Victor Ortega Jiménez
Appearances
Short Wave
Flamingos: The Water-Bending Physics Masters
The mystery of these magnificent birds, what are they doing inside of the fluid? And because I'm a biologist, the interesting part of knowing what is the interaction between the animal with the environment, in this case the fluid, to me was very attractive.
Short Wave
Flamingos: The Water-Bending Physics Masters
That's cool. We observed that they were producing some tornado-like vortices. And we know tornadoes can be destructive, but they are very effective to lift particles from the ground or from the bottom, in this case of sediments.
Short Wave
Flamingos: The Water-Bending Physics Masters
And actually, some of the flamingos also can live in springs. The temperatures are at the point of boiling water. What? And yeah, so flamingos are just these extreme animals that lives in these environments.
Short Wave
Flamingos: The Water-Bending Physics Masters
Our question was, what is producing that directional flow? Is the tongue? Or is it just the chattering? And what the surprise is that we observe that directional flow without the tongue.
Short Wave
Flamingos: The Water-Bending Physics Masters
Because one of the mandibles keeps stationary and the other is moving. So that asymmetry is causing this directional flow. And that's something that flamingos do in comparison with other filter feeders like whales.
Short Wave
Flamingos: The Water-Bending Physics Masters
We know that flamingos, when they are stomping, the foot to the sediments is opening.
Short Wave
Flamingos: The Water-Bending Physics Masters
And then when it's getting up, it's collapsing. What they are doing is producing a vortex.
Short Wave
Flamingos: The Water-Bending Physics Masters
Well, they are stomping frequently or marching like a dancing.
Short Wave
Flamingos: The Water-Bending Physics Masters
These birds are famous because they swim in circles. They are producing some vortices, they are lifting some of the particles, and they are feeding at the interface.
Short Wave
Flamingos: The Water-Bending Physics Masters
But there is no other mechanism like flamingos because they are inside of the water.
Short Wave
Flamingos: The Water-Bending Physics Masters
Because we know that flamingos can extract particles the size of a cell. So we can think in that possibility to make a bio-inspired engineering filter system based on flamingos that can extract effectively those microplastics.
Short Wave
Flamingos: The Water-Bending Physics Masters
We can solve. I mean, flamingos can solve and we can take advantage of that.