Nice!!!

Berliners depressed by the city’s notoriously cold and gray winters need to travel mere minutes in order to escape to a lush tropical paradise where the sun always shines, the air is a balmy 77 degrees, and orchids bloom beside a wide expanse of crystal-blue water. But the coolest thing about Tropical Islands , an artificial tropical resort in the German countryside, is the fact that it was built in a repurposed airship hangar. The 194-million-cubic-foot structure – one of the world’s biggest buildings by volume – was originally commissioned by CargoLifter AG as a hangar for a prototype airship. When the company went bankrupt in 2002, it sold the 351-foot-high hangar to a Malaysian company called Tanjong, which repurposed the massive structure into a reproduction of a seaside village complete with a water park and the world’s largest indoor pool. Nearly a million visitors take advantage of a 600-foot sandy beach and careen down a nine-story waterslide that sends sliders i...

Surveillance cameras flap their wings in the sky just like birds and bats. Tiny little hairs on gecko feet help a robot climb a smooth vertical surface. The impact-resistant surface of human teeth inspires light and durable aerospace materials. Just like designs inspired by the sea , insect-mimicking inventions and buildings that look like natural terrain , these 14 examples of biomimicry based on animal and human biology capitalize on the unparalleled efficiency of nature. A Robotic Arm Like an Elephant Trunk (image via: festo.com ) Robotics have always been bound by the limitations of the computers of their time, but as computer technology continues to evolve, more complex calculations for a wider range of movements become possible. And the capability of flexible, pliable movement has given way to more advanced designs like this one: a new ‘biomechatronic’ handling system based on an elephant’s trunk. Created by German engineering firm Festo , the Bionic Handling Assi...