially drinking pure sugar almost continuously throughout the day.
23:13It's no wonder that one of the many things scientists look to hummingbirds for
23:17are clues about metabolic diseases such as obesity and diabetes.
23:22Their blood sugar levels would be lethal to us,
23:25yet don't cause them any biological downsides.
23:28They're a sugar-driven battery.
23:29But it's what they do with that energy that's truly astounding.
23:33What hummingbirds are able to do in their maneuverability in flight
23:36is unlike any invention that we've created.
23:38They're the only bird that can fly backwards.
23:41Hummingbirds also fly forwards, sideways, and straight up,
23:45requiring them to generate thrust and torques unlike any other bird.
23:50And they can reach top speeds of 60 miles per hour.
23:54When you watch them approach a flower,
23:56they'll actually come up to it, stop in front of it, fly in,
24:00you know, sip the nectar from the flower,
24:02and then back straight out and then fly away.
24:05Really neat maneuverability.
24:06Incredible speed for such a small bird.
24:09The bursts of horizontal flight speed are absolutely amazing.
24:13I mean, they can essentially be in one spot
24:16and then disappear almost instantaneously in horizontal flight.
24:20We've created amazing flying machines.
24:23They incorporate a lot of the amazing features that hummingbirds have.
24:26Nothing that we've created can do every single thing that a hummingbird can do.
24:30One of the secrets to this feathered pilot's success
24:32is that it has adapted the use of its shoulder joint for flight.
24:36If you look closely at the hummingbirds' wings,
24:39their shoulder joint allows them to invert their wings 180 degrees.
24:42So it almost looks like a figure eight motion when they are flying.
24:46We've spent a lot of time as engineers and scientists
24:48looking at birds for inspiration on how to build
24:51especially vertical takeoff and landing aircraft.
24:55I mean, we would really love to get away from 10,000 foot runways
24:59and be able to land high speed aircraft on the beach in Jamaica
25:03rather than having to go airport to airport.
25:06This would be awesome.
25:07The hummingbird has that technology.
25:09It can take off vertically, fly at extreme speeds horizontally
25:14and then land straight back down without having to have a runway.
25:19And it's that ability of its muscles and its shoulder
25:22to build different patterns for the wing movement
25:27that gives rise to the lift that it needs.
25:29Birds in general have a lot less muscles than mammals
25:33or a lot of other organisms because they need to fly.
25:37So their bones are lighter, they have less muscles
25:39because they need to have at least weight as possible.
25:41For most birds, the percent of kind of muscle mass in their body
25:44is around, you know, 15%.
25:46And for hummingbirds, it's almost double that.
25:48It's like the mighty mouse of birds.
25:51To be able to have the capacity to beat your wings that fast,
25:56to be able to maneuver your wings in a figure eight motion,
26:00you have to have the muscle capacity to do that.
26:03And their muscle pretty much takes up about 20 to 30% of their body.
26:08A 20-gram hummingbird with a wingspan of 30 centimeters
26:11requires about 130 watts per kilogram to hover.
26:15And fortunately, it has a big heart to help with the job.
26:19They have these massive hearts relative to their body size.
26:21Up to 2% of their body weight is their heart.
26:25And it's incredible and absolutely necessary
26:28to pump blood through this animal as it's going
26:30and for the rest of it to sustain and allow
26:34this incredible range of motion and speed of motion.
26:38The hummingbird's huge heart is proportionally larger
26:41than any other birds.
26:42And by comparison, it's about four and a half times larger
26:46than an adult human's.
26:48The heart rate of the hummingbird usually sits
26:49around 500 beats per minute,
26:51which is insanely high relative to human heart beating
26:55at 60 or 80, you know, on average.
26:58Even more insane is that this bird's normal heart rate
27:01of 500 BPM can increase to 1,260 BPM during flight.
27:07It has the fastest beating heart of any bird in the animal kingdom.
27:121260 beats per minute.
27:14I mean, it's just such an amazing thing.
27:17I mean, we're getting into the automotive engines
27:20of the animal kingdom.
27:22Our cars turn, you know, thousands of RPM.
27:26Essentially, the hummingbird's heart is now into that
27:29mechanical system kind of range.
27:31So it's more identifiable to me as an engineer as being
27:34on something in the realms of mechanics rather than biology.
