Biomimicry: 5 Amazing Creations Inspired by Nature

INTRO

Biomimicry is the practice of using living organisms as a model for new technology. 

Many of the drugs in your medicine cabinet were patterned on a molecule a plant created first. Velcro was inspired by the seed pod of the cocklebur plant, which hooks into animal fur. The strong hexagonal shape of a bee’s honeycomb has inspired countless building and packaging materials. 

While these examples of biomimicry are well-known, there are others that are equally impressive and not as widely known to the public. I spoke with science journalist Kristy Hamilton about five exciting new technologies that were inspired by nature that you’ve never probably never heard of.  

LOBSTER EYES…IN SPAAAAACE!

Space telescopes like Webb and Hubble are sending back amazing images for our Universe, but they’re missing some important information. These telescopes can only pick up visible and infrared light, respectively. High-energy waves like X-Rays and Gamma rays are notoriously hard to catch, passing right through most solid objects. 

Enter the eyes of the lowly lobster….  

Kristy Hamilton: “…that black beady little eye has millions of tiny micro channels that are mirrored, and it bounces light off of two sides and then enters its, you know, neural ganglia. It goes into its brain. It can kind of get a visual picture of the world in these really dark, murky places that it has to explore to find food.

These tiny reflective microchannels are arranged in an 180 degree array collecting dim light from all directions and focusing onto the lobster’s retina. 

Although it took nearly 40 years, scientists and engineers were able to copy this design using man-made materials like iridium, a reflective mineral. But their purpose wasn’t to amplify dim light. The microchannels were designed to tamp down the energy of X-rays and Gamma rays hurtling towards earth from outer space. 

Kristy Hamilton: “So what’s it’s doing, since it’s hitting two sides….it’s being skimmed off at an angle. And by  doing this its building a picture that we can see, it’s just not at a full strength that would just beam right through the telescope.” 

These artificial lobster eyes have already been launched into space, traveling aboard a spacecraft that will measure X-ray emissions coming from the planet Mercury. 

In the coming years, this technology should be able to give us a glimpse back into the early universe, where we can observe cataclysmic but brief stellar events like the evolution of stars, galaxies, and even black holes. 

“….its mind blowing to me that something in space was inspired by something that lives deep in dark waters and how we got there. And also because. Why does nobody else really seem to talk about this or why does no one else know that much about it?

LIZARD SPIT MEDICINE

Gila monsters are enormous lizards that live in the American Southwest. Although they once had a reputation for having a bite that’s fatal to humans, in reality it just causes a lot of pain and swelling. This is due to the venom running through channels in its teeth. 

Now for the Gila’s prey–pretty much anything it can fit in its mouth–this venom is fatal. But the venom also does something else that caught the eye of a New York City doctor…

Kristy Hamilton: ”…a scientist, a doctor called Dr. John NG, he noticed that when a HeLa monster bit, say, like a baby rabbit… he noticed that their pancreas, the rabbit’s pancreas would swell would and engorge….And he was like, okay, well, that’s where insulin is produced. So they must be doing something to this organ in the body that releases insulin.” 

This weird thing happening with the rabbit’s pancreas also helped explain how the Gila could go –months without eating food and then gorge itself without a massive spike in its blood sugar…. 

And so he looked more into that and he realized …that saliva that helps them digest and moderate those huge spikes in sugar, it does also encourage the pancreas of these creatures  because it releases a ton of insulin in their bodies.

The doctor recognized that if the Gila’s venom could release insulin in its prey, it might also help diabetics who have become resistant to insulin and have to take a synthetic form of the hormone.   

Kristy Hamilton: “…they looked to this healer monster to create a better type two diabetes medication because diabetes medications often come with unwanted side effects…And oftentimes those unwanted weight gain, which doesn’t necessarily help a Type two diabetic that is trying to lose weight

….And they found that this molecule called extend four but it’s the medications name is better or you know, fans of Bira who first heard about the correlation call the medication Lizzie after the lizard. They appreciated the side effects in that they lost on average 5 lbs.”

This medication is now widely available and helping diabetics all over the world. Who could have predicted that a venom once thought deadly to humans could end up helping so many of them? 

CORAL CONCRETE

Concrete is blamed for about eight percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. And in case you didn’t already know…carbon dioxide is considered a major contributor to global warming. 

This CO2 is generated when limestone, clay, and other materials are heated up in a giant kiln. These are the basic ingredients of cement, the stuff that binds together the rocks and sand in concrete.  

Fortunately, corals, the animals that build coral reefs may hold the answer to low-emission concrete…

Kristy Hamilton: “…oftentimes people forget that hard coral in the ocean is an animal just like you and I. And so when they exhale, they release dioxide, and that carbon dioxide reacts with calcium in the water  and it creates those skeletons that you see.”

