Biomimicry : innovation inspired by nature

Repackaged with a new afterword, this "valuable and entertaining" (New York Times Book Review) book explores how scientists are adapting nature's best ideas to solve tough 21st century problems. Biomimicry is rapidly transforming life on earth. Biomimics study nature's most successful ideas over the past 3.5 million years, and adapt them for human use. The results are revolutionizing how materials are invented and how we compute, heal ourselves, repair the environment, and feed the world. Janine Benyus takes readers into the lab and in the field with maverick thinkers as they: discover miracle drugs by watching what chimps eat when they're sick; learn how to create by watching spiders weave fibers; harness energy by examining how a leaf converts sunlight into fuel in trillionths of a second; and many more examples. Composed of stories of vision and invention, personalities and pipe dreams, Biomimicry is must reading for anyone interested in the shape of our future.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member DavidGerstel

If you love building but worry about the impact of the work on our planet, Biomimicry can fill you with hope for the future. Benyus is criticized for not getting all the technical details right as she covers a wide range of scientific subjects armed only with a Master's degree. Buit even those who

try to take her down admit that Benyus is making an important subject more accessible to lay readers. By imitating nature (biomimicing), she reports, we can convert our production processes -- including design and construction of buildings -- so that they merge with rather than poison and disrupt the organic cycle. For example, she describes research on building coatings whose pigments are modeled on the chloroplasts in plants and that would produce the power for a building the coatings are applied to.

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