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Tom McKeag teaches bio-inspired design at the California College of the Arts and UC Berkeley and closely tracks the burgeoning biomimicry industry. Here are his “Tommy” awards for the best and brightest biomimetic products/concepts from 2009:

It’s time to review last year’s bio-inspired products and services and pick my favorites, and, since this is my “sandbox,” I have decided to shamelessly name my awards the Tommies. …The impact of the linking of brilliant, logical theorizing with careful biological research and tenacious engineering development cannot be overstated…

Continued at http://greenerdesign.com/blog/2010/01/13/year-biomimicry-fins-humans-aquapenguin-and-robots-whiskers.

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In  2005 I provided the seed grant that gave rise to The Biomimicry Institute. Since then a dedicated team has developed the tools that students, professionals and educators need to join the burgeoning biomimicry movement. Please join me in closing out the decade by reviewing our successes to date and ambitious plans for the future: http://www.biomimicryinstitute.org/images/Biomimicry_Institute_Report.pdf

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With CES, the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, just around the corner I thought this introduction to a biomimetic screen technology from Qualcomm/Mirosol was timely.

Qualcomm’s mirasol display technology is based on a reflective technology called IMOD (Interferometric MODulation), with MEMS structures at its core. This MEMS–based innovation is both bistable, meaning it is both extremely low power, and highly reflective, meaning the display itself can be seen even in direct sunlight.

By studying and mimicking nature’s processes and structures – a field of study called biomimetics – Qualcomm engineers have developed the nature-inspired mirasol display.

Check out this short introductory video.

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I’m just back from Green Festival buzzing with new ideas, renewed energy and a few new connections to followup.

See if you can find the common thread on just three of the exhibitors: http://sharingsolution.com http://rentalic.com http://cohousing.org. Yes, back to my earlier post about getting more from less. I believe this is a powerful meme that needs to be spread far and wide. Today the brightest brains and deepest pockets are almost exclusively focused on creating MORE stuff. I’d argue that in many ways (though of course not all) we already have enough stuff, and intstead we need focused attention on making much better use of what we have already extracted, processed, packaged and put into use.

Technology: the web, and more particularly smartphones are central enablers. Hmm…I have a bit experience in those fields that could be put to use!

And a second thread: if we’re going to create more stuff then lets make sure folks have read Cradle to Cradle and taken a course in Biomimicry!

You’ll find my updated work-in-progress presentation at http://www.scribd.com/doc/21277439/Making-More-Use-out-of-Less-Stuff. Feedback and more examples welcome!

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Long-time Australian friend Tony Smith copied me a link to a recent MIT Technology Review article that offers some some stunning nano-scale images like the one above. Clearly we have the power to remake the way we make things - here’s hoping we do so with good intentions and mindful of the Precautionary Principle.

The article also spurred a discussion over at Slashdot…

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I  generally focus on solutions rather than preaching to the choir about the issues, but sometimes a report like this is a wakeup call for me and everyone who believes there is a good chance that human influence climate change (chaos!) is underway.

“Number of Americans who believe in climate change drops, survey shows only 57% of Americans feel that the planet’s atmosphere is warming, a fall from 77% two years ago”

Continued:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/oct/22/climate-change-us-pew-survey

http://people-press.org/report/556/global-warming

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I just spent the last three days at the annual Bioneers Conference. The closing speaker was Ann Leonard - creator of The Story of Stuff. Her talk inspired me to put together a few thoughts and a ‘presentation’.

The fastest path to sustainability, to meeting the goals of Kyoto, 350.org, etc is to make exponentially more use out of the world’s limited resources. Buying more personal stuff - however ‘green’ - isn’t going to get us there. Instead we need to tap technology (and common sense) to radically increase the use of the products and resources we have today. Here are a few examples…

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FastCompany giving biomimicry some attention:

Let’s say you’re looking to create a detergent that works superbly in cold temperatures. This would seem to be a Chemical Engineering Problem. But, as the zoo’s scientists tell us, it’s also an Antarctic Icefish Problem. When the icefish eats other fish, it has to digest the oils of its prey, and this process is remarkably similar to what happens in the wash with the oily taco stains on your T-shirt. Furthermore, the icefish typically dines in water as cold as — 2 degrees Celsius. (Try that, All-Temperature Cheer!) So, thanks to this cold fish, you have a working model for an ultra-low-temperature detergent — and it’s a solution that would have never occurred to an expert. Continued at FastCompany…

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Congratulations to the San Diego Zoo, The Biomimicry Institute and Qualcomm/mirasol for putting on a GREAT conference in San Diego today.  The room was full and the event brought together a terrific cross-section of academia (students, teachers, professors), entrepreneurs (like me!), city officials (inc. Mayor of San Diego giving the opening keynote) and biologists (most notably the extraordinary Janine Benyus).

The zoo is promoting biomimicry to help its conservation efforts. If humans learn that nature is a treasure trove of engineering solutions perfected over millions of years, then conservation and environmental protection will take on commercial value, the reasoning goes. Continued at NC Times…

More on the event at http://www.sandiegozoo.org/conservation/biomimicry/ and I expect there will be additional stories in the coming days http://news.google.com/news

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Wow! In the tech industry we would call this “disruptive” technology.

“…a new set of design tools, included in the newest release of ID CAD software SolidThinking. The technology, which ST is calling Morphogenesis, is a sort of semi-automated biomimicry toolbox…”

Continued at http://www.core77.com/blog/

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