December 2011
Monthly Archive
Print me a Stradivarius
Posted by davidwfox on 27 Dec 2011 | Tagged as: 3D Printing, biomimicry
One of the key enabling technologies in the realm of biomimicry is 3D Printing or “additive manufacturing“. A pointer to the future from The Economist:
THE industrial revolution of the late 18th century made possible the mass production of goods, thereby creating economies of scale which changed the economy—and society—in ways that nobody could have imagined at the time. Now a new manufacturing technology has emerged which does the opposite. Three-dimensional printing makes it as cheap to create single items as it is to produce thousands and thus undermines economies of scale. It may have as profound an impact on the world as the coming of the factory did. Continued at The Economist…
Random Posts of Interest
Posted by davidwfox on 26 Dec 2011 | Tagged as: biomimicry
To understand is to perceive patterns
The Wisdom Of Trees (Leonardo Da Vinci Knew It)
What Makes Wings Work?
14 Best Inventions Using Biomimicry in 2011
Posted by davidwfox on 10 Dec 2011 | Tagged as: biomimicry
Treehugger reporter Jaymi Heimbuch offers a great roundup of biomimetic R&D.
There is something satisfying about the natural world telling us how to make our technology better, rather than the often-assumed other way around. This year seems to have given us a bumper crop of news stories about biomimicry innovations and we have selected some of the most interesting robots, materials, structures and strategies to highlight here. Continued at Treehugger…
$5m Govt Investment in Biomimetic Wave Energy Project
Posted by davidwfox on 09 Dec 2011 | Tagged as: biomimicry, financial
Great news for this Australian developer of bio-inspired power generation systems:
SYDNEY, Nov. 30, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Ocean energy company, BioPower Systems (BPS), today announced that the Victorian Minister for Energy and Resources, the Hon. Michael O’Brien MP, has awarded the company conditional funding support of $5 million under the Sustainable Energy Pilot Demonstration Program.
The funding will be applied towards the $14 million pilot demonstration of the company’s 250kW bioWAVE ocean wave energy system at a grid-connected site near Port Fairy, Victoria.
Turning Cities Into Living Organisms
Posted by davidwfox on 08 Dec 2011 | Tagged as: biomimicry, liveable cities
Another good post in FastCompany’s Biomimicry – Nature of Innovation series:
When city services can autonomously go online and digest information from the cloud, they can reach a level of performance never before seen. First up, water systems that automatically know when it will rain and react accordingly. Continued at FastCompany.
