Biomimicry

I recently came across a very interesting video on TED that summed up a fundamental ideology that science is progressively undertaking in order to come up with our next generation technological advances.

As described by Michael Pawlyn in this TED video, nature has had an R&D program for 3.8 billion years, working on many of the technological challenges that we currently are trying to overcome. We might as well learn from nature and its accomplishments to help us on our technological journey! Biomimicry studies the design and application of materials and systems within nature to help evolve our technology and solve problems that plague our society. This is a growing field and many scientists and organizations are actively looking at nature to try to use our finite resources more effectively.

Nature has developed a way to maintain balance. There is constant recycling of resources within natural closed loop systems (ecosystems), creating an interdependence between various organisms- one organism’s outputs are another organism’s inputs. Many organizations, especially in manufacturing tend to see byproduct outputs as disposable instead of creating ecosystems to generate additional revenue and reduce waste. There are a few scientists out there that are wanting to change that. An example- the largest source of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions other than fossil fuel consumption from power plants and vehicles is cement production- a company called Celera is taking a lesson from how coral grows to combine the flu gas from coal/ fossil fuel plants and mineral-rich seawater to form cement and as a bi-product, actually sequester CO2 in the process, reducing the green house gas footprint of power plants and cement production. So Celera is taking two independent systems that create an abundant amount of CO2 and combining the systems together making them interdependent and reducing CO2 in the process.

Nature stands to propel us into the next millennium in the are of design and construction. Insects are often overlooked and considered a primitive form of life but their societies are very organized and sophisticated and most have created skills to efficiently use their resources and in the process maintain a minimum footprint on their surroundings. The housing structures that termites, ants, bees, wasps and other colony type insects have created are far more effective systems than anything humans have created. Architects are now learning from these species to create advanced building, design, infrastructure and materials, waste recycling systems, and climate control systems. On other fronts, bacteria is being analysed to create glue that can shore up cracks in cement, helping to increase the longevity and safety of our buildings.

Renewable energy and water scarcity are two large challenges for our growing population this century. Our insect friends, specifically the shells of beetles are teaching scientists how to efficiently collect water from the atmosphere and create more cost and energy effective solar cells.

Nature in the ocean is equally amazing. The study of the adhesive that allows muscles to stick to rocks has provided potential breakthroughs for medicine and waterproofing. Calcite, an abundant crystalline form of calcium carbonate that forms naturally as one of the main ingredients of seashells is providing insight to create visible spectrum cloaking technologies that not only will be able to hide objects but also assist in providing better scanning technologies.

Our home electronics are even seeing advancement with the help of nature. Flies and other insects that have sophisticated compound eyes are helping us develop advanced lenses for cameras that can see in wider angels and spectrum and allow for greater manipulation of images. Study of woodpeckers is providing inspiration for shock-proofing our electronics.

This article mentions only a few of the applications that are being developed using biomimicry to help improve our society for future generations. If you want to check out more examples, there is an organized effort now to provide inspiration for using lessons from nature for technological design. Sites like Ask Nature are being designed to collect and share findings and ideas from nature so we can collectively improve our infrastructure, processes, and products we use in society.

One can only hope that we as a species become enlightened as to how interdependent everything is in nature and that we fit within that ecosystem despite our arrogant thinking to the contrary. We have an incredible amount to gain from learning and respecting nature and lose from its destruction.