Second Nature: Biomimicry and Bioadaptation
What is biomimicry? Biomimicry is copying something found in nature to make a useful product. Regenerative medicine harnesses natural processes to replace and repair damaged or missing tissue. The tools used to achieve this are largely derived from nature and I’ve covered some of them in another post. Beyond regenerative medicine, some of the most important medical discoveries and other technologies have been made by observing or adapting nature. With the entire world as a lab and millions of years to perform their experiments, nature has developed solutions to problems that have benefits for humans. Here’s my list of the top 10 natural inventions, that have been harnessed or inspired medical and other applications.
- Fungi (various) for antibiotics
- Limpets (and many other organisms) for biological glue. Limpets also developed the hardest natural material ever tested.
- Yeast for alcohol
- Dolphins for SONAR
- Wasps for paper
- Cats for inspiring cats eyes road safety
- Burdock seeds for Velcro fasteners
- Spider silk for material stronger than kevlar
- Sharkskin for reducing drag in the water
- Namibian fog-basking beetle for harvesting water from desert air
IMAGE: “Long-jawed spider releasing silk into breeze” by Spider Joe is licensed under CC BY 2.0
