Slate Group, LLC

ANTHROPOLOGY OF AN IDEA: BIOMIMETICS

Author(s): JAKE SCOBEY-THAL and ALEX EBEN MEYER
Source: Foreign Policy, No. 209, A WORLD DISRUPTED: THE LEADING GLOBAL THINKERS
OF 2014 (NOV/DEC 2014), pp. 20-21
Published by: Slate Group, LLC
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24577377
Accessed: 23-01-2019 20:16 UTC

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 INBOX • ANTHROPOLOGY
ANTHROPOLOGY OFOF
ANAN IDEA
IDEA

1969
American biophysicist
Otto Schmitt uses the
1505-1506 term "biomlmetlcs" BYJAKESCOBEY-THAL
JAKESCOBEY-THAL
Leonardo da Vinci writes for the first time, in a ILLUSTRATION BY ALEX EBEN MEYER

Codex on the Flight of

paper he presents at the

Birds, which speculates International Biophysics

that human air travel Congress in Boston No 1996
Architect Mick Pearce
could be modeled on 1903 stranger to bio-Inspired
This year, NASA presented three
the mechanics of avian technology, Schmitt had designs the Eastgate
In the first-ever
invented an electrical Centre in Harare,
flight. Over the course of
successful airplane designs for its latest prototype
circuit modeled after the Zimbabwe. Inspired by
his life, da Vinci produces
a number of works
flight, brothers Orville
neural impulse systems self-cooling mounds spacesuit, designed to withstand
and Wilbur Wright's
and more than 500
craft stays airborne for
of squids in 1934, of African termites, the the habitat on Mars. One of the
when he was a doctoral large office and retail
sketches dealing with
the mechanics of flying
just under a minute student. Schmitt's space does not have a concepts mimicked creatures
in Kitty Hawk, North
and the nature of air. word catches on and, conventional heating that thrive in one of the harshest
Carolina. The Wright
five years later, is and cooling system;
brothers' model, partic environments here on Earth: the
adopted into Webster's rather, it uses chimneys
ularly the wings' control
dictionary. that naturally draw in
mechanism, is Inspired
cool air to maintain a
deep sea. The suit replicated the
by the way birds use
1851 temperate environment. scaly skin and bioluminescence
air currents to gain lift
According to Pearce,
In London, landscape and facilitate changes 1986 of certain fish. Although the suit
the ventilation system
designer Joseph of direction, lust over
Paxton builds the a decade later, the
NASA and 3M test a costs one-tenth of eventually lost out to a different
technology that resem that in a comparable,
990,000-square-foot world's first commercial model, it showed that nature might
bles the grooves found air-conditioned building,
Crystal Palace for passenger flight travels on shark skin. Small
the Great Exhibition, from St. Petersburg,
and it uses 35 percent offer important keys to unlocking
Indentations called rib less energy.
the first international Florida, to Tampa.
lets are attached to the
the cosmos. And that's not all:
expo of manufactured
outer shell of an aircraft
products. The palace's Nature might also help build a better
with adhesive to reduce
unique architecture, industrial future back home. Human
which uses crisscrossed 1955 drag in the air and make 1997
jets more aerodynamic. Scientist and writer
iron girders to support Swiss engineer George
Today, Lufthansa is Janine Benyus publishes
nearly 300,000 panes de Mestral patents
developing technology the book Biomimicry.
of glass over a vast, Velcro. His idea, however,
to "paint" these grooves Innovation Inspired by
open space, is inspired was hatched years
directly onto commercial Nature. Benyus, now
by the leaf of a water earlier when, during aircraft exteriors to considered the field's
lily; Interconnecting ribs a hunting trip in the
lower fuel consumption chief proselytizer,
help the plant support Alps, his dog became
by about 1 percent. frames the concept of
substantial weight in covered In burs. Inspired
water. (It may not sound like biomlmetlcs around
by the prickly seeds'
much, but the savings the urgent goal of
tiny hooks, de Mestral
could yield significant ending environmental
envisioned a product-, environmental benefits. destruction. "We're able
two pieces of fabric,
Annually, the United to apply fresh thinking
one with hooks, the
States alone consumes to traditional manufac
other with loops. Velcro
about 20 billion gallons turing to undo the toxic
becomes widely known
of aviation fuel.)
in the 1960s, when and energy-Intensive
mistakes of the past,"
NASA uses it in space
Benyus tells National
shuttles to prevent food,
Geographic years later.
equipment and other
"I wish we had been at
items from floating
20 NOVEMBER/DEC the design table at the
away in zero gravity.
Industrial Revolution."

