Biomimicry unveiling what mother nature can do

Introduction

Nature on earth has existed for 3.6 billion years and as us humans have existed on earth for only 200,000 years. In those 200,000 years we have greatly impacted our planet on multiple aspects on climate, geographical, structure, energy usage, and etc.While we have impacted our planet for the greater good in the name of innovation and improving the general quality of life we are faced with a global environmental crisis. Then how did nature that preexisted us for millions of years have lived for such a long time without causing a complex environmental crisis.The answer is quite simple it is their natural abilities and their greater knowledge from their longer existence on this planet.

So you're probably asking what does nature and their knowledge have to do with the consequences of human innovation? That's an excellent question, when we are faced with an ongoing global crisis we must find solutions, but what if our solution has been in our backyard or specifically in nature. Nature has existed longer than us and has figured out what works in this world and lives a sustainable life. Instead of innovation from scratch why not apply what nature did for the past 3.6 billion years to our life. In simple terms mimicking nature, I believe we can mimic nature to solve this global crisis and innovate inspired from nature.

What is Biomimicry

Biomimicry is the practice of learning and mimicking the design within nature to solve and help human challenges. Biomimicry offers a deep connected understanding of how life works and ultimately where we fit in with nature. The goal with biomimicry is to ultimately apply our knowledge from nature to solve or own design challenges while keeping those solutions sustainable. We can use biomimicry to our advantage to not only learn from nature but to fix and live more sustainably with nature.

Examples of Biomimicry

We tend to think that Biomimicry is a very new discipline, but in fact most innovations has been based on nature and similar to biomimicry. One of the earliest innovations that uses a form of biomimicry is Da Vinci glider design. Da Vinci was inspired by birds and their specific motions as why they could fly. With the wings from bats having this arc shape.

Another great example is architectural design. Insects like bees that have lived in complex societies existing for 160 million years. In those 160 million years they have by far perfected or created one of the best architectural structural design. The beehive is one of the worlds most important structural engineering feat. Yes even though it is not our engineering feat the mathematical science proves that it clearly deserves one. The honeycomb hexagon is the main recurring structural design in a bee hive. The honeycomb mathematical properties shows that it is the best way to have the most area in the least amount of perimeter. Another structural properties it shows is when the combs are stacked they form tubes and give a extremely strong compression strength. In bee hives it is usually crowded with a massive population of bees and which you would think it would be extremely hot and stuffy and would melt the wax off from the combs. But apparently since the beehive can be structurally adaptable by bees it can create hives that can fully dissipate heat through aerodynamic designs and using advantage of the stacked combs being ariducts. Now scientists are using the hexagonal shape on satellites for their space efficiency. Or building bridges using hexagonal comb like structure having strength efficiency. In singapore they also base their buildings position aerodynamically to make the small nation city tackle their sweltering humidity problems. Bee hives have created a structural design that has a multifunctional design principle which also are sustainable and long lasting.

One of the most famous well known biomimicry design feat is the Shinkansen 500 series. In the 1960s post war japan developed one of the first high speed train traveling at remarkable speeds of 130 mph. Yet it had a problem in the late 80s with the early 100 series bullet train. When the train traveled at high speeds in tunnels the air flow and atmospheric pressure would build in the tunnel and when it is forced out in the exit of the tunnel it would release the pressure creating a sonic boom. This problem was going to be solved by designing an entire new Shinkansen which would be directed by Eiji Nakatsu. Eiji Nakatsu had used 3 fundamental design aspect of nature. The first aspect would be the the pantograph. The pantograph is the electrical hangar that helps to have electricity in the train. The pantograph would be redesigned after a owls wing as when the owl swoops down for its prey it is silent due to its wings. The owl wings are designed to have a large wing span but have this lock position to generate lift as a gliding form, which doesn’t create any sound and excess motion. Before the pantograph was designed it was a criss cross shape but now it was simplified by the shape of the wings reducing the noise and drag. Then the 2nd feature of the Shinkansen is the belly of a Aedile Penguin as it can travel on its belly smoothly and effortlessly. The design feature was applied on the base of the pantograph to make it more elegant and to reduce wind resistance. Finally most notable of all the nose of the train. The nose of the train was designed after a Kingfisher bird known for catching their prey underwater with its beak without having excessive splashing and effortlessly catch pray in thick water conditions. When they tested the design the one that closely related to the kingfisher beak had the quietest nose while having less drag and less wind resistance. All of these biomimicry design features contributed to the Shinkansen 500 series being more energy efficient ,10% faster and used 15% less energy.