27:38Elite athletes hit maybe 200 beats per minute.
27:42So, you know, in flight, these are easily six, seven times
27:46the maximum rate of the human heartbeat.
27:49And even 200 times in a human is, it's extreme.
27:53It can only be maintained for very short periods of time.
27:58Whereas these hummingbirds are doing it all day long
28:00and during flight.
28:01So pretty amazing.
28:02Working in tandem with its fast heart rate
28:05is a turbo respiratory system.
28:07While our resting breathing rate is about six to ten
28:10breaths a minute, theirs is 250.
28:14Imagine trying to take 250 breaths in a minute.
28:16It's just not even possible for us as humans.
28:19It's almost beyond comprehension that something can expand
28:22and contract its lungs that quickly.
28:24And during flight, their breath rate can increase
28:26to 400 times a minute.
28:29That dramatic increase just shows that they need
28:31a lot of oxygen to enter their body,
28:34to move through their muscles, to their organs,
28:36to have that energy.
28:38Comparatively, elite athletes can consume
28:40four millilitres of oxygen per gram of body weight per hour.
28:44A hummingbird can easily consume ten times that amount,
28:48despite only being a fraction of our size.
28:52Hummingbirds are putting out insane amounts of energy,
28:56and they're also warm-blooded creatures.
28:59Warm-blooded creatures, like birds and mammals,
29:03need to maintain a constant body temperature.
29:06And hummingbirds are on such a metabolic knife edge
29:09that often they can't even last overnight without feeding.
29:12So, while the sun is set,
29:15and hummingbirds have to take a hiatus from feeding,
29:18they will often go into a torpor.
29:19A torpor is like a mini hibernation.
29:22Your heart rate slows down,
29:24their body temperature drops,
29:26and they just decrease energy to a lot of their main systems.
29:30It's like sleep times 100.
29:32And they'll allow their heart rate to slow down to,
29:35you know, around 50 beats per minute.
29:37They'll allow their body temperature to go from being 35 degrees
29:41to drop all the way down to 17,
29:44or whatever the surrounding night air is.
29:48Given its ferocious metabolism
29:50and the need to supersleep
29:52when it can't refuel several times an hour,
29:54one might think this little flying machine can't do long hauls.
29:58Ruby-throated hummingbirds will fly
30:01in a single shot over the Gulf of Mexico regularly,
30:06twice a year on their spring and fall migrations.
30:09And there's no recourse.
30:10If you're in the middle of a Gulf of Mexico and you get tired,
30:13there's nowhere to stop and rest.
30:14They do this in one shot.
30:15Think about a hummingbird flying over the Gulf of Mexico,
30:18and it really puts it in perspective.
30:21Again, it counts on its sugar diet
30:23and some metabolic gymnastics to pull this off.
30:26They'll almost double their body weight before migration.
30:29So, I mean, we think of this sugar
30:31as being something that's, like, easy come, easy go metabolically.
30:34They manage to put on a lot of it
30:36and then just empowers one flight.
30:38In a way, this highly advanced sugar battery
30:41is just getting started.
30:43The hummingbird is only 22 million years old,
30:46which is young in evolutionary terms.
30:48Often we think that when a species speciates,
30:52it's because it's found a niche in the environment to exploit.
30:55And it appears, like, for the hummingbirds,
30:58that this is a successful strategy
31:00to go after this nectar and the flowers.
31:02They have relatively little competition
31:04from other birds for their food,
31:05and many flowers are reserved exclusively for hummingbirds.
31:09Flowers and hummingbirds have evolved together
31:13in these really specific ways.
31:15So the ability to hover in midair while you're feeding
31:19underneath a drooping columbine or trumpet vine flower
31:23is important.
31:24And those flowers also depend on those hummingbirds
31:26being able to do that
31:27because not a lot of other pollinators
31:29are able to hover in that way.
31:31So it's amazing that, you know,
31:33this kind of evolutionary dance
31:35between flowers and hummingbirds
31:37has evolved to create just such an incredible creature.
31:39Currently, there are 338 species
31:42of this spectacular little bird.
31:45Luckily for us,
31:46it looks like we'll have many more in the future.
31:48A few different groups of species
31:49often have these rapid diversification events,
31:52and it appears like hummingbirds
31:53are in the midst of one of those as well.
31:55Often that indicates that they've struck upon
31:57a really great strategy for success.
