Many revolutionary techniques that humankind has invented and adapted with success in multiple areas of operation have come out of observing nature. The aircraft, the Velcro and the cooling chimneys are all products of nature’s genius
With his arms stretched he flew higher towards the sun until the wax from the wings melted and Icarus fell. The story of Icarus may only be tragic mythology, but since the very beginning, we seem to have learnt through observing nature and adapting her designs to suit our own needs. If we were to think of a great example of nature-inspired design, one of the first images that comes to mind is, of course, flight. Humans have been infatuated with flight for a long time. leonardo da Vinci was equally obsessed and designed flying machines. Though his designs never flew, the obsession stayed with us, and finally we did fly. The design and inspiration, as we all know, came from birds. The Wright brothers built the first plane that flew successfully and the design was based on their observations of flying pigeons.
Nature’s design is extraordinary and inspires us because of its simplicity, functionality and aesthetics. The classic shape of a tree with its spread of branches and leaves maximises the surface area needed to catch sunlight and helps in its function: Bearing fruits and having a built-in seed dispersal system, sometimes using the wind and sometimes animals. Nature has perfected many of her designs and has left no place for waste or inefficiency. What better a learning ground could we have hoped for! It’s like having a living laboratory which has been researching and solving problems for over 3.6 billion years! The emerging field of biomimetics has given rise to new technologies created from biologically- inspired engineering at both the macro-scale and nano-scale levels Biomimicry is described as the examination of nature, its systems and processes as well as a study of species to solve and refine human ‘problems’. While we do have some huge issues which still need solving, there are many ‘little’ conveniences we owe directly to designs found in nature.
let’s start with one which we don’t think of too often. Velcro. The invention of Velcro is a classic example of biomimicry. It was invented by Swiss engineer George de Mestral and in part by his dog in 1941. After a romp in the bushes when his dog returned, George found little burrs stuck to his coat. You might have experienced this as well when you would have walked into a bush to retrieve a lost ball and came back with burrs all over your socks and clothes. Instead of just pulling them out and throwing them, George took one under a microscope and saw that that each burr had a hook at the end which would entwine itself around any willing surface it came in contact with. That’s seed dispersal for nature and ingenious Velcro for us!
Sometimes the connection isn’t too direct but the finesse of the design crosses elements. Companies that manufactured wind turbine blades sat up when they learnt that scientists discovered what makes whales so efficient in the water. They discovered that the front edge of a whale’s fin had bumps, which was the key to their efficiency in the water. The bumps which no one had really thought about are able to reduce drag by 32 per cent and increase lift by eight per cent. For a wind turbine blade company, this was like getting a blueprint for the perfect blade, and it was able to greatly boost the amount of energy created per turbine.
Termites — little architects of the forest, constantly building and expanding, are not everyone’s favourite. The plywood industry seems to have been waging a war against these feared and hated wood-munchers. The termite mounds, which can sometimes be well over six feet high, are examples of a sophisticated design. While they might not be too impressive to look at from the outside, a network of cooling chimneys and tunnels within the mounds keeps the temperature constant and cool throughout the day. Mick Pearce, an architect from Zimbabwe, applied this to a 3,33,000 square-foot building and built a large chimney that drew in cool air at night and lowered the temperatures of the floor slabs, which in turn kept the inside of the building cooler during the day. The result was beyond what he had imagined. The building needed 90 per cent less energy to heat and cool when compared to other traditional structures.
A little over a decade ago, Mark Miles, an MIT graduate, came across an article on how butterflies generate the iridescent blue colour in their wings. The blue does not come from a pigment but from nano-scale shingled plates which are arranged in a precise pattern that disrupts reflective light wavelengths and produces the intense blue. If the same blue were to be produced by a pigment, the amount of energy required would be greater, energy that a butterfly needs for other things. Mark was experimenting with micro-electro-mechanical and materials processing and saw the potential. He wondered how he could use the ability to display vivid colours on a nano-scale. The answer came almost naturally, and an electronic display based on exactly the same principle of the butterfly’s wings was created — an arrangement of microscopic mirrors that could move up and down in microseconds and create a specific colour. Moreover, this screen consumes a tenth of the energy a standard lCD screen does, because this technology didn’t even need to produce its own light. The display brightness automatically scales with ambient light.
The swimsuit worn by Michael Phelps in the 2008 Olympics had caused quite a controversy. Scientists had been able to replicate the overlapping scales of a shark’s skin and create a hi-tech swimsuit. Eventually the suit was banned but the technology is now used in the bottom of boats and cargo ships to reduce drag and increase efficiency. It not only burns less oil but also doesn’t require cleaning chemicals on the hulls either. The rough dermal denticles of a shark’s skin also prevent parasitic growth as well as the formation of barnacles; the synthetic version has the same qualities. The next step on which work has already begun is the creation of surfaces that can resist bacterial growth and be used in hospitals.
While the world’s great thinkers prepare and study nature’s design and explore new possibilities, we seem to be struggling against nature as well. The most recent and ongoing devastating flash floods and landslides in Uttarakhand have raised many questions. Unplanned and rampant ‘development’ is being named the root cause. The tragedy perhaps should not be called a ‘natural disaster’. Nature has taught us many things and there are many more to be learnt, but if we have gone against her design and pushed and pulled too far and too much, then the message from our greatest teacher is clear. Are we listeningIJ
(The writer is a wildlife film-maker)