Super-Powers Richard Hammond's Miracles of Nature

Humans are always trying to be better, brighter, faster, stronger, tougher.

It's one of the things that makes us human.

But nature has spent 3.5 billion years

producing ingenious answers to life's questions.

So a lot of the problems we're trying to solve

have already been solved by evolution.

'Meaning nature is teeming with bright ideas.

'Like how to keep our cool...'

It's cos it's hot.

'..increase our strength...'

Ohh! This is not at all pleasant.

'..and turn invisible.'

That is astonishing.

'In this programme, we'll reveal some amazing animal abilities...'

He found it blindfold.

'And I'll discover how those same animals

'have inspired a series of human inventions

'at the very frontiers of science.'

Yeah, it's driving itself.

Yes!

-HE LAUGHS

-It's gone!

'We'll have to go around the world...'

Oh, my God!

'..and into some pretty unlikely situations.'

We've just dived under the sea!

'Because you never quite know

'what surprises the animal kingdom has in store for you.'

-DOGS BARK

-Go!

'It's all part of the miracle of nature.'

We've all dreamed of having super-powers.

Abilities far beyond the limitations of our human bodies.

'Well, believe it or not, the animal kingdom can help.'

'In searing conditions like these,

'there comes a point when the human body can actually stop sweating.

'Which is a worry.

'Because if you can't sweat,

'you lose the ability to regulate your own temperature.

'And going more than just a few degrees above normal

'will start to affect your brain.

'The hotter you get, the worse your thinking becomes.

'Until you lose the power

'to do even the simplest of things.'

As I shall now demonstrate using this child's toy.

Obviously, for this to be rigorously scientific,

I should first have demonstrated to you

how good I am in my front room at room temperature.

I'm brilliant at it, that's all you need to know.

I'll now try it on a blazing hot salt pan.

Right, here we go.

-TOY:

-Bop it!

Spin it!

Spin it!

Bop it!

Spin it!

Twist it!

'The idea is that I just copy what the toy tells me to do.'

Twist it!

Twist it!

'But I seem incapable

'of following more than three or four instructions.'

Spin it!

'Which even by my standards is bad.'

What actually is happening is as your brain gets hot,

it lets you down in three critical areas.

First of all...

I've forgotten!

What actually happens, as your brain gets hot,

it lets you down in three critical areas.

First of all, working memory.

That's in this case, remembering which of these things does what.

Then your short-term memory,

remembering what the machine's told you to do.

And finally, co-ordination.

You might remember what it's told you to do and which one does it,

but you've got to get your hand there and use it.

Which is why, ridiculous though it might look, for our purposes,

this was actually quite a good test of those three things at speed.

Do some more.

Twist it!

No!

Stupid toy, anyway.

Pull it!

No!

'Now, all right, I realise it might not be incredibly useful

'for me to be able to master a children's toy

'in the middle of nowhere.'

But there are plenty of real-life situations

where keeping your brain working when it's hot

isn't just desirable, it's critical.

This soldier is being trained in bomb disposal.

And here at a secret location in Gloucestershire,

he's about to try and disarm his first unexploded device.

What's certain is that he can't afford

to make the same sort of stupid mistakes that I did.

Covered from head to toe in thick protective armour,

he's getting very, very hot.

So when it comes down to making the most life-or-death of decisions,

how can he ensure that he has all his wits about him?

And that is where the natural world can help.

But it's not an animal that lives in these arid deserts

that holds the key.

It's one from the frozen north.

An animal that can survive

some of the coldest temperatures on the planet.

Huskies have evolved to live in unimaginably cold conditions.

And not just to work and play, also to sleep on the ice

at minus whatever, and they do that, cos, yeah, they have a fur coat,

but it's not just a single fur coat, they're wearing two.

There's the outer layer of coarse, waterproof hairs,

and on the inside, underneath,

there's a second layer of this soft, insulating fur.

And it works really, really well.

The problem is, what about when they exert themselves?

DOGS BARK

Huskies are bred to be sled dogs.

They're capable of covering 100 miles in a single day.

'So how do they cope with getting hot?'

Right, if everybody's ready, 15 seconds to start.

In 10...

nine...

eight...seven...

six...five...

four...

three...

two...one...