32:01The hummingbird is undoubtedly a speed demon
32:04in its own unique way.
32:06But back in the ocean,
32:07it's the dolphin that rules its realm as king of speed.
32:11It just looks like a docile animal
32:13that look like they have this beautiful smile all the time.
32:17And when you watch them going alongside a boat,
32:20it's probably one of the most beautiful sights,
32:22but the speed that they can actually go
32:24shows how much of a great predator they are.
32:27Most people associate apex predators
32:29with animals that are ferocious, very sharp teeth,
32:32but dolphins still have that role
32:34in addition to killer whales or orcas,
32:36which are technically in the same grouping as dolphins.
32:39They're really designed as amazing hunters.
32:41They're built to achieve exceptional velocities
32:44and be able to chase down relatively large fish.
32:48Dolphins will kill smaller sharks.
32:50There's nothing higher in the food chain in the ocean
32:54than the dolphin family.
32:56The dolphin's apex rating is tied to its swimming speed,
32:59which can be as high as 40 kilometers an hour.
33:02While this may not sound supercharged,
33:04it is when you consider that water is 750 times denser than air.
33:10Using its tail and flippers,
33:12the dolphin accelerates on the downstroke
33:14and deaccelerates on the upstroke.
33:16As it flaps its tail up and down,
33:19it generates forces like an aircraft,
33:21but also generates mass forces as it accelerates the fluid around it.
33:25The trick to achieving its impressive swim speeds
33:28lies in how it calibrates its force with the water's resistance.
33:31If you've ever been on a slow-moving boat and looked out the back,
33:35you'll see that the water behind the boat's all turned and mixed up.
33:39And if you've been on a racing sailboat and you looked out the back
33:42and it's like there's no wake behind this boat,
33:45this boat is cutting through this water perfectly smoothly.
33:47And that's because the big, heavy boat
33:50is not really designed to reduce that wake,
33:53and it's wasting a lot of energy.
33:55It's displacing a lot of water.
33:57Whereas the sailboat that has no wake
33:59is moving through the water very efficiently.
34:02Like the sailboat,
34:03the dolphin is designed for maximum efficiency
34:06at cutting through water.
34:08In fact, at the height of the Cold War,
34:10both the Americans and the Soviets
34:12were studying these creatures' efficiencies
34:14as they designed submarines and missiles.
34:17Surprisingly, what they found most responsible
34:19was the dolphin's burst and glide method of swimming,
34:22called porpoising.
34:24Despite the name,
34:25porpoising is used by dolphins, porpoises,
34:28and even other air-breathing marine species like penguins.
34:31It's used when these animals are swimming at high speed
34:34and refers to the particular way they emerge for air
34:37and then plunge back down.
34:39When dolphins jump out of the water,
34:41the air actually has a lower amount of drag in it,
34:45which allows them to gain a higher amount of speed.
34:47And as they jump back into the water,
34:48they are then able to coast and then slow down
34:51and then repeat the entire cycle,
34:53while reducing the amount of energy they need
34:55to be able to swim in the water.
34:57When the dolphin is traveling at lower,
34:59more leisurely speeds,
35:0016 kilometers an hour or lower,
35:02it doesn't need to porpoise.
35:04It simply cruises below the surface,
35:06and when it needs air,
35:08emerges only enough to briefly expose its blowhole.
35:11So no more than a third of its body emerges,
35:14which minimizes splashing and therefore resistance.
35:17But when the dolphin hits faster speeds,
35:20higher than 16 kilometers,
35:22porpoising becomes more beneficial.
35:24When you're coming out of a medium
35:26that's 750 times more viscous than the air,
35:31you're going to gain some speed as you're jumping out.
35:33And as you come back down,
35:35you're gaining some speed just through gravity
35:37so that you don't lose as much momentum
35:40swimming through the water.
35:41And then you can maintain that speed
35:43with a couple of beats with the tail,
35:45and then go back up again to get that breath.
35:47Ironically, one can see this special acceleration method
35:50as the dolphin overcoming an evolutionary handicap.
35:53One of the things about dolphins
35:55that differentiates them from fish species
35:57and from sharks is that
35:59they have to come to the surface to breathe.
36:01So dolphins can't maintain very high velocities
36:05for a long time underwater.
36:07They have to stay near the surface where they can breathe.
