We can do better
If we review the current state of the world and our impact on it, it paints a sombre picture:
- Excessive waste, pollution, and biodiversity depletion
- The poor global response to the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic
- Rampant misinformation leading to fraying families, communities, and societal structures at large
- The Great Recession indicated predatory practices and excessive risk-taking by many financial institutions
- The impact of accelerating technology on employment and the struggle to find a meaningful vocation
We can easily argue for more intelligent, cooperative, and ethical communities to solve these problems sustainably. However, there are many common hurdles to achieving impactful and collective action including:
- Decision fatigue and subsequent lack of prioritizing problems
- Trust has been localized which limits global collaboration and reduces the impact of our institutions
- The tragedy of the commons drives short-term incentives and competition at the cost of collaboration
- Limited remote onramps for individuals to contribute effectively to solve their problem of choice
Nature finds a way
Luckily, Nature’s careful process of evolution over a period of 3.8 billion years has created ample time-tested symbiotic relationships to solve problems in a sustainable way. Through biomimicry, we can draw inspiration from symbiotic relationships in nature to prove that the whole of a system can be greater than the sum of its parts.
Wood-wide web
Trees in a forest are connected through the so-called ‘wood-wide web,’ a vast underground communication network. This cooperative process starts with the oldest and tallest trees that access the most sunlight and produce excess sugars through photosynthesis. Fungi are made up of a mass of fine hairlike structures called mycelium that can absorb the excess sugar (and excess carbon) in the root systems of trees. In return, the mycelium provides the tree with water and nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium) it needs from the soil. They even send chemical warning signals about drought, diseases, or insect attacks to other trees. This symbiotic relationship or perhaps economic exchange is called mycorrhizal networks and stems from the Greek words for fungus (mycos) and root (rhiza). As Peter Wohlleben illustrates in his book The Hidden Life of Trees, forests are the epitome of an example of how to live in interconnected and cooperative relationships supported by communication and collective intelligence.
Three little birds
One of the gold standard examples of biomimicry in action was the 1989 redesign of Japan’s Shinkansen bullet train. The train encountered a noise pollution problem when exiting tunnels because of the atmospheric pressure buildup from its high speed of 167mph that resulted in a sonic boom.
Eiji Nakatsu, the general manager of the technical development department, an avid birdwatcher mimicked the aerodynamics of three birds to solve this dilemma.
The noise-reducing serrations and curvature of an owl’s feathers that allow them to silently swoop down to catch prey inspired the pantograph (the rig that connects the train to the electric wires above).
The Adelie Penguin’s smooth body inspired the pantograph’s supporting shaft for lower wind resistance.
The unique shape of the Kingfisher’s beak allows it to dive seamlessly into water to catch prey and thus the shape of the train was modelled after it – creating the silent bullet train. When the redesign debuted, with the help from these three little birds, it was 10% faster, used 15% less electricity and stayed under the 70dB noise limit in residential areas.
In the same way, Velcro was inspired by the burr seeds that Swiss engineer, George de Mestral, found on himself and his dog after their hikes. Gecko toes also inspired residue-free adhesives by modelling their hair-like projections that branch into hundreds of nano-scale structure discs called spatulae which enable geckos to adhere to wet or oily surfaces.
The superhydrophobic water-shedding properties of a lotus flower are being used to develop dust repellent materials (paint, textiles) reducing the need for chemical detergents. On the other side, the hydrophilic properties of the microscopic bumps on the Namib beetle’s back can harness fog and dew from humid air. Inspiring fog-harvesting materials to cool tower plumes and creating lightweight water collection systems for water-scarce areas.
Underwater objects can easily become coated in unwanted films of bacteria, barnacles, or algae, known as biofouling. However, sharks are free from biofouling because sharkskin consists of dermal denticles that inhibit bacteria from forming biofilms on them. Sharklet technologies used the topography of sharkskin to design medical gear with the same microscopic diamond shapes that disrupt the adhesion and colonization of bacteria.
Super-trees to eco-cities
On a larger biomimicry scale, we look at the solar-powered Singapore super-trees designed to operate like natural trees by collecting water for distribution and controlling temperatures by heat dispersion.
In the capital of Zimbabwe, a 350 000 square-foot building called Eastgate Centre uses 35% less energy than similar-sized buildings by using a ventilation cooling system based on termite mounds. Mick Pearce, the building’s architect, took his inspiration from the mounds that act like mammalian lungs for gas exchange in the underground nests to ensure the internal nest temperature changes are less extreme than the outside temperatures.
Similarly, hotel designs are using the same passive ventilation created by different heights of the burrow openings of prairie dogs. The air pressure difference between the two openings creates one-way airflow (into the lower and out of the elevated one).
The linear economy where we extract, make, use, and trash is no longer an option. We need to move to sustainable circular economies based on eco-systems where waste is used as resources like the classic fallen log on a forest floor that moves into fungi, mice, and hawks. Cities like Copenhagen are simulating natural eco-systems with less than 2% of the city’s waste going to landfill because of their waste-to-energy power plant, and energy-efficient district heating systems that connect nearly every household.
At SapioSentient we use nature to guide us on how to build a symbiotic community that works. Leveraging biomimicry and the countless beautiful examples from nature we can foster ethical cooperation between science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) workers and a range of industry stakeholders to enable meaningful action through science.