Go!

Ha ha!

You might think that heat isn't really a problem

in Arctic conditions.

So to make their super-power a bit more obvious,

we've decided to race them somewhere just that little bit hotter.

Without the cold snow,

the huskies' temperature control is even more important.

Especially as they're incapable of sweating through those thick coats.

I mean, we all know how even leaving a dog in a hot car

can put it at risk.

So how are they managing to avoid overheating?

Well, like all dogs, they open their mouths and pant.

DOGS PANT

But that's not enough to manage the temperature inside them.

The core temperature that can critically affect their brains.

To cope with that, they're using something else entirely.

They're using their paws.

And there you go.

That's a win for the blue team,

and that's how important managing that body temperature is.

So let me try and get a closer look at those paws.

If I can.

There's a lot of paws.

And nearly as many teeth.

So I've got this device, a thermal imaging camera.

Which should allow me to show you what I mean

without losing any fingers.

You can see that this dog is a fairly even temperature,

but its paws are glowing white-hot.

They're criss-crossed by a network of tiny blood vessels,

which means these pads basically work like amazing little radiators,

letting out heat and cooling the blood

before it's pumped back to the husky's body and brain.

And it's that miracle of natural design that's led to an invention

that might just help us keep our cool.

To prove it, we're going to put these ten men

to the same sort of test as the huskies.

Like the dogs, their bodies and heads are covered,

making it difficult for them to sweat out excess heat.

And we're making it just that little bit warmer than they're used to.

So, let's get cracking.

As they get stuck in, we keep cranking up the heat.

Until, like me on the saltpan,

we see them start to make silly mistakes.

It's at that point we remove two men we reckon have overheated the most.

Their core temperatures are not dangerously high,

but the heat has affected them both physically and mentally.

But we can help.

With this.

This odd-looking cylinder is designed to cool us down quick.

Like a husky's paws,

our hands are filled with lots of tiny blood vessels,

but they're much deeper under the skin.

This device creates a vacuum to bring them closer to the surface,

where a chilled cone of metal quickly cools down the hot blood.

You won't see it on the thermal images -

they only register heat at the surface -

but these gauges represent each man's core temperature.

And the effects are dramatic.

You can plainly see the difference.

More to the point, they can feel it.

Just two minutes of cooling is enough to get our guinea pig

ready for action again, long before his team-mate has recovered.

It's time I tried this thing for myself.

So here goes.

That's a good seal to enable the vacuum.

The vacuum is important, remember,

it's pulling my capillaries in my hand to the surface.

They're then closer to contact with the cooling iced water,

and the idea of this isn't to cool my hand,

which does feel cool right now,

it's cooling the blood in those capillaries closer to the surface,

which is returning through my body, lowering my core,

and more to the point, lowering the temperature in my brain.

The quickest way to cool this right now is to cool that.

Right, the acid test.

I feel sharper and cooler already.

-TOY:

-Flick it!

Pull it!

Pull it!

Flick it!

Twist it!

Pull it!

Which should be very good news indeed...

..for bomb disposal men like Trainee Schroff.

At this very moment,

there are at least a million species of animal alive on Earth.

But those are just the ones we've discovered.

Scientists believe there might actually be

eight or nine times that many.

Eight million different types of animal for us to learn from.

Yet copying these creatures isn't always easy.

I certainly don't want to give the impression

that imitating nature is always a simple process.

It isn't - sometime it takes years of painstaking trial and error.

And there's one thing in here that despite decades of trying,

scientists have struggled to copy.

It's something thinner than a human hair.

And so light that a strand long enough to circle the globe

would weigh less than a kilogram.

But unbelievably, it's still 30 times tougher than steel.

It's spider silk.

This amazing substance allows the spider

to build a home and a trap almost anywhere.

These tiny strands are strong enough

to support the weight of the spider that made them,

and catch a fly in full flight.

They're created using these small nozzles called spinnerets.

And as the name suggests, they spin the silk fibres

to help increase their strength.

Just like we do with string.

And it means the spider's unfortunate victim

has no chance of escape.

It is a remarkable material.

One we've been trying to copy for the best part of 50 years.

But the secret to spinning spider silk ourselves is still elusive.

In fact, for scientists who copy nature,

it's become something of a holy grail.

