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"PYROELECTRICITY in bone and tendon was discovered in 1966 and later reported in various biological tissues, including skin epidermis and the spinal cord. The pyroelectric effect can, for example, enhance the efficiency of thermal energy conversion to electrical energy, for example, for sensor applications." http://physics.aps.org/articles/v5/19 View in LinkedIn

PIEZOELECTRICITY. "Due to its attractive properties and applications, it is tempting to ask if ferroelectricy, like piezoelectricity and pyroelectricity, has also evolved in biological tissues through natural selection ... the piezoelectric effect is now generally thought to play an essential role in biological force sensing ... piezoelectricity has also been suggested to be one of the toughening mechanisms in seashells." http://physics.aps.org/articles/v5/19 View in LinkedIn

"SCALE is one key differentiator between different forms of programmable matter. At one end of the spectrum reconfigurable modular robotics pursues a form of programmable matter where the individual units are in the centimeter size range. At the nanoscale end of the spectrum there are a tremendous number of different bases for programmable matter, ranging from shape changing molecules to quantum dots." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmable_matter View in LinkedIn

SECOND APPROACH. "A second school of thought is that the individual units of the ensemble can compute and the result of their computation is a change in the ensemble's physical properties. An example of this more ambitious form of programmable matter is claytronics." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmable_matter View in LinkedIn