Biomimicry in action | Janine Benyus 

upsetting this only has 200k views in 11 years... i actually searched for this

00:11 If I could reveal anything that is hidden from us, at least in modern cultures, it would be to reveal something that we've forgotten, that we used to know as well as we knew our own names. And that is that we live in a competent universe, that we are part of a brilliant planet, and that we are surrounded by genius. 00:42 Biomimicry is a new discipline that tries to learn from those geniuses, and take advice from them, design advice. That's where I live, and it's my university as well. I'm surrounded by genius. I cannot help but remember the organisms and the ecosystems that know how to live here gracefully on this planet. This is what I would tell you to remember if you ever forget this again. Remember this. This is what happens every year. This is what keeps its promise. While we're doing bailouts, this is what happened. Spring. 01:30 Imagine designing spring. Imagine that orchestration. You think TED is hard to organize. (Laughter) Right? Imagine, and if you haven't done this in a while, do. Imagine the timing, the coordination, all without top-down laws, or policies, or climate change protocols. This happens every year. There is lots of showing off. There is lots of love in the air. There's lots of grand openings. And the organisms, I promise you, have all of their priorities in order. 02:20 I have this neighbor that keeps me in touch with this, because he's living, usually on his back, looking up at those grasses. And one time he came up to me -- he was about seven or eight years old -- he came up to me. And there was a wasp's nest that I had let grow in my yard, right outside my door. And most people knock them down when they're small. But it was fascinating to me, because I was looking at this sort of fine Italian end papers. And he came up to me and he knocked. He would come every day with something to show me. And like, knock like a woodpecker on my door until I opened it up. And he asked me how I had made the house for those wasps, because he had never seen one this big. And I told him, "You know, Cody, the wasps actually made that." And we looked at it together. And I could see why he thought, you know -- it was so beautifully done. It was so architectural. It was so precise. 03:25 But it occurred to me, how in his small life had he already believed the myth that if something was that well done, that we must have done it. How did he not know -- it's what we've all forgotten -- that we're not the first ones to build. We're not the first ones to process cellulose. We're not the first ones to make paper. We're not the first ones to try to optimize packing space, or to waterproof, or to try to heat and cool a structure. We're not the first ones to build houses for our young. 04:05 What's happening now, in this field called biomimicry, is that people are beginning to remember that organisms, other organisms, the rest of the natural world, are doing things very similar to what we need to do. But in fact they are doing them in a way that have allowed them to live gracefully on this planet for billions of years. So these people, biomimics, are nature's apprentices. And they're focusing on function. What I'd like to do is show you a few of the things that they're learning. They have asked themselves, "What if, every time I started to invent something, I asked, 'How would nature solve this?'" 04:51 And here is what they're learning. This is an amazing picture from a Czech photographer named Jack Hedley. This is a story about an engineer at J.R. West. They're the people who make the bullet train. It was called the bullet train because it was rounded in front, but every time it went into a tunnel it would build up a pressure wave, and then it would create like a sonic boom when it exited. So the engineer's boss said, "Find a way to quiet this train." 05:17 He happened to be a birder. He went to the equivalent of an Audubon Society meeting. And he studied -- there was a film about king fishers. And he thought to himself, "They go from one density of medium, the air, into another density of medium, water, without a splash. Look at this picture. Without a splash, so they can see the fish. And he thought, "What if we do this?" Quieted the train. Made it go 10 percent faster on 15 percent less electricity. 05:48 How does nature repel bacteria? We're not the first ones to have to protect ourselves from some bacteria. Turns out that -- this is a Galapagos Shark. It has no bacteria on its surface, no fouling on its surface, no barnacles. And it's not because it goes fast. It actually basks. It's a slow-moving shark. So how does it keep its body free of bacteria build-up? It doesn't do it with a chemical. It does it, it turns out, with the same denticles that you had on Speedo bathing suits, that broke all those records in the Olympics, 06:22 but it's a particular kind of pattern. And that pattern, the architecture of that pattern on its skin denticles keep bacteria from being able to land and adhere. There is a company called Sharklet Technologies that's now putting this on the surfaces in hospitals to keep bacteria from landing, which is better than dousing it with anti-bacterials or harsh cleansers that many, many organisms are now becoming drug resistant. Hospital-acquired infections are now killing more people every year in the United States than die from AIDS or cancer or car accidents combined -- about 100,000. 07:04 This is a little critter that's in the Namibian desert. It has no fresh water that it's able to drink, but it drinks water out of fog. It's got bumps on the back of its wing covers. And those bumps act like a magnet for water. They have water-loving tips, and waxy sides. And the fog comes in and it builds up on the tips. And it goes down the sides and goes into the critter's mouth. There is actually a scientist here at Oxford who studied this, Andrew Parker. And now kinetic and architectural firms like Grimshaw are starting to look at this as a way of coating buildings so that they gather water from the fog. 10 times better than our fog-catching nets. 07:49 CO2 as a building block. Organisms don't think of CO2 as a poison. Plants and organisms that make shells, coral, think of it as a building block. There is now a cement manufacturing company starting in the United States called Calera. They've borrowed the recipe from the coral reef, and they're using CO2 as a building block in cement, in concrete. Instead of -- cement usually emits a ton of CO2 for every ton of cement. Now it's reversing that equation, and actually sequestering half a ton of CO2 thanks to the recipe from the coral. 08:25 None of these are using the organisms. They're really only using the blueprints or the recipes from the organisms. How does nature gather the sun's energy? This is a new kind of solar cell that's based on how a leaf works. It's self-assembling. It can be put down on any substrate whatsoever. It's extremely inexpensive and rechargeable every five years. It's actually a company a company that I'm involved in called OneSun, with Paul Hawken. 08:53 There are many many ways that nature filters water that takes salt out of water. We take water and push it against a membrane. And then we wonder why the membrane clogs and why it takes so much electricity. Nature does something much more elegant. And it's in every cell. Every red blood cell of your body right now has these hourglass-shaped pores called aquaporins. They actually export water molecules through. It's kind of a forward osmosis. They export water molecules through, and leave solutes on the other side. A company called Aquaporin is starting to make desalination membranes mimicking this technology. 09:35 Trees and bones are constantly reforming themselves along lines of stress. This algorithm has been put into a software program that's now being used to make bridges lightweight, to make building beams lightweight. Actually G.M. Opel used it to create that skeleton you see, in what's called their bionic car. It lightweighted that skeleton using a minimum amount of material, as an organism must, for the maximum amount of strength. 10:10 This beetle, unlike this chip bag here, this beetle uses one material, chitin. And it finds many many ways to put many functions into it. It's waterproof. It's strong and resilient. It's breathable. It creates color through structure. Whereas that chip bag has about seven layers to do all of those things. One of our major inventions that we need to be able to do to come even close to what these organisms can do is to find a way to minimize the amount of material, the kind of material we use, and to add design to it. We use five polymers in the natural world to do everything that you see. In our world we use about 350 polymers to make all this. 11:03 Nature is nano. Nanotechnology, nanoparticles, you hear a lot of worry about this. Loose nanoparticles. What is really interesting to me is that not many people have been asking, "How can we consult nature about how to make nanotechnology safe?" Nature has been doing that for a long time. Embedding nanoparticles in a material for instance, always. In fact, sulfur-reducing bacteria, as part of their synthesis, they will emit, as a byproduct, nanoparticles into the water. But then right after that, they emit a protein that actually gathers and aggregates those nanoparticles so that they fall out of solution. 11:47 Energy use. Organisms sip energy, because they have to work or barter for every single bit that they get. And one of the largest fields right now, in the world of energy grids, you hear about the smart grid. One of the largest consultants are the social insects. Swarm technology. There is a company called Regen. They are looking at how ants and bees find their food and their flowers in the most effective way as a whole hive. And they're having appliances in your home talk to one another through that algorithm, and determine how to minimize

