MIT researchers and scientists have developed a synthetic material that has the ability to replicate the insulation effects of beavers and otters. The beaver’s fur has the ability to trap the air pockets for making a shield against icy water. The cold weather of our planet has always challenged humans as we have no natural defense with us to protect ourselves from the wintery marine environment. But there are some animals on earth who can survive easily in the chilling weather of the winter. Sea otters and beavers thrive in the cold water without losing the insulating blubber that protects the marine mammals. The secret to this is the fur that traps the warm air among the hair under the thick pelts and thus ultimately keeps them warm in the icy places too. The researchers and scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge get inspired by this phenomenon and evolutionary strategy and thus they developed the synthetic pelts that are modeled after the mechanism by which beavers keep themselves warm. Researchers and scientists are hoping that this technology can create wetsuits that will have the ability to keep humans warm in the freezing water.
Air can act as an excellent insulator as it is 20 times less thermally conductive than water. When the layers of air get trapped between the cold water and skin, it will get the ability to provide protection against the cold. Researchers at MIT examined all the properties of the hair layers and then designed the molds of plastic hair with densities that were created with the help of the computer program. They found that the fur with denser concentration was able to hold more air in the under fur area when they quickly submerged like a diving otter. The ability to move and dive quickly is much more important to semi-aquatic mammals and the thickness of bubbler is important for insulation. So new wetsuits can be made in future with this strategy and hopefully, helps to make the people warm during cold weather. This latest wetsuit idea is one of the new and latest technologies that are also directly inspired by the processes and structures that already exist in nature.