So it's no surprise that they've started to look for alternatives

to that grail elsewhere.

What is surprising is where they're looking.

Eddie, I'd be no good at this, I can't see it.

Well, it's around here somewhere.

Hey, no-one said finding the Holy Grail would be easy.

'Luckily, I've got marine biologist Eddie Kisfaludy along to help.

'Once we can get past the language barrier.'

-You call them "boo-ees."

-They are boo-ees.

-It's a buoy.

-It's buoys?

-Yeah.

-No, "boys" is like a little kid.

No, it's not a boo-ee.

This is a boo-ee.

These are several boo-ees, in fact.

-Ah, there it is. Good work.

-You see?

I got it!

Ah-ha! I got it, I got it, I got it!

-Do I just haul this in?

-Yeah, go ahead.

'Now, if you are remotely squeamish, you might want to look away.

'Because what's at the bottom of this rope

'isn't immediately appealing.'

So these are them!

Not pretty, are they?

No, they're disgustingly ugly, to be quite honest.

These are hagfish.

Not really fish, they're more like eels.

-Yeah.

-They don't have any scales or fins.

They don't have any eyes to speak of,

so they have to make a living

by feeling and smelling their way around on the deep sea.

It's almost like a snake that crawls around on the sea floor.

'I don't know, it's probably just the rocking,

'but I am suddenly feeling just a little bit queasy.

'Mainly because I know what's going to happen

'when we get them back to shore.'

So have we got enough in here?

Well, looks like we only have about a dozen,

and I think we're going to want to get about 150 or so

to really demonstrate what we're trying to do.

Eddie seems insistent, so we get to work.

He's put out a lot of traps.

'And unfortunately, it seems that most of them are full.'

'Finally, with our slippery cargo slopping about the boat,

'we head back to shore.

'And the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

'Where I arrive the next morning

'to reveal how the hagfish might challenge the silk-spinning spider.'

Now, the thing is,

it's actually quite easy to persuade a spider to make silk for you.

I've done it, in fact.

But you would not believe the bother we're going to have to go to

to get hagfish to do something similar.

First of all, we have to fill that purpose-built tank

with 400 gallons of water.

Then we add to it the 150 hagfish that Eddie and I caught.

Then we need something with them to stir them,

something in the tank to stir them up and provoke a stir. It's...

It's me.

I am the stirrer.

In there...

with the hagfish.

I just...is this really necessary?

Unfortunately, Eddie assures me that it is.

And he's wasting no time in getting our experiment ready.

This might look like a very big tank for 150 small fish.

But apparently, what they're going to do requires quite a bit of room.

'Eddie's idea is that I play the part of a big, aggressive predator.'

And the hagfish are my frightened prey.

'Well, maybe they have a vivid imagination.

'The only thing in that tank likely to be frightened is me.

'Especially when I see how Eddie intends getting me in there.'

You know how people have those bucket lists

of things you should do before you die?

This was never on mine.

Eurgh!

'Now, if you thought the hagfish's looks were bad,

'just wait till you see what their party trick is.'

Ooh!

'Because hagfish have the power to slime.

'Big time.'

That's disgusting!

I'm not hurting any of these fish.

I am just alarming them.

Ohh!

This is their natural, in-built response.

You see, he thinks I'm a predator after him,

so rather than bite or swim away, he just sends out a ton of slime.

'The point of it is that that slime would instantly clog up

'the mouth of any fish coming in for a nibble.'

It's quite a benign way of seeing off a predator, really.

I mean, they don't bite.

Well, I don't think they bite.

I've just persuaded one of these guys to come and say hello,

and actually...

If you look, you can see...

along the side, these tiny, white holes,

they look a bit like mouth ulcers, actually.

And that's where it makes the slime to protect itself.

'And you can see now why we needed such a big tank.'

Apparently, just one of these fish can make enough slime

to fill a bucket of water in seconds.

So they produce a lot of this stuff.

Just to make sure they don't get eaten by something else.

I mean, it would put me off, to be fair.

I'm not hungry.

This is a lot of slime in here, now.

Ohh!

Now, this might look pretty disgusting,

and to be fair, in fact, it is,

but there's a good reason why we're doing this,

not just to have a laugh at my expense,

cos it's about the slime,

and it's about what the slime is actually capable of.

