Biomimicry - Thoughts? feelings? Elaborations?

[Sunray Breaker]

I find this stuff to be so fascinating. The ideas these people are working on just completely boggle my mind!!! I've never really been science minded (unless your talking political science!!!) But This kind of stuff always Caught my attention. I'd like to see what everyone else feels about this stuff...It's applicability, it's niche in the market place, some other current studies or papers you've read about.

Really, I just want to see a thread started about this:

The Speaker in both of the videos below is Janine Benyus...Writer of the book Biomimicry...She presents some fascinating ideas on how nature itself has been building things so much longer than man kind has even been around. She has taken some pretty interesting cues on how to utilize nature's design for our own man made ideas...This stuff is cool!!!
Here's the first lecture I saw that simply blew me away about a year ago
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n77BfxnVlyc

Here's her lecture from the Ted Talks this year...Bimimicry in action!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_GFq12w5WU

Thoughts? Comments? Elaborations?

[JJM]

Sorry, I cannot abide any more than a couple minutes of each video. They look like corporate, inspirational videos from Tony Robbins and his ilk. Consider the bird- I have had a dog follow me through my neighborhood to the point I feared he would become lost, so I walked in the front door of a store and out the back door so I left him where he might belong. Speculation about the meaning of a wild bird's behavior is just that. It is not clear that she has any data that can be correlated with other observations.

Then there's the second video "forgotten information" and "competent universe" New Age, Post Modernist stuff. Maybe someone more patient than I can comment on it.

[Dancing David]

Well from her web page it lloks as though she has some interesting ideas. However nature is not always a wonderful thing to copy, cholera plagues for example.

[Sunray Breaker]

Nature's not ALWAYS a good thing to copy, granted...

But some of the actual successes they've had in the lab regarding growing fiber optic cables, biodegradable plastics (using the same process used to make sea shells) and a substance they've recently discovered to be stronger than steel. All grown in a lab?

She even talks about organic computers that you could actually grow.

Her idea is that technology is already progressing in this direction. Not to mention there's was an interesting TED talk regarding transhumanism and how quickly it's catching up to us.

The first dude who responded to this should've paid more attention to what she was talking about. I thought it was a pretty awesome lecture personally.

[Sunray Breaker]

Why hasn't anyone paid attention to this? Are organically grown computers, metals and plastics, programmable cells, biodegradable equivalents to steel, not an interesting topic?

[AWPrime]

Why hasn't anyone paid attention to this? Are organically grown computers, metals and plastics, programmable cells, biodegradable equivalents to steel, not an interesting topic?It sure is interesting, but it doesn't feel controversial. I expect to see such stuff within my lifetime.

[casebro]

I was expecting a thread about the butterflys with big eye patterns on the wings, or the bug that looks like a bird dropping.

Threr ought to be a better term for 'growing' inorganics.