Biomimetic Design Reading Answers

Dec 5, 2022

Biomimetic Design Reading Answers contains eight passages and 13 different types of questions. Candidates will be shown various question types with clear instructions in this IELTS Section. Reading Answers comprises three types of questions: Matching heading, sentence completion, and Choose the correct option. For the Matching heading, candidates need to thoroughly go through each passage. For sentence completion, candidates need to skim the passage for keywords and understand the concept. To choose the correct option, candidates must read the IELTS Reading passage and understand the statement provided.

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Reading Passage Question

What has fins like a whale, skin like a lizard, and eyes like a moth? The future of engineering. Andrew Parker, an evolutionary biologist, knelt in the baking red sand of the Australian outback just south of Alice Springs and eased the right hind leg of a thorny devil into a dish of water. “Its back is completely drenched!” Sure enough, after 30 seconds, water from the dish had picked up the lizard’s leg and was glistening all over its prickly hide. In a few seconds, more water reached its mouth, and the lizard began to smack its jaws with evident satisfaction. It was, in essence, drinking through its foot. Given more time, the thorny devil can perform this same conjuring trick on a patch of damp sand – a vital competitive advantage in the desert. Parker had come here to discover precisely how it does this, not from purely biological interest, but with a concrete purpose in mind: to make a thorny-devil-inspired device that will help people collect life saving water in the desert. “The water’s spreading out incredibly fast!” he said, as drops from his eyedropper fell onto the lizard’s back and vanished, like magic. “Its skin is far more hydrophobic than I thought. There may well be hidden capillaries, channeling the water into the mouth.”
Parker’s work is only a small part of an increasingly vigorous, global biomimetics movement. Engineers in Bath, England, and West Chester, Pennsylvania, are pondering the bumps on the leading edges of humpback whale flukes to learn how to make aero plane wings for more agile flight. In Berlin, Germany, the fingerlike primary feathers of raptors are inspiring engineers to develop wings that change shape aloft to reduce drag and increase fuel efficiency. Architects in Zimbabwe are studying how termites regulate temperature, humidity, and airflow in their mounds in order to build more comfortable buildings, while Japanese medical researchers are reducing the pain of an injection by using hypodermic needles edged with tiny serrations, like those on a mosquito’s proboscis, minimizing nerve stimulation.
Ronald Fearing, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, has taken on one of the biggest challenges of all: to create a miniature robotic fly that is swift, small, and maneuverable enough for use in surveillance or search-and-rescue operations. Fearing made his own, one of which he held up with tweezers for me to see, a gossamer wand some 11 millimeters long and not much thicker than a cat’s whisker. Fearing has been forced to manufacture many of the other minute components of his fly in the same way, using a micromachining laser and a rapid prototyping system that allows him to design his minuscule parts in a computer, automatically cut and cure them overnight, and assemble them by hand the next day under a microscope.
With the micro laser, he cuts the fly’s wings out of a two-micron polyester sheet so delicate that it crumples if you breathe on it and must be reinforced with carbon-fibre spars. The wings on his current model flap at 275 times per second – faster than the insect’s own wings – and make the blowfly’s signature buzz. “Carbon fibre outperforms fly chitin,” he said, with a trace of self-satisfaction. He pointed out a protective plastic box on the lab bench, which contained the fly-bot itself, a delicate, origami-like framework of black carbon-fibre struts and hair-like wires that, not surprisingly, looks nothing like a real fly. A month later it achieved liftoff in a controlled flight on a boom. Fearing expects the fly-bot to hover in two or three years, and eventually to bank and dive with fly-like virtuosity.
Stanford University roboticist Mark Cutkosky designed a gecko-insured climber that he christened Stickybot. In reality, gecko feet aren’t sticky – they’re dry and smooth to the touch – and owe their remarkable adhesion to some two billion spatula-tipped filaments per square centimetre on their toe pads, each filament only a hundred nanometers thick. These filaments are so small, in fact, that they interact at the molecular level with the surface on which the gecko walks, tapping into the low-level van der Waals forces generated by molecules’ fleeting positive and negative charges, which pull any two adjacent objects together. To make the toe pads for Stickybot, Cutkosky and doctoral student Sangbae Kim, the robot’s lead designer, produced a urethane fabric with tiny bristles that end in 30-micrometre points. Though not as flexible or adherent as the gecko itself, they hold the 500-gram robot on a vertical surface.
Cutkosky endowed his robot with seven-segment toes that drag and release just like the lizard’s, and a gecko-like stride that snugs it to the wall. He also crafted Stickybot’s legs and feet with a process he calls shape deposition manufacturing (SDM), which combines a range of metals, polymers, and fabrics to create the same smooth gradation from stiff to flexible that is present in the lizard’s limbs and absent in most man-made materials. SDM also allows him to embed actuators, sensors, and other specialized structures that make Stickybot climb better. Then he noticed in a paper on gecko anatomy that the lizard had to branch tendons to distribute its weight evenly across the entire surface of its toes. Eureka.``When I saw that, I thought, wow, that’s great!” He subsequently embedded a branching polyester cloth “tendon” in his robot’s limbs to distribute its load in the same way.
Stickybot now walks up vertical surfaces of glass, plastic, and glazed ceramic tile, though it will be some time before it can keep up with a gecko. For the moment it can walk only on smooth surfaces, at a mere four centimetres per second, a fraction of the speed of its biological role model. The dry adhesive on Stickybot‘s toes isn’t self-cleaning like the lizard’s either, so it rapidly clogs with dirt. “There are a lot of things about the gecko that we simply had to ignore,” Cutkosky says. Still, a number of real-world applications are in the offing. The Department of Defense’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which funds the project, has it in mind for surveillance: an automaton that could slink up a building and perch there for hours or days, monitoring the terrain below. Cutkosky hypothesizes a range of civilian uses. “I’m trying to get robots to go places where they’ve never gone before,” he told me. “I would like to see Stickybot have a real-world function, whether it’s a toy or another application. Sure, it would be great if it eventually has lifesaving or humanitarian role…”
For all the power of the biomimetics paradigm, and the brilliant people who practice it, bio-inspiration has led to surprisingly few mass-produced products and arguably only one household word – Velcro, which was invented in 1948 by Swiss chemist George de Mestral, by copying the way cockleburs clung to his dog’s coat. In addition to Cutkosky‘s lab, five other high-powered research teams are currently trying to mimic gecko adhesion, and so far none has come close to matching the lizard’s strong, directional, self-cleaning grip. Likewise, scientists have yet to meaningfully re-create the abalone nanostructure that accounts for the strength of its shell, and several well-funded biotech companies have gone bankrupt trying to make artificial spider silk.