It's probably time I got out now.

Yeah.

Let's get me out of here.

It's...ohh!

Oh, this is...not at all...

pleasant.

It's not nice.

However, this stuff, disgusting as it is,

is quite fascinating.

'I know it doesn't look much like spider silk,

'or feel like it...'

Ohh!

'But that's because I haven't finished with it yet.

'To turn this into something that can compete with spider silk,

'I need to put it on my special hagfish slime hanger.'

And now, I think, a shower.

Leaving my hagfish slime to dry out overnight.

So what exactly is in this slime?

Well, basically, it's sea water containing tiny strands of protein,

represented for the purposes of this demonstration by,

well, bits of wire.

But here's the thing that's getting scientists excited -

if spider silk were to be represented by pieces of wire,

each of these strands would look more like this.

'Because spider silk is already pre-spun

'by the spider's spinnerets.'

Yeah, that's a lot more complicated.

You can see why this is going to be tricky to synthesise.

But this might be worth having a crack at.

The question is, is this going to be as strong as spider silk?

Time to find out.

First, we need to lay down some ground rules.

The basic way to measure the strength of any material

is by doing what's called a tensile test.

It's not complicated in theory.

This machine stretches the fibres until they snap.

And the results are carefully measured.

So let's take a quick look at some other natural fibres

that we humans already put to good use.

Wool breaks at a force of around 28 ounces.

Coconut hair at 41.

Sisal fibres last till 40.

And horsehair till 45.

Spider silk, though already spun and much finer,

manages a whopping 70 ounces.

Right, now we've seen the competition,

let's have a look at what hagfish slime can do.

Now, this might not look like it,

but this in fact is the hagfish slime that I harvested yesterday.

Overnight, the sea water has drained away and evaporated,

and it's dried.

So I think a scientific test is called for right here, right now.

I've got some weights here.

There's a five-ounce one.

I'm hanging it on.

10 ounces.

OK, that's pretty good.

Right, I'm going to go for a heavier weight. Let's see.

16 ounces.

'OK, this next weight is the point that the wool snapped.'

That's a 28-ounce weight, right there.

Right...

Oh, there it is!

And bear in mind the fibres right now are just hanging straight down.

To make something stronger, normally you'd twist it.

Wind the fibres around, that's just straight.

OK, so now we're on...

40.

'That's sisal gone.'

45...

'And horsehair.

'And we're up near spider silk territory.'

55 ounces, and I've run out of weights.

OK, it's not the most scientifically rigorous of tests,

and it may be a while yet

before you pull on your brand new hagfish sweater,

but the fact is,

this could be really useful.

'Because many of the man-made threads are made from oil,

'and we know that might not be around forever.'

'If artificial hagfish slime could take their place,

'then that would make it a very big deal indeed.'

No-one is synthesising hagfish slime just yet,

so I can't show you anything actually made from it,

but one day it could be used to make everything we once wanted to make

using spider silk -

ropes, parachutes, suspension bridge cables,

artificial tendons, clothes...

Anyway, it's not every day you find the Holy Grail.

'It's not just spiders and hagfish

'that have something to teach us about strength.

'There is one that's found in every corner of the globe.

A type of creature that outnumbers

all the other animals alive on Earth.

Outnumbers them by more than three to one.

They're known as arthropods.

Which just begs the question, "What is an arthropod?"

Well, this crab is one.

So are these.

In fact, all crabs and lobsters are arthropods.

And all spiders.

And all insects.

So what do they have in common?

Well, it's the fact that they have an exoskeleton.

Basically, all the soft bits are on the inside.

And the hard skeleton that supports them is on the outside.

Giving these crabs super-powerful protection and strength.

Powers that would be useful for us, too.

Which got me thinking about whether there's an easy way

to get to grips with how an exoskeleton actually works.

And what I came up with was this.

Bear with me.

Now, cows aren't known for having exoskeletons,

because, well, they don't.

But this toy cow works on a lot of the same basic principles.

What you've got here is a series of hard tubes,

connected, held together by muscles,

represented here by the strings inside.

Right now, the strings are taut, the muscles are working.

Relax them, cow flops down.

Tense them up again...

