Lenovo's new cooling system - based on an owl?

Laptops are getting thinner and more powerful, yet somehow they still don't fry our legs off. Well, most of them don't anyway. So how do they keep these notebooks cool? Here is a glimpse into what manufacturers do to keep your leg hairs safe.

The designers over at Lenovo were faced with the challenge of fitting Intel's Santa Rosa chips into a smaller case. They needed a way to keep the laptop cool and quiet, so they decided to look outside the box. Actually they went pretty far from the box, out into the wild.

They studied owls for their inspiration. No, the engineers over at Lenovo haven't lost it, the owl can flap its wings with enough force to keep it aloft while making virtually no sound. Which is essentially what they are hoping to accomplish with a fan blade.

So they studied the wings of an owl and designed their fan blades to mimic them. The result was a fan that can keep things running cool, while staying as quiet as possible.

Latest ThinkPads inspired by nature [via crave]