Life's Devices: The Physical World of Animals and Plants
Abstract
This entertaining and informative book describes how living things bump up against non-biological reality. "My immodest aim," says the author, "is to change how you view your immediate surroundings." He asks us to wonder about the design of plants and animals around us: why a fish swims more rapidly than a duck can paddle, why healthy trees more commonly uproot than break, how a shark manages with such a flimsy skeleton, or how a mouse can easily survive a fall onto any surface from any height. The book will not only fascinate the general reader but will also serve as an introductory survey of biomechanics. On one hand, organisms cannot alter the earth's gravity, the properties of water, the compressibility of air, or the behavior of diffusing molecules. On the other, such physical factors form both constraints with which the evolutionary process must contend and opportunities upon which it might capitalize. Life's Devices includes examples from every major group of animals and plants, with references to recent work, with illustrative problems, and with suggestions of experiments that need only common household materials.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
Still being checked.
Cited by
Sorted by citations
The mechanical properties of natural materials. I. Material property charts
Ashby, M. F., Gibson, L. J., Wegst, U. G. K., & Olivé, R. (1995) · Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series A Mathematical and Physical Sciences · doi:10.1098/rspa.1995.0075 · Cited by 340 · see citing works
The evolution of human and ape hand proportions
Almécija, S., Smaers, J. B., & Jungers, W. L. (2015) · Nature Communications · doi:10.1038/ncomms8717 · Cited by 236 · see citing works
Morphological variation and airflow dynamics in the human nose
Churchill, S. E., Shackelford, L. L., Georgi, J. N., & Black, M. T. (2004) · American Journal of Human Biology · doi:10.1002/ajhb.20074 · Cited by 174 · see citing works
The physiology and biomechanics of avian flight at high altitude
Altshuler, D. L. (2006) · Integrative and Comparative Biology · doi:10.1093/icb/icj008 · Cited by 141 · see citing works
Cha, T., Baker, B. A., Sauffer, M. D., Salgado, J., Jaroch, D., Rickus, J. L., Porterfield, D. M., & Choi, J. H. (2011) · ACS Nano · doi:10.1021/nn201323h · Cited by 91 · see citing works
Size, microhabitat, and loss of larval feeding drive cranial diversification in frogs
Bardua, C., Fabre, A., Clavel, J., Bon, M., Das, K., Stanley, E. L., Blackburn, D. C., & Goswami, A. (2021) · Nature Communications · doi:10.1038/s41467-021-22792-y · Cited by 58 · see citing works
Application of Triboelectric Nanogenerator in Fluid Dynamics Sensing: Past and Future
Cao, L. N. Y., Xu, Z., & Wang, Z. L. (2022) · Nanomaterials · doi:10.3390/nano12193261 · Cited by 41 · see citing works
Transformation of avian feeding mechanisms: A deductive method
Zweers, G. A. (1991) · Acta Biotheoretica · doi:10.1007/bf00046405 · Cited by 31 · see citing works
Biomimetic Superhydrophobic Materials through 3D Printing: Progress and Challenges
Liu, H. Y., Zhang, Z., Wu, C., Su, K., & Kan, X. (2023) · Micromachines · doi:10.3390/mi14061216 · Cited by 30 · see citing works
Fitness costs associated with building and maintaining the burying beetle’s carrion nest
Gasperin, O. D., Duarte, A., Troscianko, J. T., & Kilner, R. M. (2016) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/srep35293 · Cited by 28 · see citing works
Finite element analysis of static loading in donkey hoof wall
Newlyn, H., COLLINS, S. N., Cope, B. C., Hopegood, L., Latham, R. J., & REILLY, J. D. (1998) · Equine Veterinary Journal · doi:10.1111/j.2042-3306.1998.tb05128.x · Cited by 23 · see citing works
Gaysina, L. A. (2024) · Plants · doi:10.3390/plants13030357 · Cited by 21 · see citing works
Tubule density of the stratum medium of horse hoof
REILLY, J. D., Collins, S., Cope, B. C., Hopegood, L., & Latham, R. J. (1998) · Equine Veterinary Journal · doi:10.1111/j.2042-3306.1998.tb05115.x · Cited by 19 · see citing works
Complex Population Dynamics in Mussels Arising from Density-Linked Stochasticity
Wootton, J. T., & Forester, J. D. (2013) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0075700 · Cited by 13 · see citing works
Cohen, N., & Ranner, T. (2017) · arXiv · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1702.04988 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
Yamashita, M., & Baba, S. A. (2004) · Biological Sciences in Space · doi:10.2187/bss.18.13 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Fluid Dynamics of a Textured Blood-Contacting Surface
Fujisawa, N., Bertram, C., Woodard, J. C., Poole-Warren, L. A., & Schindhelm, K. (2000) · Journal of Biomechanical Engineering · doi:10.1115/1.1338120 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Pitrou, P., Kamili, L., & Provost, F. (2020) · Techniques & culture · doi:10.4000/tc.13336 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
Pitrou, P., Kamili, L., & Provost, F. (2020) · Techniques & culture · doi:10.4000/tc.13342 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Guidoboni, G., Marazzi, N. M., Fraser, J., Sacco, R., Palaniappan, K., & Huxley, V. H. (2021) · The Journal of Physiology · doi:10.1113/jp281841 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Twist and Snout: Head and Body Morphologies Determine Feeding Kinematics in Substrate-Biting Fishes
Perevolotsky, T., Brotman-Krass, J. M., Ratner, Y., Avigad, Y., Summers, A. P., Donatelli, C. M., & Holzman, R. (2025) · Integrative Organismal Biology · doi:10.1093/iob/obaf032 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Simple Lessons in Biomechanics & Biological Materials Using Everyday Objects
Werth, A. J. (2001) · The American Biology Teacher · doi:10.1662/0002-7685(2001)063[0267:slibbm]2.0.co;2 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
A Physical Structural Perspective of Intelligence
Raghavachary, S. (2022) · Studies in computational intelligence · doi:10.1007/978-3-030-96993-6_46 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Prestes, D., Filappi, A., FINAMOR, L. F., Barcellos, A. R., & Cecim, M. (2003) · Archives of Veterinary Science · doi:10.5380/avs.v8i1.4016 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
An Innovative Approach to Solving the Ergonomic Problem: Products’ Size Adjustment
Velkova, A. (2018) · South East European Journal of Architecture and Design · doi:10.3889/seejad.2018.10035
Bejan, A. (2026) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-032-05265-0_4
Teaching ratios before Reynolds
Ristroph, K. D. (2026) · Nature Chemical Engineering · doi:10.1038/s44286-026-00412-0
- Authors
- Vogel, S.
- Corresponding author
- Vogel, Steven
- Venue
- Princeton University Press eBooks
- Publisher
- Princeton University Press
- Published
- 1989-12-31
- OpenAlex
- W4245873211
- Cited by
- 25
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 2 · 2018: 1 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 1 · 2013: 1
- FWCI
- 0.42
- Type
- book
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Princeton University Press eBooks (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Biomedical Engineering › Mechanics and Biomechanics Studies
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Physiological and biochemical adaptations
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Aerospace Engineering › Biomimetic flight and propulsion mechanisms
- Keywords
- biomechanics, animal design, plant design, evolutionary constraints, Animal locomotion, animal skeletons, animal flight
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
