Jellyfish have a very simple, yet very effective way of swimming – and this has attracted the attention of the aeronautics engineer John Dabiri at the California Institute of Technology. In this episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast, Dabiri talks about his work on the artificial enhancement of jellyfish. He also explains how fluid dynamics can be used to boost the efficiency of windfarms, and explores the possibility that swimming organisms play important role in the mixing of the oceans.

Dabiri and Caltech’s Simon Anuszczyk describe their bionic jellyfish in a paper that has been accepted for publication in the journal Bioinspiration & Biomimetics. The accepted manuscript can be read here: “Electromechanical enhancement of live jellyfish for ocean exploration”.