Engineers Ask Nature for Design Advice

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/11/science/engineers-ask-nature-for-design-advice.html

For my first blog entry I’ve decided to start out with an article from the New York Times, entitled Engineers Ask Nature for Design Advice. I found this article on their website, written in the Science section for the December 11, 2001 issue of the newspaper. In the article, writer Jim Robbins provides a really straightforward, and unbiased introduction to emerging discoveries and future designs in the field of biomimetics. In the article he gives several examples of organisms in nature that have served as inspiration for scientists and engineers in the pursuit of solutions to common problems in manufacturing as well as medical science.

To be honest, before I found this article the most I knew about biomimetics was what is written in the introduction to this blog. Yes, I understood that this field of science is basically the mimicking of natural biological systems to be put to use in an engineering field, but the amount of that that relies on the ingenuity and creativity of the engineers was completely unknown to me. Although the biologists can supply the engineers with the way the system functions down to the very last chemical compound, the engineers have to figure out a way to apply this information to a product or technique that can then be used in the human world.

According to Robbins, biomimicry is not a new concept, but rather has been inspiring engineers for years. Hypodermic needles are shaped life the fangs of rattlesnakes, and Velcro is based off of the same principle as those annoying cockleburs that get stuck in your socks when you walk through a dry field. And you know those house paints that claim they don’t need to be cleaned earlier than five years after application? They’re not just making that up. It’s based off of the self-cleaning system of the sacred white lotus. The lotus has tiny points on its leaves that create a surface for debris to attach to, and an easy surface for water to run across to wash away any debris that has already settled. This concept was applied to paints, and truly is self-cleaning as promised.

It’s hard to find any opposition to this article, as there are no real harmful or disadvantageous aspects of biomimetics as a scientific field. It does require some trial and error that may cause the ineffective and inefficient use of an organism until better means of utilizing their desirable trait is determined. In the article Robbins exemplified this in his description of the muscles that were being targeted for their adhesive abilities. Ten thousand muscles were shucked and ground-up just to extract one gram of the protein that was necessary to make the adhesive. However, through research and development, a better method was obtained and scientists were able to become more efficient in the production of the adhesive.

Another notable part of the article was the quote by Janine M. Benyus, a science writer, saying “[Businesses] should find a way to create conditions conducive to life, not toxic to life”. Such a simple statement evokes a very powerful idea. When I think of factories and manufacture, I think of tall smokestacks, billows of black smog, and animals being forced to leave their already well-established environments in search of new areas to live. This is probably largely due to the presence of Dr. Seuss in my life as a child, and the fact that Fern Gully was undoubtedly my favorite movie from the ages of five to twelve. But to think that this is not the way that large-scale manufacture and production has to be is a revolutionary idea. Factories that work off of nature, not destroy it, is an incredible concept. This is the way it should have been all along. Humans and nature working hand in hand to grow and evolve, without destroying ourselves in the process.