This profound and accessible book details how science is
studying nature's best ideas to solve our toughest 21st-century
problems.
If chaos theory transformed our view of the universe, biomimicry
is transforming our life on Earth. Biomimicry is innovation
inspired by nature - taking advantage of evolution's 3.8 billion
years of R&D since the first bacteria. Biomimics study nature's
best ideas: photosynthesis, brain power, and shells - and adapt
them for human use. They are revolutionising how we invent,
compute, heal ourselves, harness energy, repair the environment,
and feed the world.
Science writer and lecturer Janine Benyus names and explains
this phenomenon. She takes us into the lab and out in the field
with cutting-edge researchers as they stir vats of proteins to
unleash their computing power; analyse how electrons zipping around
a leaf cell convert sunlight into fuel in trillionths of a second;
discover miracle drugs by watching what chimps eat when they're
sick; study the hardy prairie as a model for low-maintenance
agriculture; and more.