At its simplest, the single cell might be described as just a water-filled oil bubble. But look closer and it gets awesomely complex. Inside this watery world, thousands upon thousands of unique chemical processes—from “burning” sugars to building new proteins—occur simultaneously, each without interfering with another. Tiny teachers, large lessons Human-made technologies, processes, and organizations—impressive as they are—have a long way to go to rival the performance and sustainability of the humble single cell. Many of the wish-list features we want in everything—from our increasingly comp ..read more

  ““Let’s face it, the universe is messy. It is nonlinear, turbulent, and chaotic. It is dynamic. It spends its time in transient behavior on its way to somewhere else, not in mathematically neat equilibria. It self-organizes and evolves. It creates diversity, not uniformity. That’s what makes the world interesting, that’s what makes it beautiful, and that’s what makes it work.”” — Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer   Ecosystems are also messy, despite ecologists best attempts to define, describe, delineate, and determine phenomena, our “margin of error” in understandi ..read more

Long before humans inhabited the Earth, pristine ecosystems were replete with “plastic”.  Wait. What? According to Miriam-Webster’s dictionary, plastic generally means materials that are “capable of adapting to varying conditions; pliable.” With that in mind, take a fresh look at the natural world around you. Organisms, from plants and insects to reptiles and mammals, are a Paris-transcending fashion show of “plastic” materials in an astounding array of designs–designs that not only look beautiful, but serve the same set of functions we demand of our synthetic, commercial plastics. Altho ..read more

High anxiety now pervades our daily life. It seems everything we might touch, be it a ceramic door knob, a stainless steel handle, a glass pitcher, or a plastic keyboard may be harboring the packets of virulent DNA we otherwise call a virus. To ease that anxiety, we’d do well to get outside and connect with nature to soothe our souls and soften our blood pressure. While you’re immersing yourself in the beautiful sights, scents, and sounds of the natural world, it might put a smile on your face to know that emerging from the wisdom of 3.8 billion years of evolution, nature has figured out how t ..read more

Adam Bell is a graduate of Arizona State University's Master of Science in Biomimicry Program. He innovates at Isomers of Nature Biomimicry Our new Alumni Perspective section highlights the thought leadership our Alumni are bringing to the world Today’s zeitgeist includes many oversimplifications and misunderstandings of scientific theories and principles. Avoidable problems occur when generalizations obscure reality. One example previously addressed here by Dr. Dayna Baumeister is the mistaken understanding of Darwin’s phrase “survival of the fittest”. Another is the second law of thermodyna ..read more

Client VMDO Architects Industry Architecture & Landscape Design Challenge Design a school campus that reconnects students to nature by demonstrating how nature works Name * First Name Last Name Email * Thank you for downloading! Caledon State Park What We Did The VMDO team was inspired to use biomimicry as a tool to advance their leadership in Green Schools design. Together we explored the vision of the Lancaster County public school campus that provided a healthy learning environment and also optimized design performance to benefits students and the community. Our goal was to demonstrat ..read more

If you would like to engage with us to apply these principles to your business start by taking our brief survey Take Survey By Seth GaleWyrick, Biomimicry 3.8 Engineering & Design The most obvious link between biomimicry and a circular economy is the idea that: “there is no waste in nature”. Turning “waste” into “resources” and endlessly reusing materials in closed loops is what ecosystems do every day. Much has been written on nature’s recycling, so I’d like to talk about a less apparent link—how biomimicry can enable a circular economy. We know that many challenges lie between our curr ..read more

by Mark Dorfman, Senior Principal and Lead Chemist Name * First Name Last Name Email * To start your download, please click here to download! During the first week of March 2019, Biomimicry 3.8 in partnership with NatuR&D held its first week-long immersion workshop on Nature’s Life-Friendly Chemistry in the Satpura Tiger Reserve, Madhya Pradesh, India. This was a long awaited opportunity to share my fascination with, and passion for, the molecular playground that is the living natural world. Why did we offer a workshop just on Nature’s Life-Friendly Chemistry? There’s widespread misconcep ..read more

So often we hear people are attracted to biomimicry because it provides hope for the future—it’s an optimistic discipline. We agree! In that spirit of hope, Earth Day is a moment to celebrate the Earth, reflect on how we can help, and then take action. We often share case studies traditionally applied to product design, but today in celebration of Earth Day, we’re excited to share case studies of a different sort—biomimicry solutions and research applied directly to conservation. We’ve found six fascinating examples that we’re hoping kickstarts your thinking about how else biomimicry can be ap ..read more

Genius of Place: Temperate Coniferous Forest Name * First Name Last Name Email Address * Click on link below to begin downloading. <<DOWNLOAD 4 STEPS TO GETTING STARTED WITH GENIUS OF PLACE INFOGRAPHIC HERE>> If you’re designing for the Pacific Northwest, then you’ll find the SeedKit, a report filled with local strategies, essential for your place-based design. Jennifer Barnes (55-5 Consulting) and Alexandra Ramsden (Rushing), founders of the Biomimicry Puget Sound network, began a project called Urban Greenprint to use biomimicry to revitalize their city. In the process, they cre ..read more