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A NEW SPIN ON CREATION

The high tech world could learn a thing or two from Mother Nature.

Text: DON TAPSCOTT

MAR

Sitting in my backyard last summer, frustrated by how my laptop screen was washed out by the bright sun, I was reminded yet again of Henry David Thoreau. His masterwork, Walden, celebrated the wisdom and rhythms of nature.

My laptop brought Thoreau to mind because of the growing army of kindred spirits in R&D labs around the world. Searching for solutions to vexing engineering problems, clever scientists are starting to turn away from their computer monitors to gaze out the window. It’s about time.

These scientists understand that the world’s best crucible of invention is Mother Nature herself. The laboratory known as life has been operating for more than 3.8 billion years and is the result of millions of experiments. Clearly, there’s not much that Mother Nature hasn’t tried.

The notion of looking to plants and animals for inspiration to solve everyday problems is called biomimicry. The termed was popularized by Janine M. Benyus with the publication of her 1997 groundbreaking book Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. Were Thoreau alive today, he’d probably have written a blurb for the book’s cover.

Benyus argues that evolution’s trial and error has produced a spectacular array of innovative materials and inspired structures. Much of the time and energy we waste trying to invent solutions to meet our needs would be more productively spent emulating what nature has already accomplished. Compared to the natural world, many of our supposedly sophisticated high-tech R&D efforts are in the Stone Age.

Which brings me back to my frustrations in my backyard. Laptop and PDA manufacturers have long struggled to make screen displays that are visible in bright sun. But peacocks do it all the time. The birds are actually brown but use an intricate crystal framework on their skin to generate a rainbow of colours. The brighter the sun the brighter their colours. It’s only recently dawned on computer makers to mimic this process. They’re also looking to butterflies for ideas. There’s no shortage of simple problems that nature could help us solve. For example, we’ve yet to figure out a way to glue together wet objects, which is why none of us put on Band-Aids in the shower. In the human world, surfaces become slippery when wet, but not in the mussel’s world. Mussels latch on tenaciously to wet rocks or ship hulls, which are often covered with slime or dirt. Scientists are trying to figure out the bivalve’s trick. Once they succeed, there will be a huge number of applications, ranging from new surgical techniques to cheaper and more durable computer components.

In a similar sticky vein, geckos can walk up a wall of glass. For the longest time, researchers thought that their feet were covered with tiny suction cups or some sort of adhesive substance. But three years ago, biologists discovered that the gecko actually relies on weak molecular bonds known as van der Waals forces. A gecko foot has billions of tiny hairs per square centimetre, which bond to the surface it comes in contact with. Spurred on by the real world example, research labs have developed a prototype tape with similar properties. The applications for such gravity-defying material – think Spiderman-like rescue personnel or construction workers – are limited only by our imagination.

The potential of biomimicry is enormous. Witness the scores of fascinating experiments around the world, as turned up by a Google search. A particularly high-profile project is underway in rural Quebec. Researchers are trying to produce commercial quantities of spider silk, which is far stronger than any man-made material. A centimetre-wide spider silk rope could tow an aircraft carrier. The market for commercially produced spider silk-like material would be enormous. In trying to replicate the spider’s magic, researchers introduced spider genes into the mammary glands of goats. The resulting milk contains the raw material from which spider silk can be made. The project is controversial because some biomimicry advocates, including Janine Benyus, believe the biggest lesson we can learn from nature is humility. We should conform to nature’s rhythms and ways rather than trying to bend it to suit our needs.

Thoreau would no doubt agree. In the search for new products, it makes sense to focus on mimicking and learning from the natural world rather than messing with it. Imagine that the time line of the earth’s history is a kilometre long. Humanity’s existence is less than 1.5 centimetres. The industrial age would account for four-one-thousandths of a centimetre (about the thickness of one page), yet the depletion of resources, destruction, pollution and havoc we’ve wreaked in this short period is staggering.

Biomimicry done right is one of the most positive developments in scientific research in the past decade. Nature has dealt with many of the problems humans now face. The challenge for researchers today is to learn how to create new materials and processes in a way that doesn’t jeopardize our planet and its ecosystems. [ ]

ADD YOUR COMMENTS > dtapscott@enroutemag.net

MAR