Category Archives: biomimicry

              The advantage of veins… Desert locusts are known to travel great distances, experiencing substantial mechanical stress along the way, however little is understood about their wings ability to resist damage during these long flights. Using a tensile test machine, Trinity College researchers Dr. Dirks and Dr. Taylor investigated […]

            11,000 ant species…so much we can learn: Many dynamical networks, such as the ones that produce the collective behavior of social insects, operate without any central control, instead arising from local interactions among individuals. A well-studied example is the formation of recruitment trails in ant colonies, but many ant […]

A great case study by Tamsin Woolley-Barker: We need to pull this system of disparate parts together. The sea sponge comes to mind: a porous bag of tissues inside a tough exterior tube. Water draws nutrients through the tube, to be filtered for consumption by the porous bag. Or spider webs, passively filtering insects while the […]

Another reminder of just how much we still have to learn from nature: In nature, helical macromolecules such as collagen, chitin and cellulose are critical to the morphogenesis and functionality of various hierarchically structured materials. During tissue formation, these chiral macromolecules are secreted and undergo self-templating assembly, a process whereby multiple kinetic factors influence the […]

Bryony Schwan Executive Director Biomimicry 3.8 Institute  

Inspiring indeed! Architect and designer Neri Oxman is assistant professor of media arts and sciences at the MIT Media Lab, where she directs the Mediated Matter research group. Her group explores how digital design and fabrication technologies mediate between matter and environment to radically transform the design and construction of objects, buildings, and systems. Oxmanís […]