Biomimetics, Bionics,… to define life-like creativity engineering or nature inspired human inventions.
Those words are relatively new, as they appeared in the last 50 years and since then, they are having an increasing interest and development in those fields. The term ‘bionic’ was coined by Jack E. Steele in 1958 and ‘biomimicry’ in 1982, and was popularized by scientist and author Janine Benyus in her 1997 book Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature (strongly recommended). Biomimicry is defined in her book as a "new science that studies nature's models and then imitates or takes inspiration from these designs and processes to solve human problems". Well, very clear but no so easy. Nature is hiding big secrets and humans take thousands of years to investigate and apply those special tweaks to human inventions. For example, Leonardo da Vinci created the concept for flying machines about 500 years ago but it wasn’t until 1903 when the Wright Brothers, succeed in creating and flying the first airplane, developed by observations of pigeons in flight.
For me, this is one of the most interesting parts of science, as it leads us to a more sustainable future. In addition we support our basis on ‘products’ that have thousands of years of evolution, and give us proof they are working quite nicely. And also we contribute to a better living consuming less resources and generating less waste.
Here you can find some very interesting talks from TED & the Atmoshphere event by Janine Benyus and also Michael Pawlyn designer of The Eden Project talking about Biomimicry in Architecture. And also, Asknature.org is an essential live source created by The Biomimicry Institute in collaboration with the giant Autodesk for collaboration and documentation of how Nature Intelligence solves some of the problems we are facing today. Enjoy!