He stands up, becomes rigid once more.

'And that rigidity gives an arthropod a big advantage

'when it comes to strength.'

Let me try and show you what I mean.

When I pick up this weight and hold it out stretched,

I'm having to use all my muscles to keep my arms licked horizontally.

Ugh! Which means I can't hold them out for very long.

But what if I was built differently?

What if I had the strength and rigidity

and armour of an exoskeleton?

This is the Patented Hammond Exoskeleton.

It's not really patented.

Neither is it technically an exoskeleton,

because I'm inside it, and I have a skeleton inside me.

But I'm going to try and make my internal skeleton irrelevant here.

My job is just to tense and hold these pieces together.

So let's see if this set-up makes it easier

to hold those weights outstretched.

Yeah, well there you go, I'm just contracting my muscles inside

to hold these things rigid and straight, and it works.

It's a success.

That's good. Yeah, it works.

Yeah.

It works.

Maybe...it's worked enough.

Yep.

I think...point proven?

'OK, so there is room for refinement.'

'But I could hold the weights for much longer.'

It works!

'And those same principles have been used

'to build something very cool indeed.'

This man is wearing a state-of-the-art exoskeleton.

It increases his strength tenfold.

Allowing him to comfortably carry up to 40 kilos.

But the most important thing that you should know about this man

is that he's paralysed from the waist down.

'The way people look at me when I'm in my wheelchair

'is they look down upon me.'

They see the wheelchair moving, they don't see the person.

24-year-old Steven Sanchez broke his back eight years ago

going over a jump on his BMX bike.

He hasn't walked since.

But today is going to be the day that all that changes.

He's been summoned to an unprepossessing-looking basement

under the University of California,

and what's inside this room will change his life.

He's been asked to test-pilot a remarkable new piece of technology.

An exoskeleton based on the way an arthropod works.

'The way that I got involved with the UC Berkeley exoskeleton project'

was everyone at the school was, like, you know,

"We need testers, basically, to test out the machine."

And I was like, "I can do it."

So, for the past 12 months,

the Berkeley team have been creating a custom-built suit

that can be tailored and programmed just for him.

These are Steven's new legs.

Just like an exoskeleton, they go on the outside of his body,

providing rigidity and support.

And, as with all arthropods,

the hingeing joints are now on the outside, too.

Time to try it.

Steven plugs in the motor...

..and prepares himself.

That was good, man.

We're good. Get your balance here. Get your balance.

The muscles in Steven's legs aren't capable of supporting him,

but the rigid exoskeleton is doing the job for them.

These are the first steps Steven Sanchez has taken for seven years.

And they feel pretty good.

'The way that I felt in the exoskeleton,

'the first time I took a walk, was a great, happy, achieving feeling.

'Taking a step was no longer an issue.

'It was just, "do it."'

It's pretty nice to be back where I used to be.

Out in the corridor, there are some special onlookers.

Steven's mum and dad have come

to see their son learn to walk all over again.

It's a proud moment.

For all of them.

I don't want to knock you over.

The doors to Steven's world have been thrown open wide.

He arrived today on wheels,

but he's leaving on his own two feet,

in an exoskeleton inspired by nature.

A major part of the miracle of nature lies in its infinite variety.

The countless ways

that different animals approach similar problems.

Take, for instance, camouflage.

OK, cut the motor.

BOAT MOTOR STOPS

You could easily believe

that a zebra's stripes were designed to make it obvious.

Stands out like a pony in pyjamas.

But in fact, they act as camouflage in several different ways.

The vertical wavy lines are great for hiding amongst tall grasses.

And they break up the animal's shape, its silhouette.

And when they're in big numbers in the herd,

it's actually very difficult for a predator

to make out an individual animal to go for.

They just see a confusing jumble of stripes.

So those stripes partly break up their outline,

and partly help them merge with their background.

And that's the way we've tended to do camouflage, too.

Take something you want to hide...

EXPLOSION

..and paint what's called a disruptive pattern on it,

in colours designed to blend it in with the background.

And it sort of works.

You probably didn't even spot

that there was a tank hiding in the last couple of shots.

Yeah. That's the problem.

They still stand out like a sore, brightly-coloured thumb.

