Have you ever been awed by the delicate complexity of a spider’s web or the ideal functionality of a beehive? These stunning structures found in nature are not just aesthetically pleasing. They are also perfectly efficient, serving as inspirations for scientists and engineers who use their forms and structures as models for new, human-made “smart” materials.
In essence, biomimicry is a field that requisitions the design principles of the natural world to benefit the human condition.
What Does the Term “Biomimetic Materials” Refer to?
Materials are considered biomimetic if they imitate the structure, function, or design found in natural biological systems. The concept of biomimicry is straightforward: nature has already found the solution to a particular problem, so why not use this knowledge in our technology? Indeed, this strategy promises not only to solve scientific problems but also to yield the very thing that synthetic biologists yearn for: to create life-like, living materials. And unlike genetic- or protein-engineering methods used in synthetic biology, forming biomimetic structures does not require intricate knowledge of the biochemistry of the components involved.
Consider, for example, the ubiquitous Velcro. This simple item was largely inspired by the way tiny burrs stick to the fur of animals. If you’ve ever taken a walk in the woods and come home finding yourself covered with these burrs, then you know they’re a real cling-on with a strong propensity to attach to hair, fur, or even the wool of an old sweater. Indeed, it was precisely because they proved such an irritant on an old dog named Milka that Swiss engineer George de Mestral was moved in 1948 to study the structure of the burrs under a microscope for the first time.
Inspiration Drawn from Spider Silk
Biomimetic materials that gain their properties from spider silk are now almost as famous as their natural model. The silk that spiders use to spin their webs and that some types use to lower themselves from the top of a tree is a material that’s unique in many ways. And one way in which it’s unique is that it is famous for being not just strong but also stretchy. You may have heard a number of times that, pound for pound, certain types of spider silk are stronger than steel.
Try to think of something that is stronger than steel but as stretchy as rubber. This might sound like an impossible Clash of the Titans battle scene; however, undiscovered material may exist, a material that only an arachnid named the Golden Orb-Weaver might be capable of spinning. Spider silk, as the 150-million-year-old family of products is called, is the basis for a wave of stuff that could happen soon or is happening now.
Biomimicry-led Innovations
Biomimicry is far from simple mimicry. It goes many layers deeper than that. Biomimicry isn’t about painting yourself in camouflage so you can look like part of a tree. And it isn’t even about pretending to be a tree. At its essence, biomimicry is about absorbing the principles at work in how natural entities and systems function, and then using that knowledge to do design and engineering in a new way.
Medical Devices and Shark Skin
Shark skin has distinctive characteristics that keep it free from bacteria. Tiny, spiky structures called dermal denticles thrive on its incandescent surface; these resemble teeth. Denticles are, in fact, very similar in shape to mammalian teeth, though they are much smaller (except those on the famous Jaws, but even those differ from ours in a crucial way, by being covered with tough enamel).
Unbelievably thin (down to a nanometer-thin “body” with fine, hair-like extensions) and practically invisible, the denticles altogether make up a formidable surface from which bacteria are virtually guaranteed not to launch into a sickening population explosion.
Public health could be improved significantly by the reduction of bacterial contamination associated with medical devices and hospital surfaces. Shark skin and the patterns that can be found on the skin of elasmobranchs, which are a group of cartilaginous fish that includes various species of sharks, might offer a valuable lesson….
The leaves of a lotus plant are covered in tiny, rigid bumps topped with a layer of wax that are naturally water-repellant. When water lands on a lotus leaf, it beads up and rolls off, removing any dirt, dust, or other contaminating material along with that fresh water. This cleaning mechanism is what materials scientists and chemists would really like to understand so that they can use it as a model for designing self-cleaning surfaces.
Even in muddy water, the lotus leaf remains famous for its spotlessness. Its microscopic and nanoscale architectures seemingly ward off the soiled stuff. They have inspired materials scientists to achieve a similar effect. Structures like these could be useful not just for creating self-cleaning surfaces…but also for selective filtration and friction reduction.
Picture our world where windows never require washing and clothes resist stains on their own initiative. Such is the promise of the “lotus effect.” Named after the Indian lotus (Nelumbo nucifera), a water-repelling plant that self-cleans its leaves every time it rains, the lotus effect has moved from the plant world to glass panes, in what is being heralded as a new kind of “architectural glass.” It’s the same idea that keeps solar panels both clean and efficient.
What does the future hold for biomimetic innovations? In other words, what will the future bring in terms of copying or imitating what is found in the natural world? Going forward, the focus is likely to be on several different, important, cross-disciplinary themes. One of those themes is clearly interdisciplinary. Biomimetics is becoming less a part of bioengineering and more a part of natural science. It might be helpful to think of it as a natural outgrowth of a natural science that is looking at how nature works (biophysics) and how nature solves its problems (natural problem-solving). The most highly interdisciplinary developments in the future are likely to be two-fold: (1) more understandings and (2) new inventions and innovations will continue to surface in biomimetics instead of in the natural world and will be locked up in a part of the biomimetic space. That space will increase in value.
The domain of biomimetic materials has an extremely bright future. Of all the aspects that material scientists consider when they’re trying to generate the kinds of structural and smart material changes that nature achieves, the dimension of time is the most profound. For instance, when geologists cut a granite boulder in half, they find a shiny surface that at the beginning has quite a “smooth” appearance when imaged at the microscale. But as they imaged to finer scales, they discovered that the rock’s shiny, smooth surface actually had a multitude of nanopits. Both these phenomena are actually common in nature wet materials have differently shaped or “textured” nanosurfaces from dry ones, and many of nature’s surfaces in nanopits are covered with yet another layer of nanoscale hairs.