36:10And one of the problems with that
36:12is that traveling in mixed phase,
36:16so half in water and half in air is not easy.
36:18So that evolutionary process
36:21has basically turned that dolphin
36:23into the ideal hydrodynamic design.
36:27Before mastering its way of sprint swimming,
36:30the dolphin had already evolved the perfect silhouette.
36:33The crescent shape of its flippers, dorsal fin and tail
36:36also reduced drag and maximized lift.
36:39And the fusiform shape of its body
36:41is also inherently efficient.
36:43Your biggest enemy for speed underwater is drag.
36:47And so dolphins are built with that tapering
36:50at the front end and at the back end
36:51so that the water will move quickly over them
36:54as they move through it.
36:55Their outer skin is very aerodynamic.
36:58It's very smooth.
36:59The front of their body, their face, their head
37:01is very aerodynamic.
37:02Everything's curved.
37:04It's built for speed.
37:05It's built to move through a tough medium
37:07at a very high speed.
37:09One might think its shape could be a hindrance
37:11if the dolphin needs to go deep.
37:13But evolution has provided a loophole.
37:16When dolphins dive in deep waters,
37:18they've actually found that they're able
37:20to fully collapse their lungs,
37:22which decreases the buoyancy
37:24and decreases their mass
37:25while being able to dive underwater
37:28without having to really put a lot of work into it.
37:31The fact that dolphins are air breathers
37:33points to another remarkable feature
37:35of their evolution.
37:36Millions of years ago,
37:37they were an animal that moved from land to the sea.
37:39And from an evolutionary perspective,
37:41dolphins are more related to the hippopotamus
37:45than they are to any animal in the ocean.
37:48It took about 5 to 10 million years
37:51for dolphins to adapt from terrestrial creatures
37:53to fully aquatic.
37:56Many evolutionary tweaks contributed to them
37:58being champion swimmers.
38:01For example, along the way,
38:03they lost their hind limbs.
38:04And they also lost most of their hair,
38:07which again would have contributed
38:09to resistance underwater.
38:11Common knowledge would assume
38:12that life started in the ocean
38:14and moved on to the land.
38:15However, this case just proves
38:16that the dolphin moved from land
38:19back into the water
38:20and is able to monopolize that environment
38:22to their own suiting
38:23and become apex predators
38:25and are successful hunters to this day.
38:27More than any other
38:28of the dolphins' evolutionary adaptations,
38:30the fact that it came from land
38:33is probably the one that most defies our expectations.
38:36It gives us one more reason
38:38to justify the deep connection we feel to it.
38:42Another creature that defies our expectations
38:44as a speed demon is a tiny woodland bird.
38:48Nicknamed the headbanger of the animal kingdom
38:51or nature's construction worker,
38:53we often hear the woodpecker banging away
38:55well before we see it.
38:57This little bird can hammer its beak into tree bark
39:00at an astonishing rate of 20 times per second.
39:04There is very little a human being can do
39:06at the speed that a woodpecker pecks.
39:09And what's amazing is that they do this a lot
39:11continuously throughout the day.
39:12They peck a staggering 8,000 to 12,000 times a day.
39:16But they use it for multiple reasons.
39:18They'll use it for warding off predators,
39:20they'll use it to attract mates,
39:23and they'll also use it to establish territory.
39:25But above all, they peck for food,
39:27extracting insects beneath the bark
39:29they pulverize with their beaks.
39:31It is a unique adaptation they have evolved
39:33to gain advantage with their food of choice.
39:36And it frees them up from having to compete
39:38for bugs and worms on the ground.
39:40The woodpecker is another example
39:42of monopolizing a specific niche in their environment
39:45since there's no competition,
39:46they're the only species that are able to do this,
39:49meaning that they are the only competitions within themselves.
39:52Over their 25 million years of evolution,
39:55a symbiotic relationship has developed
39:57between this bird and its environment.
40:00Many of the bugs it eats, such as beetles,
40:03can cause disease to trees.
40:05So they also create this ecological balance
40:07between trees and their predators.
40:09So healthy forests really rely on woodpeckers for that reason,
40:13because without them beetle infestations
40:15would be transmitted much more quickly.
40:17And a lot of trees would die.
40:18You can consider them keystone species in their own right.
40:21It's just kind of sad that they don't really get the respect
40:23that they deserve for keeping everything in balance.
