History

What - What is biomimicry?

¨Biomimicry is an approach to innovation that seeks sustainable solutions to human challenges by emulating nature’s time-test patterns and strategies.¨ The word ‘bio’ means life, and ‘mimicry’ means to imitate. Sometimes it can be referred to innovation inspired by nature.(1)(2)

The goal - The goal of biomimicry is to create and invent products, policies, and processes for new ways of living, that, over time, will adapt well to life on earth.(1)

Idea - The main idea of this is that nature itself already has solved many of the problems we are grappling and fighting with. Plants and animals act as the consummate engineers.(1)

First instance of Biomimicry - In 1941, in the Alps, a Swiss engineer, named George de Mestral, coming back from a hunting trip noticed there were burdock burrs all over his dog. Mestral took one and put it under his microscope and discovered a design of hooks that nimbly attached to socks and fur. After many years of experimentations, he invented the velcro. in October 1952, he earned U.S. Patent 2,717,437. Benyus said that it is probably the best-known successful commercially instance of biomimicry.(3)

Another instance of Biomimicry - Humpback whales are very agile swimmers not to mention their weight is 80,000 pounds. Part of their great swimming comes from a row of bumpy ridges, called tubercles, on the edges of their fins. A biology professor at West Chester University in Pennsylvania, named Frank Fish, that by adding similar bumps to the turbine blades he could reduce drag and noise. He could increase speed to changing the wind direction and boost the power, harnessed by 20 percent.(4)

An example : Airplanes - The inspiration from the animals, both birds and fish, made scientists from Pennsylvania State University developed Morphing Airplane Wings(5) that change their shape depending on the speed and duration of the flight. Some birds have differently shaped wings that are useful for the speeds that they fly, also for sustaining flight speeds over long amount of distances using the least amount of energy. The scientists built a shape-changing truss understructure for the wings, then they covered the understructure with scales, that can slide over one another. When it was deployed in new aircraft and drone models, the wings are expected to conserve fuel, enabling faster flights over longer distances.(6)