The Ecosophical approach to sustainable architecture is a philosophy of the types of sustainable strategies that can be implemented into any project. Ecosophical focuses on the use of environmental science within the new designs and promotes respect for local and global ecology. It stresses the importance of using the life cycle of materials (like embodied energy) to determine how different designs might influence the ecology of local and global environment. But what strategies might one consider to undertake an Ecosophical design?
More and more, nature has become a vital source of inspiration for architects seeking to create sustainable designs. The effects can be seen in a number of structures that aim to be eco-friendly, most notably the Eastgate Centre located in Zimbabwe’s capital city. One of Harare’s largest and most famous buildings, the Eastgate Centre was deliberately modelled after the structures found in an African termite mound and makes use of a number of large fans as well as the chimney-style “venturi” that runs up its centre in order to create a stack effect.
Not only does this strategy conserve power, but it also makes for a far more pleasant place to live. What is at play here is obviously our unstinting effort to address the issue, yet still maintain the standard of living that we’re fundamentally quite attached to. The green standard, then, is nothing short of a model that we’ll need to rely on for the sake of a place to live.
Prosthetics and Robotics
For millions of years, nature has been perfecting mechanisms of motion and adaptation. Today, as at many points in the story of life, you can find a staggering variety of organisms that move from place to place with greater speed, agility, or precision than our current engineered systems. Virtually all of them served as an inspiration for the Robert Full lab.
Prosthetics are becoming more than just a means to an end for amputees. They are a way of life. Reason being, biomimetic designs (which is derived from biomimicry meaning the imitation of nature, in this case of human walking) in artificial limbs do a much better job of restoring the structure of a human leg.
Solutions for Renewable Energy
The search for sustainable energy solutions is finding its answers in nature. Scientists are studying the ways plants, algae, and even some bacteria manage to convert light into usable energy, and no one does it better than green plants. Over hundreds of millions of years, plants on Earth have evolved to use the energy from sunlight to do the work of living. “They operate with an efficiency of energy conversion that no engineering setup has yet come close to,” says David Sington, a filmmaker who has made television documentaries for the BBC. Sington has an impressive background in physics and is fascinated by the plant world’s ability to capture and make use of an energy source that is all around it.
In the wind power industry, the turbine blade design is being pushed forward by a consortium of biologists and engineers who are looking to pelicans and penguins for inspiration. The two bird species have unique and efficient three-dimensional paths of wingbeats, which are then mimicked by the turbine blades. At the same time, heavily armored fish like sturgeons and paddlefish that swim in the sea with sinuous motions are proving to be pleasant models for underwater turbines.
Medicine and Healthcare
The field of healthcare and medicine is being radically changed by biomimetic materials. These are substances created by humans but designed to imitate how living things organize and operate. The potential of these artificial materials is seen everywhere—for example, in the design of a drug delivery system that imitates the infiltration of a living virus into a cell. A virus is not a living entity but a “capsid” of sorts, a container holding the large number of biomolecules that carry out unique enzymatic actions so that the virus can replicate. The system we have chosen to deliver a living drug can still look, and often does look, very much like the pathway viruses use to enter a living cell.
An exhilarating evolution is the formulation of man-made, or synthetic, bone substances that copy the appearance and makeup of natural bone very precisely. Orthopedic surgeons are using these synthetic bone materials to put in place pieces of bone when a gap (called a “defect”) has to be bridged in order for bone to heal.
The Environmental Protection Agency carries the first load of responsibility in protecting public health and the environment. Over the past four years, however, the agency has been all but eviscerated. With its severely reduced staff and budget, the E.P.A. has been depicted as a hobbling, financially strapped law enforcement organization, rife with defiance of its White House–imposed mandates.
In conclusion, biomimicry is vitally important for protecting the environment. Naturally inspired materials are being crafted to help absorb and eliminate pollutants and rejuvenate our ecosystems. For instance, a team in New Zealand is working with NASA to create an advanced air-cleaning system that will work as well in space as it does here, on Earth.
The adhesive that mussels use to stick to rocks and other surfaces underwater is now inspiring researchers. They’re trying to make a new kind of non-toxic adhesive that should be a massive help for underwater construction and repair.
To sum it all up, …
Working out is great not just for improvements in the musculature after surgery and the overall improvements in the physiological condition of the human body. The most effective workouts for the bulk of the muscles are those done with the largest exercises for the largest muscle groups. These are also the muscles that can have the greatest impact in improving the physique. It is hard to beat the beefy results from the bench press, military press, row, or the clean, though those not mechanically inclined find a decrease in strength and a safer condition to exist not using the spine as a hoist, utilizing as little as possible in the way of “partial lifts,” and working with dumbbells not barbells. These are exercises that also do not require the always handy spotter being right there except when you really need one to serve the purpose intended.
Materials and advancements that mimic biology are of growing importance in the field of biomaterials, and they are changing our very philosophies of approach to problem-solving. Historically, problem-solving in both natural and human-made scenarios has focused on breaking down systems or sequences into manageable, bite-sized chunks. The biotechnology revolution of the past four decades has shown us that biological systems, our own bodies included, operate not only with remarkable efficiency but also with astounding sustainability. And that shouldn’t be surprising. After all, biology has had a few billion years to get it right.
The more we investigate the possibilities of biomimicry, the more we can’t help but be excited about what other not-yet-understood tricks of the trade nature has up her sleeve. The next time you see a spider’s web or a hummingbird, know this: Their designs aren’t haphazard; they’re elegant, economical, efficient, and safe. And those are the exact elements to duplicate when we create our own infrastructures.