We are surrounded by genius... we are geniuses, who have forgotten about it. Love for the idea of biomimicry...

Thank you Janine Benyus for this Ted talk. Been trying to rebound in health and while I do, I look at biophilic design & mimicry as a huge hope for now and the future. I'm working on a kids' model building to help get the word out because this is the way to unite people in hope. At this time when media spreads climate destruction news, I look to these things to lift my own spirit and move forward with my own projects.

This presentation warms my heart.. it seems there might be a future for us on this planet after all.

How Janine Benyus is not yet considered for a Nobel Prize is beyond me.

Janine Benyus is a great inspiration. Although she gives old news, she has news and models for our times.

Actually her talk is about how nature, over millions of years has found the optimal designs (in most cases, not all) through evolutionary algorithms that allow for increasingly complex and intricate designs where at first everything was clunky and through successive generations and mutations bad designs were weeded out and better ones kept. That we are still at that "clunky design" phase and could do well to use those same algorithms to our advantage.

that was brilliant. I knew we had looked at birds for flight and sharks for hydrodynamics but I didn't appreciate just how much nature had to offer.

found this by accident, loved it! found the two websites she mentions, gonna devour them later.

Great Job! I LOVE EVERYONE WHO IS ON THIS CHANNEL! THANK YOU FOR KEEPING US ALIVE!

Superb presentation all should know one needs to learn from nature.

