Biomimicry

Notes from Bioengineering Conference, Nov 25, Long Beach, CA

I like to follow developments that are the result of ‘biomimicry’. Then again, I’m weird like that. However, I think it’s something that merits attention. Biomimicry is the practice of overcoming obstacles by seeing what works in nature. Naturalistic observation is just as valid as ‘laboratory observation’ in science. According to the speakers today, discovering how things work in nature has inspired breakthroughs in computer technology, renewable energy and regenerative medicine, just to name three.

Renewable energy: Biologists observing the motion of humpback whales have found more efficient ways to capture energy from the wind. They noticed how the saw-tooth bumps (tubercles) that line the edge of a whale’s fin help them perform better in slow-moving water. When they line the edge of blades on a wind-turbine with similar bumps; the blades rotate faster in response to slow-moving wind. This has led to the installation of more efficient and lower-profile ‘wind-mills’ in the desert outside of Palm Springs.

Regenerative medicine: Psychologists observing the natural development of language have made contributions to the field of regenerative medicine. They saw how children learn grammar as a result of social interaction ..with little or no coaching. When they simulate the social environment of early childhood; stroke victims make faster progress toward recovering language skills. This has led to the design of training-programs, hosted as video games ..that are more interactive and engaging. Results can be seen in speech performance as well as on MRI scans of the brain.

Closing remarks: Geoffrey Spedding, an engineer from USC, talked about limits to what we can learn from nature. He says “… the designs that come through evolution are just good enough to survive, that’s all. Nature has yet to come up with a decent wheel.” I had to disagree. In my humble opinion, evolution did produce an information-processing device capable of infinitely more ..the human brain. So, however indirect ..nature did invent the wheel.

Biomimicry

Presented to the
Cosmo Computer Group

Biomimicry is the art of solving problems by seeing what similar obstacles exist in nature ..then discovering how nature acts to overcome them. One of my favorite examples of biomimicry comes from the story of the Swiss inventor George de Mestral. He was an avid hiker who spent a lot of time removing the burrs that stuck to his clothes at the end of every hike. Curious about how this happened, he examined the burrs and found they contained tiny, hook-like spears that had a natural tendency to attach themselves to the miniature loops found in fabric. He used the same mechanism in the 1950’s when he invented Velcro.

Technical uses: In order to combat biological weapons, the Defense Industry studies the reproductive behavior of insects to see how they detect trace amounts of chemical and biological agents over long distances. In bioengineering, scientists study birds to see how they recognize the songs of their own species in order to come up with better ‘speech recognition’ systems for the disabled. Last year physicists made the first practical observation of ‘quantum teleportation’ ..a trick of nature that could make future computers incredibly small and powerful.

Computer apps: During my graduate studies I tested theories of reading comprehension. A practical application of this was to see if we could develop a ‘natural language interface’ to the computer. This was before the advent of the ‘graphical user interface’. My job was to see how people ‘store and retrieve’ information about what they read, then submit my findings to the computer science department where they programmed ‘text comprehension rules’ for the computer. We were developing a system that could answer questions by querying a computer database. In a sense, we were studying the activity of the mind in order to develop a better interface to the computer.

Concluding remarks: I believe that this type of research has applications in education, helping people with reading disabilities, as well as in the computer industry, helping designers build more ‘intelligent’ search engines.