Leaf veins inspire a new model for distribution networks
Tuesday, February 9, 2010 - 11:35
in Mathematics & Economics
Following the straight and narrow may be good moral advice, but it’s not a great design principle for a distribution network. In new research, a team of biophysicists describe a complex netting of interconnected looping veins that evolution devised to distribute water in leaves. The work, which bucks decades of thinking, may compel engineers to revisit some common assumptions that have informed the building of many human-built distribution networks.