Kingfishers & Bullet Trains
Perhaps one of the most famous instances of animals that inspired scientists to do amazing things involves the bullet train. When bullet trains would go through tunnels and come out on the other side, they’d move so fast that coming out would result in a loud thunderclap sound, but it was often confused for gunshots. One genius engineer named Eiji Nakatsu, who happened to be a bird lover, realized this issue could be resolved by looking at the beak of a Kingfisher. The nose of the trains was designed improperly, creating a wall of wind. This wind made the loud thunderclap sound trains produced coming out of tunnels. Thus, by redesigning the nose of the train to be similar to Kingfisher beaks, the wind would no longer build up and trains even saved 20% more fuel too!