Can you imagine a strand of cable that can hold as much as a steel cable but at less than 1/5th the weight? How about a solar panel that bypasses energy development and converts energy directly to matter? Or a structural surface that is self-cleaning? Each of these technologies already exists, and has for millions to billions of years. Nature has evolved and adapted to produce spider silk, photosynthesis, and leaf structures that have survived precisely because of their efficiency and efficacy. Debates about human evolution do not center around one of the key principles, that those traits most effective for survival win out. As we look toward solutions for some of our human-made issues and ways to improve our quality of life, we need look no further than the examples laid before us by nature. This act of using nature as a guide to solving problems is biomimicry.
Although many examples of biomimicry precede the 20th century (famously Leonardo Da Vinci's notebooks), the last one hundred years have seen the expansion of the idea and the formal codification of the science of biomimicry. The Wright Brothers analyzed bird movements (much like Leonardo) to produce their first flying machine, but Otto Schmitt, a scientist and inventor who founded modern biomedical science is credited with coining the term biomimetics which found its way into the world lexicon in the 1970s. The seminal moment for biomimcry as a popular movement came in 1997 with the publishing of Janine Benyus's book Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. That book inspired the founding of the Biomimicry Institute and since that time the institute and others have sought to identify natural solutions to technological problems. For example, when trying to find the most aerodynamic shape for vehicles, we have for over a century looked to theoretical science to predict performance; biomimicry has looked to animals that most efficiently move through fluid to copy their shape.
At the same time, Kenny Ausubel and Nina Simons wanted to inspire innovators to look for more natural ways to feed, heal, and support life, and through their company Seeds of Change, started the first Bioneers conferences in the early 1990s. These conferences centered around regional issues, and sought to identify natural solutions to these problems. Great Lakes Bioneers Chicago (at the UIC Student Center East this weekend November 2-4) looks to bring together people from all walks of life to create an atmosphere where ideas can "cross-pollinate" and form the foundation for life-supporting solutions that allow us to improve our quality of life without degrading life for another or in another way. If you get the chance to go to the event this weekend, or even just follow the event through the website and get connected to some of the innovative Chicago thinkers who are following this life-affirming way of thinking, you will never look at life the same way again.
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