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Hygroscopic motions of fossil conifer cones
Conifer cones represent natural, woody compliant structures which move their scales as passive responses to changes in environmental humidity. Here we report on water-driven opening and closing motions in coalified conifer cones from the Eemian Interglacial (approx. 126,000–113,000 years BP) and fro...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group
2017
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5225473/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28074936 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep40302 |
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author | Poppinga, Simon Nestle, Nikolaus Šandor, Andrea Reible, Bruno Masselter, Tom Bruchmann, Bernd Speck, Thomas |
author_facet | Poppinga, Simon Nestle, Nikolaus Šandor, Andrea Reible, Bruno Masselter, Tom Bruchmann, Bernd Speck, Thomas |
author_sort | Poppinga, Simon |
collection | PubMed |
description | Conifer cones represent natural, woody compliant structures which move their scales as passive responses to changes in environmental humidity. Here we report on water-driven opening and closing motions in coalified conifer cones from the Eemian Interglacial (approx. 126,000–113,000 years BP) and from the Middle Miocene (approx. 16.5 to 11.5 million years BP). These cones represent by far the oldest documented evidence of plant parts showing full functionality of such passive hydraulically actuated motion. The functional resilience of these structures is far beyond the biological purpose of seed dispersal and protection and is because of a low level of mineralization of the fossils. Our analysis emphasizes the functional-morphological integrity of these biological compliant mechanisms which, in addition to their biological fascination, are potentially also role models for resilient and maintenance-free biomimetic applications (e.g., adaptive and autonomously moving structures including passive hydraulic actuators). |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5225473 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2017 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-52254732017-01-17 Hygroscopic motions of fossil conifer cones Poppinga, Simon Nestle, Nikolaus Šandor, Andrea Reible, Bruno Masselter, Tom Bruchmann, Bernd Speck, Thomas Sci Rep Article Conifer cones represent natural, woody compliant structures which move their scales as passive responses to changes in environmental humidity. Here we report on water-driven opening and closing motions in coalified conifer cones from the Eemian Interglacial (approx. 126,000–113,000 years BP) and from the Middle Miocene (approx. 16.5 to 11.5 million years BP). These cones represent by far the oldest documented evidence of plant parts showing full functionality of such passive hydraulically actuated motion. The functional resilience of these structures is far beyond the biological purpose of seed dispersal and protection and is because of a low level of mineralization of the fossils. Our analysis emphasizes the functional-morphological integrity of these biological compliant mechanisms which, in addition to their biological fascination, are potentially also role models for resilient and maintenance-free biomimetic applications (e.g., adaptive and autonomously moving structures including passive hydraulic actuators). Nature Publishing Group 2017-01-11 /pmc/articles/PMC5225473/ /pubmed/28074936 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep40302 Text en Copyright © 2017, The Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
spellingShingle | Article Poppinga, Simon Nestle, Nikolaus Šandor, Andrea Reible, Bruno Masselter, Tom Bruchmann, Bernd Speck, Thomas Hygroscopic motions of fossil conifer cones |
title | Hygroscopic motions of fossil conifer cones |
title_full | Hygroscopic motions of fossil conifer cones |
title_fullStr | Hygroscopic motions of fossil conifer cones |
title_full_unstemmed | Hygroscopic motions of fossil conifer cones |
title_short | Hygroscopic motions of fossil conifer cones |
title_sort | hygroscopic motions of fossil conifer cones |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5225473/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28074936 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep40302 |
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