During the past couple weeks, I’ve taken the opportunity at the beginning of TreeHugger’s blog to offer a crash course in some of the green concepts and ideas central to being a TreeHugger, from innovations in alternative energy (like wave and tidal power [www.sundancechannel.com]) to energy efficiency (when using light emitting diodes [www.sundancechannel.com], or LEDs) to green best practices that we think everyone should do (like eating local food [www.sundancechannel.com]). That trend continues today, with a quick look at biomimicry.
Generally, biomimicry is a term employed to describe the results of design imitating nature, or taking a cue from biologically-based life. The general idea is that through a slow but deliberate design process, nature eventually comes up with the most functional solution for design problems, and that those solutions are good enough to be imitated. The most famous example is probably Velcro, whose its hook and eye stickiness is inspired by the way that burrs stick to dog hair (that’s a close-up of it above, on the left). Biomimicry often results in designs and ideas that are stronger, more efficient and more effective than their more conventional counterparts, often leading to greener ways of doing things in the process. A great example of this is paint that uses what German scientist Dr. Wilhelm Barthlott has dubbed the Lotus-Effect; following the water-shedding properties of a lotus leaf (pictured above, right), moisture and dirt that comes with it simply bead and run off surfaces covered in the paint. This makes it much easier to keep clean, cutting back on water, electricity, and chemicals usually associated with using a pressure-washer and other wall-cleaning materials. Through smart, bio-based design, washing the walls can suddenly be a thing of the past.
Other examples are all around us, and TreeHugger has picked up on a few, from the strength of abalone shell [www.treehugger.com] (pictured above, with a close-up of the intricate construction at right) to the super-thin, bright white exoskeleton that the Cyphochilus beetle [www.treehugger.com] has engineered without dyes to a smart clothing prototype [www.treehugger.com] that mimics pine cones by opening to allow extra moisture out, but closing to not let rain or outside moisture in. For further reading and more cool examples, we highly recommend Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired By Nature by Janine Benyus (available from amazon.com [www.amazon.com]), and for a huge (and still growing) database of biomimicry in action, take a peek at what the Biomimicry Institute [database.biomimicry.org] has put together. At their respective roots, all of these resources have one thing in common: when it comes to design, Mother Nature is almost always right.
