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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
1505-1506
Leonardo da Vinci writes
Codex on the Flight of
Birds, which speculates
that human air travel
could be modeled on
the mechanics of avian
flight. Over the course of
his life, da Vinci produces
a number of works
and more than 500
sketches dealing with
the mechanics of flying
and the nature of air.
1851
In London, landscape
designer Joseph
Paxton builds the
990,000-square-foot
Crystal Palace for
the Great Exhibition,
the first international
expo of manufactured
products. The palace's
unique architecture,
which uses crisscrossed
iron girders to support
nearly 300,000 panes
of glass over a vast,
open space, is inspired
by the leaf of a water
lily; Interconnecting ribs
help the plant support
substantial weight in
water.
20 NOVEMBER/DEC
IDEA
1903
In the first-ever
successful airplane
flight, brothers Orville
and Wilbur Wright's
craft stays airborne for
just under a minute
in Kitty Hawk, North
Carolina. The Wright
brothers' model, partic
ularly the wings' control
mechanism, is Inspired
by the way birds use
air currents to gain lift
and facilitate changes
of direction, lust over
a decade later, the
world's first commercial
passenger flight travels
from St. Petersburg,
Florida, to Tampa.
1955
Swiss engineer George
de Mestral patents
Velcro. His idea, however,
was hatched years
earlier when, during
a hunting trip in the
Alps, his dog became
covered In burs. Inspired
by the prickly seeds'
tiny hooks, de Mestral
envisioned a product-,
two pieces of fabric,
one with hooks, the
other with loops. Velcro
becomes widely known
in the 1960s, when
NASA uses it in space
shuttles to prevent food,
equipment and other
items from floating
away in zero gravity.
This content downloaded from 138.36.64.82 on Wed, 23 Jan 2019 20:16:26 UTC
1969
American biophysicist
Otto Schmitt uses the
term "biomlmetlcs" BYJAKESCOBEY-THAL
JAKESCOBEY-THAL
for the first time, in a ILLUSTRATION BY ALEX EBEN MEYER
paper he presents at the
International Biophysics
Congress in Boston No 1996
Architect Mick Pearce
stranger to bio-Inspired
This year, NASA presented three
technology, Schmitt had designs the Eastgate
invented an electrical Centre in Harare,
designs for its latest prototype
circuit modeled after the Zimbabwe. Inspired by
neural impulse systems self-cooling mounds spacesuit, designed to withstand
of squids in 1934, of African termites, the the habitat on Mars. One of the
when he was a doctoral large office and retail
student. Schmitt's space does not have a concepts mimicked creatures
word catches on and, conventional heating that thrive in one of the harshest
five years later, is and cooling system;
environments here on Earth: the
adopted into Webster's rather, it uses chimneys
dictionary. that naturally draw in
cool air to maintain a
deep sea. The suit replicated the
temperate environment. scaly skin and bioluminescence
According to Pearce,
1986 of certain fish. Although the suit
the ventilation system
NASA and 3M test a costs one-tenth of eventually lost out to a different
technology that resem that in a comparable,
model, it showed that nature might
bles the grooves found air-conditioned building,
on shark skin. Small
and it uses 35 percent offer important keys to unlocking
Indentations called rib less energy.
lets are attached to the
the cosmos. And that's not all:
outer shell of an aircraft
Nature might also help build a better
with adhesive to reduce
industrial future back home. Human
drag in the air and make 1997
jets more aerodynamic. Scientist and writer
Today, Lufthansa is Janine Benyus publishes
developing technology the book Biomimicry.
to "paint" these grooves Innovation Inspired by
directly onto commercial Nature. Benyus, now
aircraft exteriors to considered the field's
lower fuel consumption chief proselytizer,
by about 1 percent. frames the concept of
(It may not sound like biomlmetlcs around
much, but the savings the urgent goal of
could yield significant ending environmental
environmental benefits. destruction. "We're able
Annually, the United to apply fresh thinking
States alone consumes to traditional manufac
about 20 billion gallons turing to undo the toxic
of aviation fuel.)
and energy-Intensive
mistakes of the past,"
Benyus tells National
Geographic years later.
"I wish we had been at
the design table at the
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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