Biomimetic engineering: Nature inspires innovations

9-15 Feb 2010

From catching water to moving effortlessly and creating food from unusual sources (e.g. sunlight), nature’s organisms had centuries to get it right.

And we’re better off mimicking them in our designs of everyday and not-so-everyday things.

Take plants for example. Every school kid knows that they produce energy by photosynthesis, and make the air breathable for us (carbon dioxide in, oxygen out).

So engineers took their lead from plants, resulting in a solar cell that’s twice as efficient than other cells and concrete blocks that breathe carbon dioxide from the air!

We’d expect every living thing to host bacteria colonies. But there’s none on the Galapagos sharks. That’s due to their unusual skin patterns that prevent bacteria from landing on it. This discovery led to anti-bacterial surfaces used in hospitals.

The Humpback Whale’s jumps through the air are likened as a ballet. That inspired aerodynamic windmills based on their unusual fins. Back on land, the Nambian fog-basking beetle has taught architects how to design buildings that collect and collate water from its surroundings. The ant colony is greater than the sum of its ants. In fact it self-regulates its resources without the need for a central controller. Regen’s smart energy grid took a cue from the ants and allowed every electrical appliance to monitor and adjust their own energy usage based on what’s happening as a whole.

But the kicker is how we’ve design a way to self-assemble solar cells by mimicking salad dressing. Imagine it… salad dressing inspires?!

Janine Benyus on Biomimicry (src: TED)

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