How does a dead fish swim upstream, and what does that reveal about the hidden intelligence of body design? Maarja Kruusmaa explores the surprising physics of fish locomotion, lateral line sensing, and why propellers may not be the last word in underwater engineering.

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Kruusmaa challenges naive biomimetics, the tendency to copy everything from nature without understanding which features actually matter. She draws parallels to early propellers with feathers and cars with horse compartments, arguing that the real engineering challenge is identifying which biological principles are worth extracting. While propellers remain a mature and powerful technology, fish outperform them in energy efficiency and acoustic stealth, leaving almost no wake behind them. The key advant ...