This is an easy question and I want you all to answer it with me,
it’s easy, don’t think too much, did dinosaurs go extinct or not?
Audience: Yes! No!
Yes. Not all of them, maybe the paleontologists over there got it right.
There’s a group of dinosaurs called theropod dinosaurs,
these dinosaurs that walk on two legs, that have three fingers,
that eat meat, the bad guys in movies like the —
And a much bigger one?
Audience: Tyrannosaurus rex.
Tyrannosaurus rex.
I don’t know. I don’t know.
One group of these dinosaurs obviously smaller
evolved to be all of the birds we know as of today,
absolutely all of them.
However, there’s a big difference
between a theropod dinosaur and a bird,
which is the fleshy tail.
This fleshy tail reduced its size throughout evolution,
so the center of mass stayed in this point,
if I hang a body,
the body stays in balance, it’s the center of mass.
This center of mass became moving forward,
from the hip to the knee, what for?
To control flight better,
but also, this change of mass center
made these animals change their way of walking.
Wow! How, you’re wondering.
Your faces have a “how” look, especially you guys over there.
We have an ostrich as a bird, as a chicken,
and if we see it walking, the first segment
which is called the femur of the leg —
(Whistle)
(Laughter)
The first segment, the femur, virtually doesn’t move
during locomotion, because the center of mass
is more towards the knee, because it allows them to control flight better.
You’re following, right?
Audience: Yes.
But how do we think dinosaurs moved
if they had their center of mass behind
because of the presence of this fleshy tail?
According to the 3D reconstructions,
does the femur move or not?
Audience: Yes.
The femur moves.
So with some colleagues we started to think
at the School of Sciences of Universidad de Chile,
if it’s that simple then we can take a chicken,
put an artificial tail on it,
we change it’s mass center from front to back,
will it walk like we think dinosaurs walk, or walked?
So then chickensaurs appeared.
(Laughter)
Basically, here are the results published in an important journal
and besides the graphic where you can see the walking
of a normal group and of a group of chicken with tails,
let’s look at the first group for example, let’s see the first segment
(Whistles)
Come on! This first segment,
doesn’t move much, even if its speed-dependent,
it doesn’t move much.
What happens with a chicken with a tail?
It moves much more.
If we look at a full walking path of a chicken,
I introduce to you a chicken walking,
in case you had never seen a chicken walk before,
and I introduce to you a “chickensaur”.
(Laughter)
It moves like a dinosaur.
We don’t know how dinosaurs moved.
At least as in reconstructions, it moves as in reconstructions.
That made us win a prize,
called an Ig Nobel,
for research that first makes us laugh and then think.
Here’s me receiving an Ig Nobel
(Laughter) (Applause)
with a plunger on my butt and walking like a dinosaur.
But after seeing so many videos of chicken walking,
I went to the park, I seemed like an old man looking at doves walk,
and asked myself another question I’m currently trying to solve
at the School of Engineering of Universidad de Chile.
I, a biologist, went to the Engineering school to do my post doctorate
because I wanted to solve other things that have to do with
the locomotion of birds and their great-great-great-great sons…
of their grandparents, theropod dinosaurs.
(Laughter)
What are those questions?
What’s the important question I want to solve?
What’s up with the bobbing?
You’ve all seen the bobbing, this is the bobbing.
I introduce to you again a chicken walking,
and a crane walking, they do this bobbing.
If this bobbing is not very clear,
I can represent it myself.
(Laughter)
(Applause)
Why do some birds bob?
According to what scientists say, it has to do with an optokinetic reason,
that hens for example
don’t like the world moving around
so they push their head quickly forward
and then they keep it stationary with reference to the world.
And that’s why if one takes a hen
and, like, moves it, then the hen sort of —
(Laughter)
I want to put a GoPro on a hen’s head,
put then hen above my head and ride downhill on a bike.
It’s a perfect steady cam.
But I think that on top of optokinetic reason,
I think his bobbing also gives locomotive efficiencies
to a bird’s walking, in other words, it makes it more efficient,
reduces the cost of transport.
It can be one, it can be the other, or it can be both.
What’s important is that if I get to effectively understand
why birds do their bobbing,
because they reduce their transportation cost
then, why don’t we imagine
T-rexes doing the bobbing, if maybe they did?
How are today’s reconstructions of T-rexes?
Do they bob or do they not?
Public: No.
Then, I’m innovating!
And when we see Steven Spielberg’s movies,
Jurassic Park 1, 2, 3, 4,
The lost world, it doesn’t bob so, maybe we should remasterize
all the movies unless I get a paycheck now
and I can just drop my investigation.
(Laughter)
Spielberg, Spielberg, Spielberg, I’m talking to you.
How am I doing this?
I’m in the School of Engineering of Universidad de Chile
doing comparative anatomy of different animals,
of different theropods,
how they relate to maximum speeds, which ones of them bob,
which ones don’t,
then with an analysis of hens walking in different —
in running mills with different inclinations
to start experimentally asking the hen, quite evidently,
if it’s doing the bobbing for visual reasons
or if its doing it for energetic reasons or both.
Then by doing a 3D model of Tyrannosaurus rex —
I love saying it, Tyrannosaurus rex;
What’s your work about? I work with Tyrannosaurus rex —
(Laughter)
I’ll make this 3D model walk
and I’ll measure its metabolism with bobbing and without it
and I’ll see the difference.
Then after this, and I’m working on this,
I want to make a robot theropod which I called…
“Theropobot”.
It’s too good, thanks, it deserves an applause.
Theropobot deserves an applause.
(Applause)
Now, doing this Theropobot in Engineering,
I realized engineering
not only gives us biologists tools to test our biological hypothesis
of basic sciences, but also biology gives engineering
inspiration for new technologies.
This inspiration of new technologies inspired by nature
are called biomimicry technologies,
a new science that’s starting out,
and one of the classic, typical results
of biomimicry is velcro —
My favorite onomatopoeia, that velcro is inspired
in those seeds that get suck on clothes,
they’re called epizoochory; a spread of a seed;
lot’s of hooks, little hair, lot’s of cohesion.
And then there’s the cat’s eyes on the roads,
which reflect light inspired by…
Audience: Cats.
Amazing.
And another thing we’re developing
specifically, with a group of students is, for example,
an aircraft with three wings, this is between us,
really, three wings inspired
by the way big migrating birds migrate
and thanks to the Bernoulli effect, these V formations are generated,
have you seen them before?
Well, we’re making a plane to replicate it.
These vessels with bubbles that reduce dragging
inspired by the bubbles penguins make when they swim,
we all watched Happy Feet.
(Laughter)
And even a motorbike with an inertial appendix,
a motorbike with a tail, inspired by the cheetah,
so it has much better maneuverability.
Now, you might’ve found this interesting
but what I find thrilling is how a kid, that still had hair on his head,
who liked doing circuits, making robots, taking toys apart,
wanted to be an engineer, but then saw Jurassic Park,
his mind was blown, and said I want to study biology,
I want to understand how animals move,
he made an experiment with a chicken with a plunger,
he understood how dinosaurs walked
and now he’s in Engineering making inventions again.
He came full circle,
and here I am and I’m grateful to be able
to be telling you all you can come full circle
and I’ll give you two pieces of advice in order to achieve it,
and basically in this case it’s a plea begging.
First, be skeptical, don’t believe anyone,
you have to think by yourselves,
as much as anyone stands up here to tell you something, okay?
And second, please, be innovative.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)
”
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