I want to learn from nature
Solutions to many of the problems facing humanity can be found in nature. For example, the design of aircraft wings has been copied from birds, and Velcro was inspired by burrs from plants that attach to animal fur and clothing.
Enlist nature
Sustainable solutions to technical problems can often be found in this way.
Danish company Novozymes has been hugely successful in developing solutions for cleaning, food production and numerous other applications by finding and isolating naturally occurring enzymes that perform a particular function.
In many cases, enzymes can out-compete synthetic chemicals which may have many harmful effects.
What is your company’s biggest problem? Maybe nature has the answer...
Biologist Janine Benyus took a team of engineers to the beach to show them mussel shells. The engineers wondered about the purpose of the outing until they realised that their biggest design problem – pipes scaling up – might perhaps be solved by finding out which proteins mussels use to stop their growth.
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