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Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature - Paperback | Diverse Reads

Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature

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Repackaged with a new afterword, this "valuable and entertaining" (New York Times Book Review) book explores how scientists are adapting nature's best ideas to solve tough 21st century problems.

Biomimicry is rapidly transforming life on earth. Biomimics study nature's most successful ideas over the past 3.5 million years, and adapt them for human use. The results are revolutionizing how materials are invented and how we compute, heal ourselves, repair the environment, and feed the world.

Janine Benyus takes readers into the lab and in the field with maverick thinkers as they: discover miracle drugs by watching what chimps eat when they're sick; learn how to create by watching spiders weave fibers; harness energy by examining how a leaf converts sunlight into fuel in trillionths of a second; and many more examples.

Composed of stories of vision and invention, personalities and pipe dreams, Biomimicry is must reading for anyone interested in the shape of our future.

ISBN-13: 9780060533229

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Publication Date: 09-17-2002

Pages: 320

Product Dimensions: 5.24(w) x 8.02(h) x 0.85(d)

Janine M. Benyus is the author of four books in the life sciences, including Beastly Behaviors: A Watchers Guide to How Animals Act and Why. She is a graduate of Rutgers with degrees in forestry and writing and has lectured widely on science topics. She lives in Stevensville, Montana.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One: Echoing Nature
Why Biomimicry Now?

We must draw our standards from the natural world. We must honor with the humility of the wise the bounds of that natural world and the mystery which lies beyond them, admitting that there is something in the order of being which evidently exceeds all our competence.
— Václav Havel, president of the Czech Republic<

Table of Contents

Ch. 1 Echoing Nature: Why Biomimicry Now? 1
Ch. 2 How Will We Feed Ourselves? Farming to Fit the Land: Growing Food Like a Prairie 11
Ch. 3 How Will We Harness Energy? Light into Life: Gathering Energy Like a Leaf 59
Ch. 4 How Will We Make Things? Fitting Form to Function: Weaving Fibers Like a Spider 95
Ch. 5 How Will We Heal Ourselves? Experts in Our Midst: Finding Cures Like a Chimp 146
Ch. 6 How Will We Store What We Learn? Dances with Molecules: Computing Like a Cell 185
Ch. 7 How Will We Conduct Business? Closing the Loops in Commerce: Running a Business Like a Redwood Forest 238
Ch. 8 Where Will We Go from Here? May Wonders Never Cease: Toward a Biomimetic Future 285
Bio-Inspired Readings 299
Index 301