TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION

BIOMIMICRY:
INNOVATION INSPIRED BY
NATURE
 BIOMIMICRY
o Biomimicry or biomimetics is the examination of nature, its
models, systems, processes, and elements to emulate or take
inspiration from the environment in order to solve human
problems.

o The term biomimicry and biomimetics come from the Greek

words bios, meaning life, and mimesis, meaning to imitate. Other
terms often used are bionics, bio-inspiration, and biognosis.
 HISTORY OF BIOMIMICRY
Humans have always looked to
nature for inspiration to solve
problems. One of the early examples
of biomimicry was the study of birds
to enable human flight. Although PIC NI LEONEONARDO OR
never successful in creating a "flying NG DESIGN NYA NG
AIRPLANE
machine", Leonardo da Vinci (1452–
1519) was a keen observer of the
anatomy and flight of birds, and
made numerous notes and sketches
on his observations as well as
sketches of various "flying
PICTURE NG WRIGHT BROTHERS AT NG PLANE NILA

The Wright Brothers, who finally

did succeed in creating and flying
the first airplane in 1903, also
derived inspiration for their
airplane from observations of
pigeons in flight
 PICTURE NI Otto Schmitt

Otto Schmitt, an American academic and inventor, coined the term

biomimetics to describe the transfer of ideas from biology to
technology.
 "the study of the formation, structure, or function of
biologically produced substances and materials (as enzymes or
silk) and biological mechanisms and processes (as protein
synthesis or photosynthesis) especially for the purpose of
synthesizing similar products by artificial mechanisms which
 PICTURE NI JANINE BENYUS OR NUNG BOOK NYA

The term biomimicry was popularized by scientist and author

Janine Benyus in her 1997 book Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired
by Nature. 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".
Benyus suggests looking to Nature as a "Model, Measure, and
Mentor" and emphasizes sustainability as an objective of
BIOMIMICRY
EXAMPLES
 Researchers, for example, studied
the termite's ability to maintain virtually
constant temperature and humidity in
their termite mounds in Africa despite
outside temperatures that vary from 1.5
°C to 40 °C (35 °F to 104 °F).
Researchers initially scanned a termite
PICTURE
mound and created 3-D images of the
mound structure, which revealed
construction that can influence human
building design. The Eastgate Centre, a
mid-rise office complex in Harare,
Zimbabwe, (highlighted in this
Biomimicry Institute case-study) stays
cool without air conditioning and uses
only 10% of the energy of a
 Modeling echolocation in bats in
darkness has led to a cane for the
visually impaired. Research at the
PICTURE
University of Leeds, in the United
Kingdom, led to the UltraCane, a
product formerly manufactured,
marketed and sold by Sound Foresight
Ltd.
 Janine Benyus refers in her books to
spiders that create web silk as strong as the
Kevlar used in bulletproof vests. Engineers
PICTURE
could use such a material—if it had a long
enough rate of decay—for parachute lines,
suspension bridge cables, artificial
ligaments for medicine, and many other
purposes.
 After a hunting trip in the Alps in
1941, Swiss engineer George de Mestral’s
dog was covered in burdock burrs. Mestral
put one under his microscope and
PICTURE discovered a simple design of hooks that
nimbly attached to fur and socks. After
years of experimentation, he invented
Velcro — and earned U.S. Patent 2,717,437
in September 1955. Benyus said it is
probably the best-known and most
commercially successful instance of
biomimicry.
 High-speed trains can literally cause
headaches. That's why Japan limits their
acceptable noise-pollution level, which can
be particularly high when the trains emerge
from tunnels. As they drive through, air
pressure builds up in waves and, when the
nose emerges, can produce a shotgun-like
PICTURE thunderclap heard for a quarter mile. Eiji
Nakatsu, a bird-watching engineer at the
Japanese rail company JR-West, in the
1990s took inspiration from the kingfisher,
a fish-eating fowl that creates barely a
ripple when it darts into water in search of
a meal. The train’s redesigned nose — a 50-
foot-long steel kingfisher beak — didn't
just solve the noise problem; it reduced
 For a beast that moves slowly through the
ocean, sharks stay remarkably clear of algae and
other fellow travelers. That’s largely a function of
their unique skin, covered with microscopic patterns
called dentricles, which help reduce drag and keep
microorganisms from hitching free rides. NASA
scientists copied the patterns to create drag-
reducing patterns they call riblets. They worked with
PICTURE 3M to adapt the riblets to a thin film used to coat
the hull of the sailboat Stars & Stripes, which won an
Olympic medal and the America's Cup before the
riblets were banned in 1987. The America's Cup race
has since reinstated them. Other applications can
help planes, boats and windmills reduce drag and
conserve energy. Sharklet Technologies, based in
Aurora, Colorado, makes surface materials for
hospitals, restaurant kitchens, public bathrooms and
elsewhere that repel bacteria. Dentricle-like nano-
scale structures on the surface prevent the bugs
 The Namibian Beetle raises its back
into the air as fog rolls into its desert
habitat. Bumps on its shell catch water
droplets, which then run down chutes
toward its mouth. “The design of this fog-
collecting structure can be reproduced
cheaply on a commercial scale and may
PICTURE find application in water-trapping tent and
building coverings,” wrote the authors of a
2001 paper that revealed how the water
collection works. Inventors and designers
have taken note. A “Dew Bank Bottle,”
designed by Pak Kitae of the Seoul National
University of Technology, imitates the
beetle’s water-collection system. Morning
dew condenses on it and conveys it to a
 Humpback whales are surprisingly agile
swimmers considering each beast weighs in at
about 80,000 pounds. Part of their swimming
prowess may come from a row of warty ridges,
called tubercles, on the front edge of their fins.
Frank Fish, biology professor at West Chester
University in Pennsylvania, discovered that by
adding rows of similar bumps to turbine blades
PICTURE
he could reduce drag and noise, increase speed
to changing wind direction and boost the
power harnessed by 20 percent.Fish developed
the idea after he noticed bumps on a whale
statue in a Boston gift shop. He assumed,
incorrectly, that the artist got it wrong and that
the bumps shouldn't go on the front edge of
fins, which typically are straight and sharp.The
bumps are now being sold on industrial fans
made by Envira-North Systems and on
THANK
YOU!