Solution and Explanation

Questions 1-7

Do the following statements agree with the information given in the Reading Passage?
In boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE - if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE- if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN - if there is no information on this

1) Andrew Parker failed to make an effective water device, which can be used in the desert.
2) Skin of lizards is easy to get wet when it contacts water.
3) Scientists apply inspiration from nature into many artificial engineering.
4) Tiny and thin hair under gecko’s feet allows it to stick to the surface of the object.
5) When a gecko climbs downward, its feet release a certain kind of chemical to make them adhesive.
6) Famous cases stimulate a large number of successful products of biomimetic in real life.
7) Velcro is well known for its bionics design.

Question 1.

Answer: Not Given
Explanation: No relevant information was found in the reading passage given above.

Question 2.

Answer: False
Supporting Sentence: “The water’s spreading out incredibly fast!” he said, as drops from his eyedropper fell onto the lizard’s back and vanished, like magic. “Its skin is far more hydrophobic than I thought.
Keywords: lizard’s back, vanished, hydrophobic
Keyword Location: section A, 13th line.
Explanation: The lizard's skin absorbs the water when it comes in contact with it, not getting wet. The skin's absorbed water was directed toward the mouth.

Question 3.

Answer: True
Supporting Sentence: Ronald Fearing, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, has taken on one of the biggest challenges of all: to create a miniature robotic fly that is swift, small, and maneuverable enough for use in surveillance or search-and-rescue operations.
Keywords: Electrical engineering, robotic fly, surveillance or search and rescue operations.
Keyword Location: Section C, 1st sentence.
Explanation: A tiny robotic fly is what engineers hope to build. This concept relates to how nature created things for surveillance or search and recovery missions.

Question 4.

Answer: False
Supporting Sentence: In reality, gecko feet aren’t sticky – they’re dry and smooth to the touch – and owe their remarkable adhesion to some two billion spatula-tipped filaments per square centimeter on their toe pads, each filament only a hundred nanometers thick.
Keywords: Gecko, sticky, smooth
Keyword Location: Section E, 3rd and 4th line
Explanation: Gecko feet are actually dry as well as smooth to the touch; they are not sticky.

Question 5.

