How An Elephant’s Trunk Manipulates Air to Eat and Drink

New research from Georgia Tech finds that elephants dilate their nostrils in order to create more space in their trunks, allowing them to store up to nine liters of water. They can also suck up three liters per second — a speed 50 times faster than a human sneeze. The findings could inspire different ways to building robots that manipulate air to move or hold things.