Biomimicry: Biologically Inspired Engineering

[Techne]

Biomimicry: Biomimicry (from bios, meaning life, and mimesis, meaning to imitate) is a new discipline that studies nature's best ideas and then imitates these designs and processes to solve human problems.

The 15 Coolest Cases of Biomimicry
1. Velcro
2. Passive Cooling
3. Gecko Tape
4. Whalepower Wind Turbine
5. Lotus Effect Hydrophobia
6. Self-Healing Plastics
7. The Golden Streamlining Principle
8. Artificial Photosynthesis
9. Bionic Car
10. Morphing Aircraft Wings
11. Friction-Reducing Sharkskin
12. Diatomaceous Nanotech
13. Glo-Fish
14. Insect-Inspired Autonomous Robots
15. Butterfly-Inspired Displays

What to expect from the future?
In the case of solar fuel, we would do well to use design principles of the photosynthesis photosystem II mechanism to engineer our own solar fuel producing systems with similar efficiency.
E.g.:
Solar water-splitting into H2 and O2: design principles of photosystem II and hydrogenases
Taking design principles from nature is like taking a look at the future of our own designs.

And nanomotors?
Design principles in biomolecular motors are already inspiring future designs.
Clockwork That Drives Powerful Virus Nanomotor Discovered

Because of the motor's strength--to scale, twice that of an automobile--the new findings could inspire engineers designing sophisticated nanomachines.

And what better place to manufacture these machines than the place where these machines are created in the first place. Intracellularly:
Using Living Cells As Nanotechnology Factories

ScienceDaily (Oct. 8, 2008) — In the tiny realm of nanotechnology, scientists have used a wide variety of materials to build atomic scale structures. But just as in the construction business, nanotechnology researchers can often be limited by the amount of raw materials. Now, Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University researcher Hao Yan has avoided these pitfalls by using cells as factories to make DNA based nanostructures inside a living cell.

Why not, with such optimal clockwork, error correction, efficient enzymes, structures folding other structures into place, nanotubes etc. mimicking designs in nature for our own future designs seems like a good idea.

Feel free to post more interesting designs in nature that can be used for our own future designs.

 

[Walter L. Wagner]

I'd like to see advertising billboards that can do what 'cuttlefish' [squid/octopus relatives] can do; constantly change their coloration in various patterns at a rather rapid pace [far faster than any land animal].

 

[baftan]

Here is an inspirational talk about biomimicry on TED website from Janine Benyus.

http://www.ted.com/talks/janine_benyus_biomimicry_in_action.html

I liked the idea of eco-city: Imagine a city which is built on biological principles in human scale, and it recycles its own garbage into the ecosystem. It can produce energy, clean water; and it becomes a functional replicator of natural cycles, it becomes alive.

This video is 17 min long, but she even talks about CO2 as a building block...