Biomimicry and its climate change solution

As in the 21st century we are facing a great crisis that threatens our existence on this planet. As greenhouse gasses continue to rise and our planets starts to warm up we must find solutions within nature. Biomimicry have a different perspective of approach to climate change and the ways we can solve the climate change problem. We must first sets some principles or foundations that we can build on. The first principle is to emulate/copy nature to our own surroundings and then improve on to create more regenerative and efficient designs. The second principle is ethos or the philosophy of understanding how life or nature flows and creating things that will last to support nature while coexisting. Finally the third principle is to devolve or retouch with nature and to understand our place and value of nature. To devolve is to also simplify understanding and humanize our relationship with nature to get a better understanding of ethos and emulating nature.

One of the biggest problem is co2 emissions. We view co2 as a general waste product and that we will never utilize. But with biomimicry we can utilize co2 emissions for creating cellulose, shells, natural polymers, etc. Essentially we can view co2 as an untapped resource to make more material without harming nature. Another contributor to this climate change is the production process. Us humans since the industrial revolution have been using pressure and heat to process and mold materials and force them to a certain shape. We also manufacturer break to build process. These break to build processes using heat and pressure has a huge waste material wasting 96% of raw material to create that 4% of the final product. In nature production happens on a grow to build basis. It doesn’t waste and it's about 5 times efficient in production. When it's something like a grow to make a production process you don’t waste time and you don’t waste material. So in order to adopt the grow to build process we should utilizing 3d printing technology to bigger scales. Another innovation towards biomimicry is to utilize position marking from nature. From research there has been a study of the hydrodynamics of the school of fish and its specific positioning that increases in traveling efficiency. In a school of fish their fins generate small waves that go down into the end of the school this wave which helps the fish to flung up to the front with minimal energy. When we apply wind power energy it creates a wind power system that improves efficiency 10 times due to aerodynamic reactions similar to the school of fish having greater impact with minimal effort while also not using as much as land. These improvements of usage of co2, having a more sustaining building process to grow to build and finally improving on position efficiency giving great amounts of energy with minimal effort can greatly reduce the impact on our global problem of climate change.

Conclusion

Biomimicry is a practice that dives deep into understanding of nature and what we can learn from it. When we try to solve problems either in design, Medicine, Engineering, Politics and etc we can all rely on our 3.6 billion year old friend that has lived longer than us and has the unlimited potential knowledge we can apply on. With the rising problem of climate change we must change our ways of living and live in a more sustainable environment that is inspired and innovated not by us from scratch but from nature. We must find ways to coexist without going against nature. By using nature and applying nature and humanizing our life more with increasing understanding of nature in our role of life we have a significant chance to improve our life and solve climate change with harnessing the knowledge and abilities of 3.6 billion years of experience.

Works Cited

Benyus, Janine, director. Bio Industrial Revolution. Bio Industrial Reovultion, Ted Talk, 2014, youtu.be/YSOFd0YgpQQ.

Petruzzello, Melissa. “Biomimicry.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 26 Sept. 2014, www.britannica.com/topic/Biomimicry-1994980.

Rattner, Beth, and Lex Amore. “Biomimicry Institue What Is Biomimicry.” Biomimicry Institue , 2014, biomimicry.org/what-is-biomimicry/.

Sharon, Roee and George Dicaprio, directors. Biomimicry. Biomimcry, Youtube, 11 Sept. 2015, youtu.be/sf4oW8OtaPY.

Team, AskNature, et al. “Shinkansen Train.” AskNature, asknature.org/idea/shinkansen-train/.

Zhang, Qiancheng, et al. “Honeycomb Structure Is Space-Efficient and Strong : Carpenter Bees.” AskNature, 2020, asknature.org/strategy/honeycomb-structure-is-space-efficient-and-strong/.