The two fields that have the longest legacy of bio-inspiration are computing and materials. The traditional processes for turning materials into finished products are incredibly wasteful and polluting. They’re called “heat, beat, and treat”: You start with a bulk material, carve it down, heat it up, beat it with enormous pressure, and treat it with chemicals. What you get is 96 percent waste, 4 percent product.
Researchers are now looking at the processes that nature uses to make its materials – from ceramics like shell, bone, and teeth to the soft and yet amazingly durable materials like spider silk – to identify common principles. There are several primary differences. First, life does its manufacturing in or near its own body, so its methods have to be life-friendly. Second, nature conducts its chemistry in water. We conduct industrial chemistry in solvents like sulfuric acid. Third, our manufacturing processes use all the elements in the periodic table – even the toxic ones – and we use crude, brute-force recipes. But life uses a subset of the elements, just a few, and it uses very elegant, low-energy recipes.
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