Especially if, like with our huskies,

the weather suddenly changes,

and they find themselves painted completely the wrong colour.

What we need is something just that little bit cleverer.

And this is it.

The cuttlefish has taken camouflage to the next level.

They can change their colour, shape and texture

to blend in with the background.

It's hard to believe it looking at these pictures,

but all these cuttlefish are exactly the same species.

They're simply changing their appearance

depending on what's around them.

It's called adaptive camouflage,

and it's perfect for hiding from both predators and prey.

But can the cuttlefish adapt to anything?

Really, you must applaud the cuttlefish

for its amazing ability to blend into its surroundings.

But how clever is that really?

I mean, vanishing amongst things that are around it all the time.

It's one thing for a cuttlefish to camouflage itself

against seaweed, sand, pebbles and stuff like that,

but how would they fare camouflaging themselves

against something a bit more complicated?

Something a bit like this.

Yeah, I know, it's hardly Grand Designs,

but I've gone for this rather lurid decor for good reason.

I want to see how the cuttlefish

tackles something a bit more challenging.

So I've chosen stripes, chessboard and some old-style chintz.

OK, time to see how they cope.

Let's get our cuttlefish settled in and dim down the lights.

He's having a look at it.

And he's gone straight for the big one -

the chequerboard flooring.

And amazingly, I think he's having a crack at it.

There's definitely the beginnings of a chequerboard there.

He's not quite lined up right, but, you know, still impressive.

Right, what next?

Zebra-skin rug?

Now he's improvising.

Let's get him back to the task in hand.

Now that's more like it.

He's blending into the chaise longue a treat.

But notice one thing -

he's not camouflaged with what he can see in front of him,

he's camouflaged with what's underneath him.

So is it possible for us to copy camouflage like that?

It's me.

I'm in front of you right now.

But I'm invisible.

See? That's me.

And I'm wearing my sandwich board of invisibility.

It's my own creation, let me talk you through it.

On the front, we have an LED flat-screen TV,

on the back, there's a camera.

The camera sees what it can see behind me,

throws that image up on the TV,

so it's as though you are looking through me,

and here's the fascinating thing -

this is actually very close to the way the cuttlefish works.

Well it doesn't use a flat-screen TV, obviously.

What it has instead is light-sensitive cells

all over its body, so the cells on one side

tell the cells on the other side what they can see

so they can replicate it,

and it's as though you can see through the cuttlefish.

It's the same deal.

But like me, it's not using its eyes to do this.

I'm using a camera, it's using its light-sensitive cells.

So it's not doing this consciously, it just happens.

The biggest difference, perhaps,

is the energy taken to do this.

I tried doing this with batteries.

Didn't work.

Then I tried it with a car battery, lasted about a minute.

In the end, I've plugged it into the mains in my house.

A cuttlefish doesn't have to use the mains, it can do all of this,

and it can do it on 1,500 calories a day

that it gets from crab and shrimp.

I couldn't power this with crabs and shrimp.

I need the mains.

The question is, can we use the cuttlefish's super-power

to hide 60 tons of tank?

Well, not exactly.

Engineers haven't worked out a way

for a tank to be quite as camouflaged as a cuttlefish,

at least in daylight.

But with the help of these special tiles,

they have worked out a way to make it invisible at night.

OK, I know you can still see it right now.

And that's the thing.

At night, colours don't matter.

And for anyone equipped with infra-red cameras,

they stand out even more.

Because they generate an enormous amount of heat.

And that heat is picked up on camera.

Which is where the special panels come in.

Because you just watch what happens when they turn them on.

The tank completely vanishes.

The panels read the background temperature,

and then display the same heat signature on the front,

just like the cuttlefish does with colour.

And, like the cuttlefish, it has another trick.

It can pretend to be something else entirely.

In this case, it's impersonating a small family saloon.

Astonishing.

An invisible tank based on cuttlefish camouflage.

Not bad for a quiet evening in.

The power of invisibility is obviously quite an attractive one.

But there is another animal super-power

that does the exact opposite.

It makes the invisible visible.

This is a kingfisher,

and below it is a slow-moving river

that the kingfisher knows will contain fish.

But spotting them is almost impossible.

There's so much glare and reflection on the surface

that you can't see a thing underneath it.