40:27The first line of defense for this chipper is its beak,
40:30which evolution has finessed to withstand so much percussion.
40:34It has a number of different layers on its beak.
40:37The first layer is a keratin sheath that's in a zigzag pattern.
40:41And so instead of a straight pattern
40:42that an average bird would have,
40:44this sheath allows it to take that absorption of impact.
40:48The zigzags disperse force more than a straight line pattern could.
40:53And underneath this sheath is a more porous form-like layer,
40:56which also helps with shock absorption.
40:59This is crucial, because of course, along with speed,
41:03the beak is also using incredible force.
41:05And while the special design of the beak keeps it intact,
41:08the woodpecker needs additional design features to protect what's inside.
41:13I can't even wrap my head around the amount of biological design
41:19that goes into protecting that poor little woodpecker's brain
41:22from, you know, a continuous concussion all day long.
41:26There's significant g-forces at play here.
41:28For the woodpecker, each of its turbo-accelerated pecs
41:31can generate up to 1,200 g's.
41:34Brains are relatively fragile things and we really can't take impacts.
41:38When we get an impact to our head,
41:39it's going to cause trauma and a concussion
41:42and maybe internal bleeding and hematomas and even death.
41:46And, you know, humans can stand maybe six to 100 g's
41:51in severe impacts and not sustain injuries.
41:54Another incredible aspect of the woodpecker's skull
41:57is the tongue within it.
41:59Once they've chiseled away at a tree,
42:01they're not, you know, using the bill to extract the insects
42:05that they're finding.
42:06They lick them out of the holes that they've created with their tongue.
42:09And their tongues are incredibly long and flexible.
42:11And so it is a quirk of the woodpecker physiology
42:15whereby their tongue will kind of...
42:17It has this retractive quality.
42:20Imagine a retractive tape measure.
42:22Amazingly, the structure that tongue retracts around
42:24is the hyoid bone.
42:26And it is the master stroke of design
42:29behind the woodpecker's toughness.
42:31So first you have the beak, then you have this hyoid bone
42:33that actually starts in the nose
42:36and then it goes up across the head,
42:38but it divides around the head and goes down the body.
42:40So that impact, that force,
42:42doesn't actually go into the brain encasing.
42:44It goes across the head and then down through the body to be absorbed.
42:47The U-shaped hyoid bone is itself not unusual.
42:51It can be found in many birds, fish and mammals
42:54and is thought to have been important in human development of speech.
42:58But in the woodpecker, this flexible bone is much more extensive
43:02and acts almost like a helmet and a seatbelt in one.
43:06And it's like a cushion that allows them to sustain the force.
43:09In addition, they have spongy muscle that surrounds their brain as well.
43:13So all of those cushioning together allows this bird
43:16to be able to sustain those blows.
43:18The extremely specialized hyoid bone,
43:21with a little help from the tongue and the brain muscle,
43:24redistributes the pecking shock throughout the body,
43:26thereby absorbing 99% of the beak's force.
43:30It's kind of like an airbag for the brain, if you would.
43:34The G-forces that we're talking about here
43:36would basically turn our brain to scrambled eggs.
43:40The woodpecker's got a system that says,
43:42I'm not going to let this brain get damaged.
43:44I'm going to dissipate that by moving it back through the body
43:47and dissipating it in the larger mass of the bird's body.
43:50So, utilizing what the woodpecker has biologically evolved
43:55to better understand how we can protect ourselves,
44:00whether it be in helmets for sport or auto racing or what have you,
44:05really great inspiration and a really great way
44:07to look for biology for ways that we can be innovative
44:11with materials and design.
44:13Human beings have always had an obsession with speed.
44:16We have always looked with wonder to the speed demons of the animal kingdom,
44:21from the woodpecker to the dolphin to the cheetah.
44:24If we're lucky, they can even reveal ways in which we can achieve
44:28and withstand higher velocities ourselves.
44:31But even when they remain out of reach,
44:33they give us images to race towards.
44:36It's really what we want to do as engineers is,
44:39we can only go so far, we imagine a lot of stuff,
44:42but nature has had millions of years to evolve systems
44:46which are so novel and so elegant
44:50that it makes so much sense for us to look to them for the inspirations
44:55to solve technological problems that exist today.
45:00Thank you guys.
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