Answer: Not Given
Supporting Sentence: Cutkosky endowed his robot with seven-segment toes that drag and release just like the lizard, and a gecko-like stride that snugs it to the wall.
Keywords: seven-segmented toes, drag, release, wall
Keyword Location: Section F, 2nd line.
Explanation: There is no indication in this line that chemicals are released when it is attached to the wall.

Question 6.

Answer: False
Supporting Sentence: All the power of the biomimetics paradigm, and the brilliant people who practice it, bio-inspiration has led surprisingly few mass-produced products
Keywords: biomimetics, bio-inspiration, mass-produced products.
Keyword Location: Section H, 1st and 2nd line.
Explanation: The success of many successful products was not sparked by well-known cases, but rather by bio-inspiration.

Question 7.

Answer: True
Supporting Sentence: In addition to Cutkosky‘s lab, five other high-powered research teams are currently trying to mimic gecko adhesion, and so far none has come close to matching the lizard’s strong, directional, self-cleaning grip.
Keywords: mimic, adhesion, matching.
Keyword Location: Section H, 8th and 9th line.
Explanation: The purpose of Velcro is to imitate the gecko's adhesion.

Questions 8-10:
Filling the blanks below.

Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each question of robot below.

Ronald Fearing was required to fabricate tiny components for his robotic fly 8)……………………by specialized techniques. The robotic fly’s main structure outside is made of 9) …………………… and long and thin wires which make it unlike a fly at all. Cutkosky applied an artificial material in Stickybot 10) …………………… as a tendon to split pressure like a lizard does.

Question 8.

Answer: the same way
Supporting Sentence: Fearing has been forced to manufacture many of the other minute components of his fly in the same way, using a micromachining laser and a rapid prototyping system that allows him to design his minuscule parts in a computer, automatically cut and cure them overnight, and assemble them by hand the next day under a microscope.
Keywords: components, same way.
Keyword Location: Section C, 10th line.
Explanation: Ronald Fearing was compelled to use a micromachining laser as well as a fast prototyping technique to create a number of tiny parts for his fly.

Question 9.

Answer: carbon-fiber
Supporting Sentence: “Carbon fiber outperforms fly chitin,” he said, with a trace of self-satisfaction. With the micro laser he cuts the fly’s wings out of a two-micron polyester sheet so delicate that it crumples if you breathe on it and must be reinforced with carbon-fiber spars.
Keywords: carbon fiber
Keyword Location: Section D, 3rd and 6th line.
Explanation: As stated in paragraph D, Fearing uses a micro laser to cut the fly's wing from a sheet of two-micron polyester. Even our breath might cause it to crease because it is so sensitive. Spars made of carbon fiber serve as reinforcement.

Question 10.

Answer: limbs/legs and feet
Supporting Sentence: He also crafted Stickybot’s legs and feet with a process he calls shape deposition manufacturing (SDM).
Keywords: crafted, legs and feet.
Keyword Location: Section F, 4th line.
Explanation: This sentence describes the construction of stickybot's legs and feet. He accomplishes this using a technique known as shape deposition fabrication. Various metals, polymers, and textiles are combined in it.

Questions 11-13:
Fill the blanks below.
Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer about facts of stickybot.

Stickybot’s feet don’t have 11) …………………… function,which makes it only able to walk on smooth surfaces. DARPA is planning to use stickybot for 12) …………… Cutkosky assumes that stickybot finally has potential in 13) …………………… or other human related activities.

Question 11.

Answer: Self-cleaning.
Supporting Sentence: The dry adhesive on Stickybot‘s toes isn’t self-cleaning like the lizard’s either, so it rapidly clogs with dirt.
Keywords: self-cleaning, dirt
Keyword Location: Section G, 6th line.
Explanation: According to this sentence, stickybot's toes are unable to self-clean like a lizard. And for that reason, it clogs up very quickly.

Question 12.

Answer: Surveillance
Supporting Sentence: The Department of Defense’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which funds the project, has it in mind for surveillance.
Keywords: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), surveillance
Keyword Location: Section G, 12th line.
Explanation: This passage describes the observation of an automaton that is connected to a building and sits atop it for hours or days, watching the ground below.

Question 13.

Answer: Lifesaving
Supporting Sentence: Sure, it would be great if it eventually has a lifesaving or humanitarian role…”
Keywords: lifesaving, humanitarian role.
Keyword Location: Section G, 19th line.
Explanation: Cutkosky speculates in paragraph G that he is forcing robots to travel to locations they have never been. He never stops looking for a stickybot to serve a purpose in the real world.

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