Nature has inspired inventions since the first humans tried to make things. Biomimicry is the practice of looking to nature to help solve design problems. Scientists and engineers are finding inspiration from animals and plants that may surprise you.
Trying to fly by mimicking birds, bats and insects is perhaps the first example that comes to mind. There were lots of failed attempts before the Wright brothers. And then there’s Velcro – we all have Velcro on something. Velcrois relatively new, invented in the 1940’s and based on those burrs from plants that cling to your dog’s fur and your socks.
Nature’s designs, honed over millions of years of evolution by natural selection, is an obvious place for scientists and engineers to look to answer many material and engineering challenges in a sustainable way. As the Smithsonian says: “From indestructible tardigrades to body-merging comb jellies, animals can teach humans so much about medicine, robotics, aging and survival.”
Here are some examples of technologies inspired by nature:
Jelly Spray
Scientists have used green fluorescent proteins from jellies in medicine and research for a long time, but in 2024 innovators created a non-toxic fluorescent spray that can make fingerprints visibly glow under blacklight at a crime scene.
Spider Silk
Researchers built an ultra-sensitive microphone informed by spider silk. The orb web spider’s web acts like a very hyper acute antenna, vibrating with the subtle perturbations of sound waves moving through the air.
These pollination devices help pollinate crop plants based on bees’ methods of pollination.
Watch this explainer, that shows how the pollination device mimics bees, including the electrostatic charge.
Tardigrades Seeds
Researchers have developed a coating for seeds inspired by tardigrades. Tardigrades, also called water bears, are microscopic in size but have super powers: they can survive freezing, boiling, and decades without water. The coating is a biofertilizer that releases into the soil when planted. The seeds are incredibly shelf-stable because the coating mimics proteins that tardigrades use to prevent drying out.
Regenerative Coral Reefs
Restoring coral reefs involves growing corals in a lab and then attaching them to living corals. The problem is most glues are toxic and don’t work in saltwater. So scientist are using adhesives that mimic the glue that mussels use to stick to surfaces in marine environments.
A company has invented a process for capturing carbon based on how corals build their reefs. The company’s equipment captures the carbon emissions released from cement plants and electrical generation plants. By mimicking the coral reefs’ process, they produce calcium carbonate using the captured Carbon Dioxide and then incorporate it into cement. Carbon dioxide from the atmosphere becomes sequestered into a building material.
Here’s a TED talk by the founder of the Biomimicry Institute. The institute’s mission is to take action “to solve the challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss” with nature-based solutions.