Some clever engineers at a company called BioMason figured out that they could use the coral’s process for building reefs to make environmentally-friendly concrete bricks. These bricks reduce carbon emissions by up to 99%.

Kristy Hamilton: “…so what they do is they get aggregate sand, you know, recycled aggregate sand, which we have tons of you demolish buildings too. And so they use this aggregate sand and then they put nutrients, they sprinkle nutrients essentially on these bricks.

“…And there is bacteria in these sand bricks…They create that calcium carbonate essentially between the grains of sand and they like stick all those grains of the sand together. They essentially are the glue that holds it together and makes it really strong. And experiments have shown that it can really hold up to some impressive testing.”

Bricks created with this “biocement” are currently available for purchase and the U.S. military is looking at using this technology to create temporary runways and other structures in areas where it would be difficult to create them by more traditional methods. 

TARDIGRADE REFRIGERATOR

Tardigrades, also called water bears or moss piglets, are microscopic animals that are some of the most durable creatures on the planet. They can survive extreme heat, cold, dehydration, and even the vacuum of space. They can do all this thanks to some neat adaptations that put them into a suspended state, something scientists call the Tun state.

Kristy Hamilton: “…so they these tardigrades have had to develop a way to essentially be dried out…if we were to dry out all of our cellular bits, all the little like bits and pieces like proteins and stuff inside our bodies, which is rub together and, you know, break apart.They would break their shape and we would essentially die.”

The tardigrade is able to keep everything in place thanks to a sugar called trehalose.  This simple sugar is found in many species of plants and animals, but not in mammals. Trehalose can keep tardigrades in suspension for more than 30 years. 

Kristy Hamilton:…“it kind of it it freezes into this internal cast so almost like becomes glass and it just keeps everything in its place so that if you had to make the equivalent with us right our hearts wouldn’t collapse on to our liver or anything It would keep everything separated from each other.”

So trehalose is key to tardigrades survival in harsh, dry environments, but some enterprising scientists thought it could also solve a problem plaguing modern medicine.

Kristy Hamilton: “…it’s very hard to transport our medicines without keeping it on ice or keeping it really cold.

….Our vaccines in particular, they’re very, very temperature sensitive. And so is there a way that we can kind of do what the TARDIGRADE is doing and preserve these medicines right until they reach their desired location? And so that’s what the scientists were doing. And they did find that these tardigrades created something pretty impressive.”

Trehalose can now be synthesized in the lab and is being used to preserve everything from vaccines to transplant organs to stem cells and tissues samples. All thanks to a cute little animal that you can’t even see with your naked eye. 

SPIDER WEB WINDOWS

Spider webs have an unexpected property, which is that they emit UV light. Now, you and I can’t see it, but birds and other animals can. This got researchers thinking that maybe they could harness this property to make windows that reflect UV light…

Kristy Hamilton: ”…we have this design issue with our windows where 100 to 1 billion birds each year die by window collisions in the United States alone.

….there was research to suggest that you see that spider webs reflect  o prevent were birds from crashing into their spider webs.

….So here they looked to the spider webs and how they use UV. This would be a great solution because humans can’t see U.V., right?

…So our windows would remain clear. We can see through them, but birds can see them and they would be like, Nope, don’t want to go there. I’m going to go around the building instead of smack into it right.”

Researchers tested a variety of different ways to make glass reflect UV light, which would make it visible to birds. 

Kristy Hamilton: And so they’ve been doing it. They still continue to do tons of testing for this. They have, you know, wood tunnels set up with different of glass at the end.

And they have birds fly at it and then they release. And there’s there’s a net in front, by the way, so they don’t, you know, have the birds crash into the window. So now they’re like, okay, you’re done. No, they have a net. They catch them. It’s all humane. They let them go free, but they record how many times they crash onto which side of this tunnel.

While these UV-reflecting windows aren’t perfect– tests showed they only caused birds to divert about 80 percent of the time–some commercial products have come out of this research. They try to mimic both the reflective quality and look of spiderwebs. 

As cool as this technology looks, Kristy says there are actually cheaper, more effective options…

Kristy Hamilton: “….essentially the best methods parachute cords, which are like strings, you know, four inches apart on windows that kind of wave back and forth or chart tape. You may have seen dots. Essentially, stickers are the best way to prevent bird collisions. But oftentimes as humans, right, we want to have a clear view. it’s almost this moral dilemma, right? Like, do we want to prevent bird deaths or do we we want to see our windows clearly.”

So unless you are adamant that nothing block your view, you can save the UV for the spiders. 

OUTRO

Hey, these were just some of the cool biomimetic inventions featured in Kristy’s new book “Nature’s Wild Ideas”. She goes into a lot more detail in the book, so if you’d like to know more, visit the link in the description below. Also, thanks to my Patrons who made this video happen. Catch you in the next video.