Okay, I'm game.

>From time to time over the last 10 years I have seen
TRIZ mentioned. Last time TRIZ got mentioned on
the Biomimetics group, I went and looked at
http://www.triz-journal.com/.

I was not encouraged. A lot of this reminded me of
Edward de Bono. You got lots of particular instances of
inventions being credited to the system, but nothing that gave
me the confidence it would work for any particular problem
I chose. However there was a huge taxonomy of 76 different
classes of solution, so that whatever I did could be notched up
as another success for the TRIZ system. Get trained in TRIZ!
Convert your friends! Involve your company! There was a
whiff of the cult. There was the obligatory Russian scientist.

For me, invention is very like banging the TV. You have an
old TV. The picture looks fine when you are touching the knobs
or twiddling the aerial, but it all goes to pot when you sit down
to watch it. You smack it on the side, all the valves shift about
a bit, and the state changes. If it changes to a state where you
can see the picture when you sit down, then you stop banging it,
and sit down. If you still do not get a good picture, then you hit it
again. With an old TV, this often gave results for little effort.

When looking for a solution, you can often get caught in local
minima. Your usual mental tools keep bringing you back to the
same conclusions. You need to introduce something so get you
out of that local minimum, and running down the slope towards a
greater minimum. Even something random will do. That was the
basis for de Bono's 'Radical Thinking'.

I remember when de Bono's books first came out. I was doing
the same sort of things anyway, but it was nice to have an
analysis for something that I had not thought of analysing.
Just giving the process a name can be a great help.

Alright. Here's my experiment. I am ordering a copy of
John Terninko' book -
Step-by-Step TRIZ: Creating Innovative Solution Concepts
If you know of better books, please let me know.

Here's my quick answers before the book arrives. Then I will have
another go after I have read it, and we'll see if I have improved.

> 1 At present the only shark which can re-invade fresh water is the
> Nicaraguan Bull Shark.  Predators are therefore smaller and somewhat
> slower in the rivers than in the sea.  Reduced availability of food (due
> to man's overfishing) drives shark back into fresh water.  How can the
> fresh-water fish respond?

The Bull shark will more out to salt water again if the fresh water is a
worse place to hunt. The freshwater fish could...
* Become smaller / bonier / less nice to eat.
* Become fewer - perhaps have a dormant egg stage?
* Become less easy to find ( camouflage )
* Become less easy to catch ( gather in shoals )

They could multiply so they could sustain the losses to the bull shark.
This might attract more sharks. However the fact that the sharks do not
like wholly in fresh water suggests there is some balance between
fresh and sea water. This may make things worse.

They could develop a more edible sea-going version to lure the
sharks back out to sea, but that's rather silly.


> 2 In Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" the Houhenhyhms are horses which are
> gentle, wise, and can talk.  They are the top animal.  They could evolve
> further and walk on two legs rather than four (shades of Orwell's
> "Animal Farm").  What adaptations might they develop, both in order to
> achieve bipedalism, and as a consequence of it?

First of all, is bipedalism the right solution? An elephant's trunk is a
very
good precision handling gadget. A horse's lips are very mobile, and could
develop into some precision handling thing. Okay - it is hard to see what
they are doing to start with, but that may not be important to start with.

Suppose we are going to balance on the remaining feet. This means the feet
have to combat any tilting moment as well as supporting the weight. The
'foot' -
define it how you will - will have to get longer in the direction the moment
is expected to come.

Alternatively you can develop another limb, support, whatever.
The horse might not be able to stand stably, but it might develop a way
to sit. I am not sure if you could run well on two hooves - the control
might be tricky. Do jerboas and things like that run on the points of
their feet?

> 3 The continents are drifting apart at an ever increasing rate, and
> islands are disappearing.  How do migrating birds cope?

They could stop migrating. But they don't seem to do that.

They could wait. The earth is round. Sooner or later, they will find
their destination coming round the other side.

Seriosly, if there really is a requirement is to do long-haul flight, then
they are going to have to...
* use less fuel (glide, fligh very high)
* carry more fuel ( put on fat before migration, etc)
* use advantages of scale (become bigger)
* re-fuel in flight (catch fish at sea, adapt to living at sea)
* develop navigation skills, so important islands are not missed
* have multiple stages like a rocket (does this happen?)


> 4 A species of caterpillar feeds on the leaves of a shrub.  As a defence
> mechanism the shrub starts to develop a glassy-smooth and hardened
> bark.  What might the caterpillar do in order to continue feeding on the
> plant?

This is Julian's home territory, so I won't go on too much.

It can develop tools like glass cutters to scratch the surface, rasps and
augers to enlarge the hole, and so forth.

It can exploit any opportunity offered by local damage, by tunneling
below the surface, injecting its larvae through small holes.

It can look for some less protected bit. There has got to be a root
somewhere which is soft enough for water to get in.


> 5 A single species of animal of about the size and longevity of Man
> dominates the world.  It hasn't developed any mechanised form of
> transport but has managed to become a single interbreeding population.
> How did it do that?

They swim / fly / drift (eg porpoises ?)
They are not too specific about what they breed with (dogs ?)
They were nearly made extinct (cheetahs, man?)
They only live in one part of the world

The world is very small.

They reproduce by radio.

> 6 A gene escapes from a GM plant into grass, where it raises the amount
> of silica from 10% to 50%.  How do grazing animals cope with this?

Heck, I dunno. Grazing animals have teeth to grind up the vegitation, gut
flora to break down the chewed stuff into something the animal can use,
and specialized guts to make the best of what it has. All of these will have
to get better.

If it cannot become more efficient, then it could slow down its metabolism
so as to survive on less.

Both of these suggest the animal is losing mobility. Maybe it resists
predators
by using body armour. Maybe it can use the silicon for that.

Or it could send out for pizza. I dunno.

-----

Okay. When the book comes, I will try this again and post the results.
We will be able to se how much  smarter I have become. Or not...

Cheers.
Richard K




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