cct333lab8


 * Lab 8** **Biomimicry: Janine Benyus and the Biomimicry Institute and Guild**

This design involves the newer models of the Japanese Shinkansen or “bullet train”, which are designed after the kingfisher’s beak to minimize wind resistance. Also, this design helps the train to minimize the sonic boom that occurs when exiting tunnels, which also minimizes noise pollution.
 * __Avian Elements:__**

This design is one that uses the butterflies and peacocks’ methods of creating vibrant colours based not on pigmentation, but the refraction of light into certain wavelengths. The wavelengths “interfere with one another to create vivid colors”. The advantage of this technology lies in reducing power consumption in devices that could make use of it.
 * __New Plumage:__**

Lotus leaves are famous for their ability to repel water by their physical design. What scientists in Germany have done is they designed paint based on this molecular structure, so it is now able to not only repel the water, but as a secondary bonus clean itself when rain happens to pour.
 * __Leaving No Trace:__**

A company in England, Sound Foresight, has used bats as inspiration to create a product that will help the blind and vision impaired. The cane sends out sound waves as it’s being held, and as the waves return to it, it provides a “tactile warning” through the handle so the holder knows he’s approaching an object.
 * __Echolocation:__**

Basically, what Janine means when she says “the simple, elegant mechanics developed by nature often make sense in a human context, too”, is that humans can reap the benefits of all those intelligently designed solutions that animals have to particular problems just as well as those animals can. Truthfully, humans have been trying to solve a lot of those problems without even thinking they can look to nature for the optimal solution.

A large problem with the way humans think is that "we are separate from nature". The truth is, we are natural beings the same as any other, and we should not try to isolate ourselves from the rest of the world. Using these newfound biomimicry examples, we can come to the conclusion that by “getting back together” with nature, we can expand our horizons even further than we imagined we could by separating ourselves from it.

The importance is in the context of how we interact with nature, and what we want to take and give in return. Part of why we’ve adopted biomimicry is because we’ve noticed we have very inefficient and imperfect solutions to problems, until we noticed animals that have existed for generations and had the problem solved, causing zero harm to the ecosystem in executing that solution. With threats of things like global warming and over-pollution, it’s about time we got together with nature and looked for real ways to keep the world alive and green for generations to come.