Category Archives: biomimicry

Janine Benyus speaks about collaboration in nature at this week’s Google Atmosphere Conference – an invitational conference for CTOs. Nature’s Collaboration System

Fast Company blogger Jody Turner offers some insights from a recent talk: I was attending Janine Benyus’ talk, Biomimicry in the Built World: Consulting Nature as Model, Measure, and Mentor, sponsored by the College of Environmental Design at UC Berkeley. As the founder of an early-stage electronics startup and with a background in economics, I […]

Adding to a growing number awards she has received over the past few years, Janine Benyus is included in a list of “Most Influential Designers” put together by BusinessWeek: Not only is “influential” difficult to measure, but “design” is also nigh on impossible to define neatly. Nonetheless, we decided to put together a list of […]

Some great news from the Biomimicry Institute: Arizona State University has become the newest member of the Biomimicry Affiliate Program of the Montana-based Biomimicry Institute. ASU is the only U.S. institution to be awarded affiliate status and joins Iberoamericana University, Mexico City, and the Ontario College of Art & Design, Toronto. The agreement between ASU […]

Airbus joins the “inspired by nature” meme: Andrea Debbane, Vice President Public Affairs and Communications at Airbus, said, “Aviation is already putting a huge effort into reducing the 2% it contributes to manmade emissions … Biodiversity is also vital for the future of aviation and economic development. The natural world has been, and continues to […]

Tom McKeag teaches bio-inspired design at the California College of the Arts and UC Berkeley and closely tracks the burgeoning biomimicry industry. Here are his “Tommy” awards for the best and brightest biomimetic products/concepts from 2009: It’s time to review last year’s bio-inspired products and services and pick my favorites, and, since this is my […]

In  2005 I provided the seed grant that gave rise to The Biomimicry Institute. Since then a dedicated team has developed the tools that students, professionals and educators need to join the burgeoning biomimicry movement. Please join me in closing out the decade by reviewing our successes to date and ambitious plans for the future: […]

With CES, the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, just around the corner I thought this introduction to a biomimetic screen technology from Qualcomm/Mirosol was timely. Qualcomm’s mirasol display technology is based on a reflective technology called IMOD (Interferometric MODulation), with MEMS structures at its core. This MEMS–based innovation is both bistable, meaning it […]

Long-time Australian friend Tony Smith copied me a link to a recent MIT Technology Review article that offers some some stunning nano-scale images like the one above. Clearly we have the power to remake the way we make things – here’s hoping we do so with good intentions and mindful of the Precautionary Principle. The […]

FastCompany giving biomimicry some attention: Let’s say you’re looking to create a detergent that works superbly in cold temperatures. This would seem to be a Chemical Engineering Problem. But, as the zoo’s scientists tell us, it’s also an Antarctic Icefish Problem. When the icefish eats other fish, it has to digest the oils of its […]