The Contribution of Biology to Physics

[ennui]

There are a lot of articles highlighting the importance of physics in biology. Advances in physics often leads to an advance in biology. Protein structure is one of the fields that has benefitted enormously from physical techniques such as X-ray diffraction, atomic-force microscopy and more besides. And more recently, there have been advances in gene expression understanding due to semiconductor physics.

 

But is the reverse also true? Has biology ever helped the progress of physics? Have biologists ever turned their attention to a physics problem and solved it?

Edited February 24, 2009 by ennui

[Mokele]

Depends on what you mean by "a physical problem". My field is at the macroscopic interaction of biology and physics, and we solve problems such as "how animals walk/run" and suchlike, often much better than robotics could do alone. And of course, there's biologically-inspired design, such as trying to create a material with similar dry adhesion capabilities as gecko toe-pads.

[ennui]

That's a good example. I should have said 'physics problem' rather than 'physical problem'. Just edited.