Biomimicry--Nature Itself is the Solution

So, after seeing this title, you might ask, what exactly is Biomimicry? The definition of the technique Biomimicry is exactly what we can see tell from the composition of the word. It is the mimicry adaption of some specific biological characters which belong to the nature—its species, habitats, systems and so on. It’s neither bio-utilization where we chop trunks into woods, nor bio-assistance where we brew the vintage. It is making use of the process instead of the product. Constant designing and reinventing will be playing a large part in the creation of biomimicry.

For years people have been feeling they’re the most advanced species. Sure, we can perceive things in a way that no other living objects are capable of. We have systematic language. We develop special tools for our specific needs. We invent things that make the world function better for us. But nature always has a better design in the most effective and friendly fashion, because nature doesn’t just plug in random and awkward stuff arbitrarily. Every product of nature is the most reasonable result that human beings alone can never create. It is the result of balance. That’s why while kidneys can filter and liver can de-toxic for us in a manner so natural and simple that we just find it so difficult to reproduce. That’s why no matter how much we would like to learn to get energy like plants, to camouflage like chameleon, to produce the bouncing power of a flea, to survive almost without water like the cactus, or to regrow body parts like the gecko—we find it insanely difficult. So while we’re still having so many problems interpreting all these productions of nature, including ourselves, how can we have even the slightest arrogance to claim that we control the nature? It is nature that’s operating us, and waiting calmly yet desperately to see whether or not we can retreat before it’s too late.

That's how Biomimicry came into action. To retreat from further damage, we need to bow to the nature and learn from it everything that we've been so ignorant of in the past. When we're trying to save the nature, biommicry tells us that nature itself is the solution.

After this amazingly informative forum of Biomimicry, I somehow found path that I would be so willing to dedicate myself to, though it’s still too vague due to my lack of technological knowledge and practical experience. However, I could still see this shine of hope through the daunting and rushing currents of life, as I finally found something that I might be able hold on to.

In the first part of the lecture, we were introduced to some most fascinating products that can save the nature by this implementation of nature’s method. They learnt how to store water from the dessert genius—cactus, making use of the function of its inner and outer layer rigid cells. They could soon improve the self-cleaning of solar panels with some special skin layer like sandfish that makes sand naturally roll off its back, which would be a leap for advancing solar energy. As for energy saving, they studied beaver’s dam and created smaller dams to minimize the impact on fish migration, and they also followed the structure of sea plants on how they would wave back and forth in the sea to create Bio-wave energy. Also the incredible transportation of water through the xylem system in redwood trees, if completely controlled and implemented in Biomimicry to pump water up with energy only coming from the nature, the world will be saved. Moreover, want to know how the disproportional distribution of water might be solved without building those exhausting and complicated systems and pipes? Well, there’s this magical beetle in drought areas, with wings that would be spread out at dusk or dawn to let water condense onto it and then roll exactly into its mouth. Without exploiting any resources and only by collecting water that might otherwise be off into the water cycle and fall somewhere where it’s a lot less needed, this beetle lives on. But what it doesn’t know is that those tiny pair of the wings may one day carry the weight of the world.