Journal of the Royal Society, Interface
Jun 4, 2025
Large language models (LLMs) have transformed artificial intelligence (AI) and achieved breakthrough performance on a wide range of tasks. In science, the most interesting application of LLMs is for hypothesis formation. A feature of LLMs, which resu...
Journal of the Royal Society, Interface
May 7, 2025
Seahorses possess a unique tail muscle architecture that enables efficient grasping and anchoring onto objects. This prehensile ability is crucial for their survival, as it allows them to resist currents, cling to mates during reproduction and remain...
Journal of the Royal Society, Interface
Apr 30, 2025
Predicting the evolutionary patterns of emerging and endemic viruses is key for mitigating their spread. In particular, it is critical to rapidly identify mutations with the potential for immune escape or increased disease burden. Knowing which circu...
Journal of the Royal Society, Interface
Apr 16, 2025
Models of protein structures enable molecular understanding of biological processes. Current protein structure prediction tools lie at the interface of biology, chemistry and computer science. Millions of protein structure models have been generated ...
Journal of the Royal Society, Interface
Feb 26, 2025
Fibrillar adhesion, observed in animals like beetles, spiders and geckos, relies on nanoscopic or microscopic fibrils to enhance surface adhesion via 'contact splitting'. This concept has inspired engineering applications across robotics, transportat...
Journal of the Royal Society, Interface
Feb 19, 2025
Wing articulation is critical for the efficient flight of bird- and bat-sized animals. Inspired by the flight of , the lesser short-nosed fruit bat, we built a two-degree-of-freedom flapping wing platform with variable wing folding capability. In the...
Journal of the Royal Society, Interface
Feb 5, 2025
Tails used as inertial appendages induce body rotations of animals and robots-a phenomenon that is governed largely by the ratio of the body and tail moments of inertia. However, vertebrate tails have more degrees of freedom (e.g. number of joints an...
Journal of the Royal Society, Interface
Jan 22, 2025
Achieving a comprehensive understanding of animal intelligence demands an integrative approach that acknowledges the interplay between an organism's brain, body and environment. Insects, despite their limited computational resources, demonstrate rema...
Journal of the Royal Society, Interface
Jan 22, 2025
Can a micron-sized sack of interacting molecules autonomously learn an internal model of a complex and fluctuating environment? We draw insights from control theory, machine learning theory, chemical reaction network theory and statistical physics to...
Journal of the Royal Society, Interface
Nov 6, 2024
Humans have been able to tackle biosphere complexities by acting as ecosystem engineers, profoundly changing the flows of matter, energy and information. This includes major innovations that allowed to reduce and control the impact of extreme events....