Biomimicry

The TIME magazine, in a recent special issue on "Heroes of the Environment", has honoured a number of people, who are, in the words of the magazine, "speakers for the planet". And one of these people, who find mention in the section "leaders & visionaries" is Janine Beynus, who pioneered a new field of study called biommimicry with her 1997 book, Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature.

Biomimicry, as the name of the book suggests, is a science that learns designs and processes from nature and uses them to solve human problems. Biomimicry has resulted in development of paint that cleans itself like lotus leaves, synthetic sheets that collect water from fog and mist like desert beetles and ultrasonic canes for the blind inspired by bats.

The logic of biomimicry is not difficult to follow. Since evolution ruthlessly eliminates all design flaws, what is left behind after 3.8 billion years of nature's stringent quality control, must be worth emulating. In the words of the TIME magazine article, biomimicry is "treating nature as model and mentor, cherished not as a mine to be stripped of its resources but as a teacher"

Read about mollusc inspired fans and termite inspired air conditioning at the Biomimicry Institute's case studies
page, or watch Janine Beynus herself present a few biomimicry ideas in this video.