The website she mentions is asknature.org/

Inspiring... and I'm not very easily inspired anymore; I was made dull and complacent and learned taking everything for granted, growing up. But for the last couple of years I've been trying to unlearn the misinformation, lies and blindness! Thanks to inspirational people like her - Janine Benyus - and others, for instance Carl Sagan, I've been re-learning how to appreciate all this wonder that is our existence! It's easy to notice just the ugliness, but to see the beauty... is spectacular!

Excellent. Thanks for the wisdom.

I wonder if I can still use the organism without infringing on someone's patent of natural process on earth.

Hell to the yeah. Permaculture design + biomimicry = the future

I want to get into this, it’s been two years now that I’ve been looking into this

Very insightful presentation.

Truly mind blowing lecture, everyone should see this

Very powerful lecture.I agree that we must go return back to mama,mama nature.....

A wonderful presentation

a lot of studies and experiments find what makes us so different from chips is that we work together and we dont just care about ourselves. we understand what benifits one can help the whole group aswell.

An old idea but a good one. Great overview of some new products I look forward to seeing, good video.

Within every cell of all of life, there exists an interactive receiver/transmitter system, with quantum characteristics which has the capability of interpreting the encoded signature which is transmitted from sources that have only been realized by some as of late. The medium used to send and receive information between all of life on the planet and the sentient design system is earth’s magnetic field and through varying frequencies which stimulates oxygen molecules

I AM SO LOVING THIS!

Wow, it's really incredible to imagine where technology will eventually lead when considering all the things we could learn from nonhuman life.

I love this!

I live in Japan.I learned this theory in Japanese high school.I was surprised at her idea.

OK, i checked it. All Pictures belong to MB. Hm..... why is my previous comment to you not displayed?

How incredibly cool. The upcoming videogame 'Brink' also mentions the coral cement.

"The URL contained a malformed video ID." But i know this Car. My original comment (that did not post?) was that GM/O had indeed a similar project. At first i thougt it yielded a very similar car but as it turns out i was misstaken. They only use it for the internal structure. the drag on the Elise is not suprising as it needs downforce to keep its feather wight on the road. Another exaple of high drag coefficient (cd) is the Corvette C6 Stock cd: 0.28 Z06 cd: 0.31 ZR cd: 0.34

This presentation raises a lot of philosophical questions/issues.

Love it Biomimicry is the present, past and future. Stubbornly Persistent Illusion Loop 🌎

"9 times out of 10 the ingrained pattern will win" neurons that fire together wire together. the next time you try to overcome ur physiological predispositions you be will be more and more successful until ur have 'conditioned' urself to react in a way that you willfully choose to.

Wonderful

5*s. Heavy and interesting Information. Thanks,

Nature has everything for us to learn and grow but we need to protect it if we want to flourish more..

All in nature is about optimization.

5*'s Brilliant Presentation.

The Wright brothers were successful because they didn't mimic birds in their transfer of power to the air. They did use principles of lift that birds use to get off the ground. Before the brothers the attempts to create flight involved a flapping motion, or lighter than air devices such as balloons.

I agree, once again. if thought can control emotions you are essentially controlling gene expression. and if thought can control gene expression i think it would be safe to say that the only limit to what one can experience psychologically and physically is linked to the richness of functional genes in ones genome. imagine wut unexperienced emotions and abilitys lie out there in combinations of nucleotides we have not yet experienced!

I don't see any meat in this, science by definition comes from the observation of nature, technology comes from science. The only thing you need to turn observation into technology is for someone to make the connection, but those people are rare. How many people saw the lid rattling on a boiling pot before James Watts came along and thought - "I can use that to make a steam engine". The flip side of this is once someone like James pointsout the connection, it seems obvious to everyone.

Obviously this is an old idea. I think Janine's, point was just to spread some awareness, and to get people thinking and talking. Which clearly has worked. I enjoyed most the information on actual projects under taken with private capital. Theres no better way to creat change

making just one [conscious] decision to change a deeply ingrained pattern IS considered an effective strategy for creating behavioral change. by being able to change ur pattern of behaviour you have proven that tought and concious will can overpower any genetic predispositions

anyone got the website she recommended at the end of the talk?

someone have a free link to download 21st century reading unit 3 pdf ?

cool stuff

Intelligent, incredible design doesn't happen by accident.

How do I like this 1,000 times?

YES! nominate Jacque Fresco! He would be a brilliant presenter!

what is the difference between the terms "biomimicry" and "biomimetics"?

Brilliant

I love my planet!

Indeed, the Flying Spagetti Monster has designed the universe very well. Let us pray to him right now.

That "Opal" car she was talking about, there's a vid showing how the program works. Pretty interesting stuff. (skip over the 17 second ad at the start) watch?v=kTUlyYWNgFQ

can anyone send me a link to the company onesun with paul hawkin? my father is investing in solar technology and i want to lead him in this direction.

it maybe that its tooo good to be just natural selection.

