Biomimicry: Solving today's problems with a million-year old blueprint

I attended this workshop on Biomimicry at the Lift India conference in Bangalore today. This workshop was run by people from the Biomimicry India lab, Prashant Dhawan & Seema Anand. It was an enlightening talk about a interesting concept that holds huge potential.

Source: Biomimicry india website

Biomimicry is innovation inspired by nature. In other words, the fundamental premise is that today's problems have solutions all around us - in the form of nature's tried and tested blueprint that is millions of years old. Here is a 2-minute video explaining the concept. In the words of this movement's founder, Janine Benyus, natural organisms have managed to do everything we want to do without guzzling fossil fuels, polluting the planet or mortgaging the future. So, we need look no further than our surroundings to solve some of the most puzzling problems we encounter.

Pic source: Asme.org

A classic example cited to highlight success of this concept is the redesign of Japan's bullet trains that were super-fast (300 kmph) but had the issue of causing sonic boom while exiting tunnels. This was due to the bullet shaped nose, that resulted in the high noise levels. This was solved when the train's chief engineer, Eiji Nakatsu observed the splashless, graceful entry of a Kingfisher into the water, based on which he redesigned the train's nose mimicking the bird's beak design.

Here is a nice Ted Talk by Janine Benyus on Biomimicry along with some striking case studies inspired by nature, and here are some more resources to explore.