What is Biomimicry?
Tags: Entrepreneurship, Biomimicry, Biology, 3D Printing, Life Sciences

Biomimicry is the design and production of materials, structures, and systems that are modeled on biological entities and processes. Since Mother Nature has spent billions of years building her research sample size and longitudinal study, we must take our cues from the data she has already produced.

For example, researchers at The University of Akron recently developed a new way to create pigments that are non-toxic, bright and fade resistant by mimicking the feathers of birds. These new dyes are not based on light absorption, rather they create color by scattering light, like a prism.

Until very recently, one thing has been stopping biomimicry from being developed as an independent field of study: a lack in cross-disciplinary study.

Life Science & Cross-Disciplinary Advantage

Biomimicry isn’t so much a field as it is the marriage of many distinct branches of knowledge. Vox and 99% Invisible outlined a perfect example of this in their coverage of Japan’s Shinkansen bullet trains.

The original bullet trains broke speed records, but caused excessive noise pollution upon exiting tunnels — that is until a system redesign led by Eiji Nakatsu revolutionized the way bullet trains were engineered. Nakatsu is an engineer, but he is also an avid bird-watcher. He redesigned the trains by incorporating the serrated style of owl’s wings, the the aerodynamic beak of a kingfisher, and the sleek, rounded belly of the Adélie pengiun. The resulting trains were not only quieter, but also faster and more energy efficient.

Life Sciences are disciplines spanning anatomy to ethology to zymology. With the exception of pharmaceutical companies, these aren’t the typical fields we think of when considering viable businesses; however, the next wave of intelligent investment already has a close eye on companies incorporating life sciences into their product development. From gene therapy to 3D printing, there’s a tremendous opportunity for businesses to consider how value can be added from exploring cross-disciplinary advantages.

Technologies that can immediately benefit from biomimicry

InTeahouse was at CES and encountered a large number of innovations boasting to become market leaders through unique features. We couldn’t help but question how these could be vastly improved by taking a stroll through nature. We’ve composed a list of 3 products that could be bolstered by embracing life sciences and biomimicry.

The Autonomous Car

Autonomous cars do a great deal of on-board processing. However, a significant barrier to building autonomous vehicles was lifted with improvements in cloud architecture. The ability to aggregate a knowledge database across nearby vehicles and serve back that information back paired with vehicle to vehicle communication alleviates the great pressure with onboard computing for decisions. But with self-driving, there is zero room for error (depending on who you ask). The very nature of autonomy dictates that these decisions should be just as perfect when network connectivity is broken.

Enter the humble slime mold. The slime mold is a huge, visible cell — in fact, it’s probably the only cell you’ll ever see with your naked eye! A single membrane with an infinite number of nuclei but no brain or ability to form tissue, slime molds grow by building a complex network that branches from one food source to another. A group of researchers from Hokaido University took note of the slime mold’s mapping skills, and used them to test the efficiency of Tokyo’s complex rail system. Could autonomous cars take a queue from mere slime mold in how they navigate complex systems while avoiding novel obstructions?

Additive Manufacturing

3D Printing revolutionizes manufacturing in a way that many do not yet realize. The democratization of production that additive manufacturing allows hasn’t fully manifested, mostly due to constraints in the materials used for printing and the time it takes to completion. Biomimicry may be valuable in resolving our woes, again, with nature having worked on single layer construction across a variety of materials for millennia.

From rocks that grow heavier and more robust with time, through taking mineral deposits out of water, to the very building blocks of life itself that make up all living organisms, nature provides countless examples of an additive process to building. Honing in on the process of cells, which self assemble into the appropriate organ and body shape, there may be some clue that allows for a flexible printing material, analogous to the stem cell, that can be charged to form a particular final product without pre-fabrication.

This is exactly the case with shape memory alloys. Although they haven’t been utilized in 3D printing on the larger scene, researchers have already used shape memory alloys to accelerate the 3D printing process. Printed objects can be heated to warp the shape, cooled to maintain, and reheated to return to the original shape. The process is not dissimilar to the healing process that takes place when the body sustains injury, including fracturing of bones or punctures to the skin. With 3D printed materials allowing for single layer precision, it isn’t impossible to create objects with layers containing different functions, something that is limited by the present subtractive manufacturing method and might require complex, custom setups.

Drones

Why are most creatures in the ocean the same shape? Sort of torpedos with protruding fins that allow them to bullet through the ocean’s currents. There are slight differences, though. You’ll notice that while a shark has vertical tail and dorsal fins, which jut up through the water, whales have large horizontal tail fins, which help to propel them in a gallop-like fashion.

Nature has put tremendous pressure on these creatures to adapt to the ocean’s unique navigation requirements. It’s possible that, being mammals, whales are simply heavier and when first migrating to the water they were forced to surface regularly for air. Over the years, their current “design” has come from this need to surface, but not lose speed. Whatever the case, this can be a perfect cue to designing drones that traverse the air and water (and eventually space) with specific needs like speed and returning to ground zero. Just like whales need to refuel their lungs, drones may need to drop or rise to the surface to recharge their batteries or relay information. Similar also to sharks, drones may need to swiftly change directions to without compromising their lateral position.

You may have grown used to seeing the quadcopter and centered propeller based designs in most consumer drones; however, it’s entirely possible that styles more akin to a hummingbird, whale, or even a fruit fly may dominate the drone design pattern of the future.

How does it affect me?

The above is primarily conjecture and none of the above applications are far from the research phase, so what should you be taking away from this post?Hopefully you see how the processes that nature has developed for constructing the world around us far surpass our own abilities, simply by the sheer amount of hours put in. If it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert, I can think of no better consultant than nature!

Whether you are looking to invest in new business, sourcing ideas for a new invention, or simply looking to explore a new approach to your existing business, the merits of biomimicry are clear.