Biomimicry - Inspo for material science

 Let’s talk about interdisciplinary thinking. One of my favorite subject areas (among many) is biomimicry. Just to define it, I mean the approach of applying solutions found in nature to human-made processes. There are a lot of examples of this in materials engineering (my Bachelor’s degree): sharkskin-modeled swimsuit materials, extra-tough composite materials that copy the composite structure of crocodile scales, gecko toes inspiring the next generation of adhesive structures, or, the classic, velcro, which was modeled after the hooks on burs. But biomimicry isn’t limited to materials; neural nets were (as named) modeled after the neural pathway processing mechanism of the brain; we're now designing airplane wings that mimic albatross wings, and I could keep going. Life has had billions of years to iterate on its “products” - tweaking and trying different things and optimizing for whatever the natural environment is throwing at it, so it only makes sense that we borrow inspiration from these pre-optimized solutions. Central to this is interdisciplinary thinking. The ability to look across subject areas and see where the tools of one might fit into the other, even if they’re at totally different length-scales. Be curious, look at the natural world around you, be inspired. That’s the spark of innovation. 🧠

 Want to know a bit more about my background and inspiration? Check out this segment from my interview on the Tech Business Podcast with Paul Essery!