Tq information

Biomimicry, I want to design a pedestrian park in the center of a small town. With a focus on Biomimicry, can you give me suggestions? in March there are strong winds. At summer in Greece, we have high temperatures. The area is 17 meters wide and 450 meter long. What should I consider, what should I avoid, and more?

2020 anyone?

Good talk. Why on earth are people giving this less than 5 stars?? i don't get it. I enjoyed it and she's right, nature already has answers to most of our questions.

Nice video. Did the Wright brothers mimic birds?

Actually one already ;)

with a user name like that, one can only expect great insight

♥

20 times more effective than existing fog moisture collection nets ? are they really so effective ? if they are... can such be made locally, rather low tech, from available materials ?

their new 7 series looks like a Volvo s class :)

Humans must know their limitations for them to fit in

How we are amazed by the design of our universe But the real question is how it designed ! It's great to understand our world and how it's works But to refer to the system as a person that builds it'self is what not quit understandable !?

must take google a little while to collect the result, coz i'm still seeing zero.

"I live here." hahahahaha I disagree with you, but you made me laugh really hard. It takes quite a lot to inspire the average Joe to take an interest in science and that personal touch is usually what sells it.

Hello!!!!! The designer is God!

She is right... that is all.

Creation screams praises to the creator but not us, we attribute this brilliance to a universe that exploded into existence out of nothing and self assembled...sad and foolish, where has our reason gone

Axiom is a logic term, and I deal with proof. But why she sounds that way specifically (other then the the talk of brilliants and design) is that she defines Biomimicry partly as 'sustainable'. That is one of those organic feel good terms that has nothing to do with an efficient design. Second is that she supports a group that says 'cities [should] provide the same level of ecosystem services'. as (I presume) a non-developed area. Cities are good for the environment as is(see Charter Cities)

@5:51 we see an image of the kingfisher breaking the density barrier without a splash so it can see.... that particular image of the Kingfisher reminds me of the well known middle ages sketch of the 'dove' a.k.a. the Holy Spirit diving into the Grail cup ... ;)

whats that little bug called??

Shout out to those USTP students who are watching this 😊😉

I love you

Well, nature is subject to evolution. And evolution is always set on making everything in nature just perfect at what it does. I think shes only saying we should look to nature to give us easy answers. We dont have to mimic all of it. Just the stuff that we find useful. And not because its natural, because it works.

5:54

sweet

Things that don't exist can't be authorities.

💕🤗

"what we need to do is use our collective intelligence to find ways that allow us to alter our gene switches" - So you're saying that to be able to not be controlled by our genes is we need to find a way to "tweak" it so that we can act on favorable outcomes? Interesting.

RAmen!

I swear tf thats an icecream sandwhich shes got in her hand

Good question. The only thing I can criticize is it comes off a bit faith based. Yes nature has done a lot and it is a good idea to learn from nature, but she is presenting it kind of like a religion. Just because it is natural does not make it good, right, moral, or even better. What does it mean to have cities provide the same level of ecosystem services? That is not the function of a city. This common notion that natural is better just because it is natural is not valid.

i totally disagree. by saying we cant control our behaviours is to question the very essense that sets us apart from other animals. ALL behavioural traits can be induced or supressed by concious will. physical traits of course are determined by genetics. but behaviour is not. even if you are predisposed to be shy, for example, u can voluntarily choose not to. it is via technology that we overcome pysical barriers. and it is via our minds that we overcome behavioural barriers.

At least watch the whole video first guys.....

But how does nature solve existential crisis and procrastination

It's most beautiful site I ever search ❤❤

what if greed and ignorance are hardwired to our genes? - then altruism & compassion must be hardwired as well. how to behave, it's up to us.

lol exactly. CONCIOUSNESS IS GOD!!!!!

This is not an intelligent design freak, don't worry guys. Get to around 3:45 if you want the scientific questions and answers. What she is saying is fantastic, what better efficient design is there than nature itself. She shows examples of how creatures survive with such minimal resources and how we can copy that. We have all the resources in the world at our finger tips, some of the things stopping us from doing the right thing is greed and ignorance.

Someone giving thumbs down to all the comments? Get a life.

@Hypergalactica I like how self depricating you are but this is the conclusion billions of our ancestors have come to in one way or another since forever! As an atheist I want to remind you that simple things can produce complexity given enourmous lengths of time but as an environmental, psychedelic type I also want to say something profound about how nature's pattern intelligence IS the genius, Gaia, metamind you allude to but I seem to have run out of characters and blown it... Drats.

I see what you're doing... coming from the teleological argument with a bunch of unfounded assertions. First that there is a design, second that nature is a being, third that there is such a thing as perfection, fourth that if there is a designer that it is male, and fifth that this design works well. I'm sure I left a couple out but those were the ones that came to the top of my head.

Nice commercials at the end.