Common Circle Education ? What is biomimicry?

The average reader might be forgiven when first stumbling across the term ?biomimicry? in thinking that it is in reference to those animals that defend themselves by taking on the appearance of another, more threatening species: caterpillars that mimic spiders, for example. That term, however, is actually ?animal mimicry.? The two terms do have a certain element in common: both concern the survival of living things by solving problems using designs, systems and processes engineered by that greatest of engineers, nature. Nature, after all, has had several billion years to evolve answers to questions humans only recently realized are important.

Some nearly synonymous words that might help define our term are ?biomemetics?(the study of evolution to provide solutions), ?bionics? (the six-million dollar man, anyone?), ?bio-inspiration? and ?biognosis? (the scientific study of life); the term is of recent origin, the latter quarter of the last century. But it has ancient antecedents in the Greek words for living things, (Bios) and ?mimesis,? meaning to imitate.

Bio-inspiration is a wonderfully illustrative synonym. After centuries of enviously watching birds in flight, man learned to fly. He doesn?t use actual bird wings, as men use certain bacteria to consume oil spills (that is called bio-utilization); it was his desire to mimic the bird in flight as best he could that inspired him to seek out nature?s secrets. Sharkskin-inspired swimsuits that mimic the overlapping scales that allow it to race through water faster, and Velcro, the result of mimicking plant burrs, are two other examples.

More famously but less realistically, television?s Bionic Man sported super-powerful limbs designed to work like real human limbs, but they were constructed of non-living tissue, plastic and metal. And nearly as fantastic, but very real, has been the success of manipulating atoms and molecules at the submicroscopic or ?nano? level. Carbon fibers, many times stronger than steel, are just one exciting result.

Biomimicry is about more than studying and engineering mechanical parts as complements or replacements for biological shortcomings. It is also concerned with a more perfect integration of human culture and civilization with the natural environment: a study, which like the term itself, is of rather recent origin but having ancient antecedents: ?Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways and be wise.?

And while the term has some relation to another important subject related to the environment, ?sustainable design,? the terms are not synonymous. Sustainable design concerns itself with sustainable living, the attempt to reduce an individual or culture?s dependence on natural resources: decreasing a carbon footprint is a good example. However, it is for certain that attempting to mimic nature can also assist with sustainability. A ?natural building,? for example,built along lines faithful to the local environment and ecology, will sustain itself far better than an unnatural one built at odds to local conditions. Consider also that ?permaculture,? the theory of design which endeavors to create sustainable living conditions by attempting to model them on natural ecosystems, is mimicking natural elements.

The concept of ?regenerative design? is more closely allied to mimicking life than sustainability or permaculture. ?Regenerative? and ?sustainability? are anything but synonymous. ?Regenerative? in the sense of regenerative design means to undertake the re-creation and recovery of the natural ecosystem: not simply decreasing the carbon footprint, but trying to do away with it entirely. A natural building based on a turtle shell might be one example ? illustrative if not probable!

Biomimicry remains an uncommon almost exotic term to most readers; it is after all, a relatively recent addition to our vocabulary. It is a term that will become more common as the mimicking of nature solves more and more of the problems created by man?s continuing technological advances and seeming inability to live as one with nature.

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Source: http://www.commoncircle.com/what-is/biomimicry

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