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 • • V* *4 a *

•V#

2010 JANUARY 2014

Janine Benyus co Harvard scientists and
founds Biomlmicry 3.8. engineers publish a
The firm, whose name is paper in Noture intro
a reference to 3.8 billion ducing a new, metal
years of natural life, free battery that relies
consults for, trains, and
2012 on naturally abundant,
educates companies Boston College carbon-based molecules
innovation, some thinking goes, on how to incorporate undergraduates called quinones
bio-insplred innovation Deckard Sorensen and similar to those that
should take cues from naturally Miguel Galvez, founders
2006 into their practices. To store energy in animals
occurring processes, because after day, it has worked with
of NBD Nanotechnol and plants. Significantly
Richard Bonser, then
more than 250 clients, ogies, produce a proof cheaper than the metals
billions of years of evolution, nature of the University of of concept for a water normally used in batteries,
including Shell, Boeing,
Reading's Centre for
has determined what is efficient, and General Electric. bottle inspired by the this technology, the
Biomimetics, publishes Namib Desert beetle. researchers note, could
effective, and enduring. This isn't a study in the Journal of I Like the Insect, which Improve the efficacy
Bionic Engineering that
a novel idea. From airplanes to 2011 draws water from air by of renewable energy in
assesses the growth of collecting condensa large grid systems.
Velcro, inventors have long turned biomimetlc innovation. Lynn Reaser, chief
tion on microscopic
Bonser finds that be economist at Point
to flora and fauna for inspiration bumps on its back, the
tween 1985 and 2005, Loma Nazarene
bottle would harvest
and instruction. But now more than the number of patents University's Fermanian air moisture; the team JULY 2014
worldwide containing the Business and Economic
estimates the device
ever, biomimetics is generating word "biomlmetic" or Institute in San Diego,
India's Lavasa Corp. flies
could store up to 3 liters for an initial public
establishes the Da
product designs-not to mention "bio-insplred" increased of drinking water every offering, its second
by a factor of 93. Vinci Index. Measuring
hundreds of millions of dollars in hour. "If we're creating attempt in four years, to
(The growth factor for the frequency of
[several] liters per day raise 7.5 billion rupees
biomimetics terms used
capital investment-that are not non-biomimetic patents in a cost-effective (over SlOO million) to
was 2.7.) in scientific journals, manner," Galvez tells
just pioneering, but also potentially develop the country's
patents, and grants, the
sustainable. ♦
I index aims to quantify
the BBC, "you can get first city based on
. this to a community of biomimetic principles.
the expansion of
2008 people in sub-Saharan The company has
bio-inspired research
Engineer and entrepre Africa and other dry worked closely with
and innovation.
neur Hansjdrg Wyss regions of the world." biologists to develop the
According to a report on
pledges S125 million to city's master plan, which
biomimetics, the field Is
Harvard University-at incorporates reforesta
set to explode; By 2025,
the time, the largest tion efforts, rainwater
biomimicry could repre
single endowment in harvesting, and green
sent S300 billion of U.S.
the university's history— construction practices.
GDP annually, 1.6 million
to create the Wyss If realized, the city could
jobs, and S50 billion
Institute for Biologically be home to as many as
In terms of resources
Inspired Engineering. 300,000 people.
conserved.
According to a press re
lease, the institute "will
strive to uncover the
engineering principles
that govern living things,
and use this knowledge
to develop technology
solutions for the most
pressing health-care
and environmental
FOREIGN POLICY 21
issues facing humanity."

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