With conditions like that, the kingfisher should have no chance.

But it does.

One fish, expertly skewered straight through the middle.

And it's only possible because kingfishers have a super-power.

One that enables them

to see straight through that surface glare and reflection,

and pick out the fish below with absolute accuracy.

And if you think that the kingfisher is simply spotting the fish

once it's dived underwater,

then take a look at that same dive at normal speed,

and see just how quickly it all happens.

It's over in the blink of an eye.

So how on earth do they do it?

You know how when human beings reach a certain age,

they end up with one pair of glasses for reading,

another pair of glasses for watching TV,

and then another pair of glasses for driving,

and another pair of glasses just for finding their glasses?

Well, think of it this way.

It's as though the kingfisher has all of those pairs of glasses,

but it can wear them all at the same time

by putting them in different places around the lenses of its eyes.

That's why you never see a kingfisher

with its glasses on its head asking where its glasses are.

And in fact it's even more sophisticated than that,

because it also has a series of coloured lenses

by means of which it can filter out very specific wavelengths of light,

to enhance its ability to, say, see through water.

These coloured lenses are actually oil droplets.

By magnifying a kingfisher's eye 1,000 times,

you can clearly see them.

And they sound like quite a useful super-power.

So we're going to scale the whole thing...

up a bit.

This light aircraft is going to represent our kingfisher.

And a very special piece of technology

is going to do the job of the kingfisher's eye.

Because this camera was directly inspired

by looking at the way those oil droplets work.

But instead of spotting minnows from a branch just above the water...

..we're going to be flying at 1,000 feet.

Admittedly, this is going to make things tricky

'for the man operating the kingfisher camera for me,'

engineer, Dustin Medeiros.

So to give him a chance,

we've scaled the fish up a little bit, too.

From four centimetres long to a whopping 15 metres.

35 tons of humpback whale.

And yeah, I know, whales aren't really fish,

but for the purposes of this experiment, they are perfect.

Humpbacks migrate every year between Mexico and Alaska.

Which means they pass parallel to this California coast.

We even know the route they take.

But on a lovely Californian day like this, it's not really helping.

Seen any whales yet?

-No, not yet.

-Ah.

It's hard to see anything through that water,

just glare coming back up at you.

Yes, especially if it's bright out, or as the sun gets lower,

it really blocks anything you can see with the naked eye.

To combat that,

the kingfisher has four different types of colour receptors.

So we've got four special cameras arranged around a fifth normal one.

Each camera has a filter on the front of it,

which allows a different spectrum of light through.

So you can take one, subtract one from the other,

-and effectively you can see right below the waves.

-Right.

We're making our way out to the Whale Super Highway -

a strip of ocean where the humpbacks make their 10,000-mile round trip.

Right now, we should see them moving from south to north.

From Mexico, so you'll see them essentially travelling,

usually in ones or twos,

and they'll basically be coming up to breathe.

I'm keeping an eye out in an analogue sense.

Actually using my eyes.

You're using this digital system.

But even with both of us looking,

our oversized kingfisher plane

doesn't seem to be having too much luck.

And then we get one.

There you go.

There they are.

Right there.

This view from the ordinary camera

mimics pretty much what I was seeing with my naked eye.

But turn in our digital oil droplets,

and our kingfisher cam sees something very different indeed.

Side by side, you can see just how remarkable that difference is.

It is kind of appropriate, really -

we were using a piece of technology inspired by a kingfisher's eyes

to do pretty much what a kingfisher does -

spotting things in the water from the air.

It's just that we were a lot higher up, going a lot faster,

and the things we were spotting were a lot bigger.

But as much fun as it was,

possible human applications for this technology

go beyond looking for whales and dolphins.

Already, the designers are looking into applying kingfisher tech

to air-sea rescue.

Last year, over 5,000 people

were successfully rescued from British waters.

But a further 300 lost their lives or were never recovered.

This camera could change all that.

Thanks to the kingfisher.

The last of our miracles of nature.

In these three programmes,

we've been able to look at just some of the many ways

in which nature has provided the inspiration

for us to solve our problems and meet our needs.

But what interests me is what does the future hold?

How many more times will we discover

that the problem we've been scratching our heads over

has already been answered by nature?

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd