Fields unite for flow control.

This article informs that German engineers and biologists are to join forces as part of a vast research programme. The German Research Foundation has allocated 48 million euros to universities to look into natural technological flow control. A project at the Technical University of Darmstadt will try to translate nature into technical applications, called bionics or biomimetics, such as the use of biological surface structures to reduce the flow resistance of turbine blades. In Dresden, a project on modification of the microstructure and shape of solids through externally applied magnetic fields goes even farther by teaming up engineers, materials scientists, mathematicians, physicists and chemists.