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What is it? - Bioinspiration is where researchers look to nature to find solutions for human problems. It can range from how to construct a bridge to medical glue, and beyond.

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Biomimicry - Bioinspiration should not be confused with biomimicry. This is where biological systems are exactly replicated to solve a problem.

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Nature - In many cases, animals and organisms evolve just enough to survive. For example, whales and dolphins have evolved in all sorts of ways to survive, and yet they still have pelvic bones.

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Nature - The pelvic bone in whales and dolphins is completely useless. Therefore, it would not make sense for scientists to mimic their bodies. Instead, they take the best of natural solutions.

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Innovative - It takes a real mastermind to look at a biological system and think about how humans can create a similar one. Bioinspirationalists study animals to obtain their basic principles and then hand this information over onto bioengineers.

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Evolution -

Evolution is the ultimate test of whether something is strong enough to survive. Survival of the fittest means that the organisms that overcame obstacles have found solutions.

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Evolution - In this way, humans are surrounded by solutions offered by nature. However, they can be improved upon using modern-day engineering principles.

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Gravity - Although the concept may sound new, scientists have been studying nature to understand problems for hundreds of years. For example, Isaac Newton (1642-1727) looked at the planets to understand what gravity was.

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Electromagnetism - Michael Faraday (1791-1867) studied magnets and electric currents in order to understand electromagnetism.

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Airplane - A more obvious nature-inspired design is the airplane. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1518) was one of the first people to take inspiration from birds to design a flying machine. Modern designs still use bird bodies as inspiration.

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Nothing new? -

Perhaps it seems commonplace to point out that we are inspired by nature. However, scientists are now using nature to create things that are not so obvious.

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Trains - Japan’s bullet train is notorious for being super fast. The Shinkansen travels at an astonishing 320 km/h (200 mph). However, few people know that it used to make an ear-shattering sound every time it went through a tunnel.

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Trains - Some of the engineers started looking for solutions and one of them looked to the Kingfisher for inspiration. The Kingfisher goes from a low-pressure environment (air) to a high-pressure environment (water).

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Trains -

The engineers modified the nose of the train to be shaped more like the beak of the Kingfisher. Lo and behold, the train no longer made the horrible noise!

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The telephone -

Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) studied the human ear for years before he started creating the telephone. The first phone follows the same sound-absorbing principles as the human ear.

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Paint - A lot of the paint that we use today amazingly repels water and dirt. The engineers behind the paint were first inspired by lily pads doing the same.

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Windmills - Humpback whales are surprisingly agile because they have little bumps on the edge of their flippers. Bioispirationalists took this principle of movement and applied it to windmills to make them more efficient.

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Olympic swimsuits - Designers had been wondering how sharks move so quickly in the ocean when they attack. They attempted to mimic the sharkskin to make drag-resistant swimsuits.

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Olympic swimsuits - However, although they were inspired by sharks, the synthetic material they made actually reduces drag more than shark skin. They improved upon nature using modern technology.

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The bad boy of science - Jeffrey Karp is a scientist who is breaking down boundaries in biology to use nature-inspired techniques. He fell into the field by seeing a picture of Spider-Man on his friend’s desk.

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Gecko’s feet -

Karp was drawn towards an article in the magazine Nature. A group of scientists had created a new synthetic material by copying Gecko’s feet.

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Gecko feet - Geckos feet have little hairs in them that allow them to stick and detach from sheer surfaces with ease. They predicted that the material could be used to make gloves for humans in the future. The grip would allow us to climb like Spider-Man.

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Jeffrey Karp - Karp was inspired by this idea and thought it could be used for a different purpose. He wanted to turn it into medical tape used in surgery.

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Medical tape - Staples and sutures are normal practice in surgeries. However, they can often pierce the surrounding tissue and increase the risk of infection and damage.

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Gecko tape - Karp succeeded in using the Gecko-inspired technology to stick tissue together. It may also be useful for other procedures such as gastric bypasses.

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Cancer cells - Karp turned to nature again when it came to detecting cancer cells. After a cancerous tumor is removed from a person, there is a device that captures some cells for the scientist to check whether cancer cells are present near the point of operation.

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Cancer cells - The device was not working properly and so either the results were inaccurate, or there were none at all. Karp decided to take inspiration from jellyfish tentacles.

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Cancer cells - The lion’s mane jellyfish has many long tentacles. Karp recreated them out of DNA and attached them to the device. He found that it could grab the cells for inspection a lot better than before.

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Snail gel -

Nowadays, Jeffrey Karp is working on making glue inspired by slimy creatures. The glue is meant to be strong enough to patch up children’s hearts during surgery.

Sources: (The Guardian) (Center for Interdisciplinary Biological Inspiration in Education and Research)

See also: What is plant blindness and what can we do about it?

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