Meeting Abstract

P1.124  Saturday, Jan. 4 15:30  The Machine Inside: A Biomechanics Museum Exhibit WESTNEAT, M.*; GEORG, M.; SCHLESER, A.; Field Museum of Natural History mwestneat@fieldmuseum.org

A new traveling museum exhibition on Biomechanics will open in March 2014 at the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago. The exhibit will travel widely over the next few years. Entitled The Machine Inside: Biomechanics, the exhibit makes extensive use of museum specimens to illustrate morphology and mechanical principles, and is rich with interactive elements to reveal organismal function. The goal of the exhibit is to present the view that biomechanics is a way of looking at living things as machines built by evolution. There are 7 main thematic areas of the exhibit. The first section focuses on biomaterials and organic shapes, with the message that living things must be able to withstand the forces of the world- wind, waves, and weight- so they must be made of the right materials for the job. The second focus of the exhibit is on circulatory mechanisms, highlighting the ways that organisms use hydraulic pressure, pumps, and capillary action to transport nutrients within their bodies. Next is thermoregulation, with principles of heat generation, insulation, extreme survival, and the impacts of body size on temperature control. The fourth section is on muscle mechanisms and the biomechanics of jaws and claws, with a focus on biting, crushing, slicing and grasping to capture prey. Then comes locomotion, with section 5 on terrestrial locomotion and section 6 on swimming and flying. From the number of legs and gait transitions in walking and running to effects of body size and walking robots, visitors learn how legged creatures push against the ground for propulsion. For aquatic and aerial locomotion, the exhibit explores propulsion modes, wing and flipper shapes, and hydrodynamics. Finally, the exhibit concludes with sensory systems, highlighting how living things have repeatedly evolved mechanisms to detect light, sound and other variables in the environment.