Biomimicry: How Nature Revolutionized Technology
When we see planes soaring through the sky, we draw our breath in awe at the technology that allows us to fly through the heavens. At first glance, it’s far more impressive than any animal in nature, but is this really the case?
Planes, however, drew inspiration from the aerodynamics of birds, yet we still believe that our technology is far more impressive than the natural example. Are we finding inspiration from these technologies or their natural counterparts?
The process of finding inspiration in these cutting-edge technologies is known as biomimicry.
The Revolution Begins
In 1989, a huge problem arose in Japan’s bullet trains arose. Having a fast train erases a flurry of problems, ranging from efficient transportation, fewer uses of resources, and better air quality, but there was one problem: it was too loud. Citizens in the area were extremely disturbed by the loud “boom” it gave when exiting a tunnel due to pushing so much air out at an extremely high speed.
A team of exceptional engineers in Japan was put together, but the solution emerged from the most unlikely source: birdwatcher, Eiji Nakatsu: the head of the team, had a diverse knowledge of birds and analyzed the Kingfisher bird. The Kingfisher bird characteristically dives into the water to catch its prey, without making a sound. The key was the shape of its beak; the Kingfisher’s beak is extremely narrow and thin, able to push into the water without the slightest sound. Through various trials, the team developed a new model of the bullet train. This new model was faster and made considerably less noise.
The new models used less energy went faster and produced significantly less noise. In conclusion, by copying nature, a weak design was levelled up amazingly.
This innovation is only one of the many technologies derived from nature. But how do we actually get here? We cannot copy the entire system of how one animal works without seeing how it matches with other aspects, but in order for innovation to be the best it can be, we can take inspiration from nature. Everything starts with a process, and when going through biomimicry there are specific ways in which you can use nature as a starting or ending point, so let’s get into it!
The Process of Implementing Biology into your Design
- Explore how a natural inspiration can enhance your own designs.
- Identify which aspect would be most impactful in mimicking: shape or form, process, or ecosystems.
- Investigate how your inspiration is successful in this field, and apply it to your designs.
- Shape refers to the physical characteristics of any natural entity, such as the form of the Kingfisher’s beak. The process is an overall evaluation of a certain natural aspect, such as how ants in a colony interact with one another, this is similar to how autonomous cars are able to communicate with each other! Whole ecosystems can also serve as important inspirations for innovation. Ecosystems flow in chains, and nothing is wasted. Matter travels up the food chain and is used to continue growing the ecosystem. The matter may travel from a mouse to an owl, then the owl excretes its waste, which goes to the soil, helping to fertilize it, making rich plant growth!
Often, biomimicry is thought to be simple however, it contains many aspects that any designer should consider before looking to create nature-inspired innovation, often nature’s process is far more complicated.
Key Aspects of Practical Biomimetic Applications
- Locomotion
- Optics and Photonics
- Biology-Inspired Self-Healing
Looking at the above factors, these are some of the most natural phenomena on our planet. Locomotion is all due to natural characteristics of the bodies of organisms, optics and photonics, are all due to the most natural source of light: the sun! Last, but not least, self-healing is a natural process our body’s carry out to keep us healthy, and in some animals, they have the ability to grow entire limbs back!
Locomotion
Locomotion is being implemented widely in innovation, for innovation to carry out tasks they need their core functions to include movement. Locomotion describes an object’s movement from one place to another. All animals use locomotion. Humans move with the contraction of muscles, worms utilize liquid skeletons and muscles that contract their body; cockroaches have wings and legs to help them move.
In innovation looking at the way, in which AI is becoming more prominent in industries most notably, the healthcare industry. The way in which bionic arms are working in hospital environments is crucial. Movement cannot be too harsh or too slow. Animals have such characteristics that allow them to move in perfect sync with their environment, worms burrow underground in the soil. Soil consists of many things, and air is one of those things! If a worm had many legs it would be much harder to move through soil, with a retracting smooth body a worm can move easily throughout the soil.
Optics and Photonics
The sun creates heat and light energy from millions of nuclear reactions taking place when hydrogen atoms bond to form helium atoms. So, how did we get to a point where we can create our own light efficiently with LEDs? The answer is inspiration from the light in sun rays! As light rays travel through space, they are altered as photons spread out due to the particles in the air, a phenomenon known as Rayleigh Scattering. The blue colour of our sky is caused by particles in the air, making the wavelength of light shorter. On the visible spectrum of light for humans, blue light has a short wavelength and higher frequency. So, to create these LEDs a team from CoeLux mimicked the way in which these light particles scatter and produce visible light, with a nanoparticle coating.
Biology- Inspired Self Healing
Organisms over millions of years have adapted and gone further in evolution, one of these evolutions includes the process of self-healing and organization in organisms. The self-healing system and organization of cells is what inspired an amazing network that is revolutionizing how we store information (Blockchain).
Our body has this extremely impressive response system from our cells, where if we fall and scrape our knee in a few days it will begin to dry up, as cells rush to the site of the wound to come and fix it! Cells are the basis of life, and are able to carry out so many of these functions to keep our bodies healthy, due to their ability to organize our genetic information (DNA) so well.
Cells are decentralized meaning there is no one boss cell controlling all the cells, but rather each cell has its own job, and they keep organization by communicating with each other. The second aspect is an adaptation, cells are able to manipulate themselves based on the issue presented as each of our genomes has this embedded in them, to notify cells when they need to take on another role, so in this case, if there is a wound the cells will adapt themselves to rush the scene, similar to how paramedics can drop what they are doing and rush to an ill person’s home.
With these characteristics of cells, they have amazing communication systems that allow surrounding cells to tell if a cell has died off and can no longer divide or serve a function. Cells emit chemicals that the other cells sense, and receive information from, if surrounding cells do not receive this chemical emission they know the cell has died off or is not able to serve any function longer, and can come to dispose of it to prevent a senescent cell, where a cell does not have any function and is just hanging around in the body. This inspired what is called a Blockchain, a decentralized system that can effectively store information. The blockchain works in a very similar way to cells, as it gives information through the entire network, as well as databases are all connected as cells are and they know when one has an error so that the whole system is aware and does not make any changes, without solving the problem at hand first.
This then goes on to how conscious cells are of their environment, if any levels in the cells surrounding change the cell will “take note” of this and change how it acts to better suit the environment and help the organism. Looking at all this, it is clear how similar cell systems are to the emerging technology: Blockchain! Being a decentralized system each block stores information like a cell, and it is not possible to hack, due to the communication between each when changes are made.
The Goal
Biomimicry has incredible potential across all industries; however, its goal is not to innovate rapidly but to create new, more sustainable technologies. As global warming and climate change take the planet by storm, it’s far more imperative that we reconsider our lifestyles. Biomimicry serves as one of many ways to evolve our existing systems into far more sustainable models.
