[This outline written in 2002—sm]
Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature
Janine M. Benyus William Morrow 1997 New York
A.Only book recommended by Amory Lovins at March 8 presentation
B.Fellow at RMI
C.She’s a Forester
D.Books:
1.Nature writer: Field guide to wildlife habitats
2.Watcher’s guide to How animals act and why
E.A fine stylist in places—though heavy on corny slogans, subtitles, and headings
F.Always clear, even when presenting dense and difficult material, of which, for me at least there’s quite a bit
II.The title of the book, Biomimicry, is a word she made up—and it’s a brilliant invention.
A.Rolls off the tongue, obvious what it signifiies, allows itself to be transformed to both the noun and verb “biomimics,” and the adjective,“biomimetic.”
III.In introduction, she provides its definition
A.First its Etymology: “from greek, bios—life; mimesis—imitation
B.Then three essential principles: Biomimicry uses…
1.Nature as model
a)Studies nature’s models and then imitates or takes inspiration from these designs and processes to solve human problems, e.g. a solar cell inspired by a leaf
2.Nature as measure
a)Uses ecological standard to judge “rightness” of innovation. After 3.9 billion years of evolution, nature has learned: What works. What is appropriate. What lasts”
3.Nature as mentor
a)New way of viewing and valuing nature, based not on what we can extract, but what we can learn from it.
C.This epigrammatic definition of her concept keeps returning throughout the book, and the more you learn of her different examples the richer the definitions become. One of the side effects of studying this book is that you keep seeing new ways to understand what these three principles mean. You also are prompted to keep thinking more about what their constituent terms mean—what is life; what are its properties? Its principles, its intentions. What is nature, and as Emerson famously asked, What is nature for? And what is imitation—copying, echoing, replicating, modeling, learning
D.The introductory page struck me as being like a seed that contains the book’s many messages in germinal form. And this analogy itself mimics one of Benyus’ characteristic literary devices—linking abstract ideas to natural process through metaphor
E.The subtitle of the book is “Innovation inspired by nature.” In it I hear an echo of Lovins’ seminal book, Natural Capitalism. Both are part of the sustainability movement that’s been growing by leaps and bounds in the effort to combine environmentalism with economics and technology. “What works. What is appropriate. What lasts.” Both books are important surveys of that movement as well as theoretical explorations of its principles and implications.
IV.Chapter structure:
A.Read chapter headings in table of contents—each chapter could be a book; huge scope
B.each surveys of a different branch of scientific research and technological innovation that follows these principles
C.the branch of science is categorized by its adaptive or “natural”function—a function we share with all living beings.
V.Chapter 1—Echoing Nature: why biomimicry now?
A.Epigraph: Vaclav havel: “We must draw our standards form the natural world…admitting that there is something in the order of being which evidently exceeds all our competence.”
B.Her primitivism
1.Begins with Moi, Amazon Indian leader in Washington--primitivism
2.“Living things have done everything we want to do, without guzzling fossil fuel, polluting the planet, or mortgaging their future”
a)is this true? Deserts? Overgrazing? Species collapse and natural die out
3.Countermovements: Agricultural Revolution, Scientific Revolution[Bacon] Industrial Rev. Petrochemical and Genetic engineering revolutions
4.Nostos erda—returning home to earth; sentimental and spiritual quest--Odyssey
a)Learn not about nature but from nature
C.Anti primitivism: Scientific advances show the cleverness and complexity of natural organisms and systems
1.Her fascination with science and scientists—makes them heroic; biographical descriptions of individuals and their discovery process
2.She doesn’t shy away from the most complex and advanced areas of research:
a)Quantum mechanics
b)Biophysics and molecular biology
c)Genetic engineering
d)Computer science
D.Nature’s laws and strategies
1.Runs on sunlight
2.Uses only energy it needs
3.Fits form to function
4.Recycles everything
5.Rewards cooperation
6.Banks on diversity
7.Demands local expertise
8.Curbs excesses from within
9.Taps the power of limits
E.Critique/observation
1.This is nature on earth—the product of evolution; doesn’t necessarily apply to larger cosmic and astronomical nature
2.Based on evolution—natural selection; adaptation; life
F.Her Misgiving
1.Will we steal nature’s thunder and use it in the ongoing campaign against life?
a)Last famous biomimetic invention was airplane—using it to drop bombs in 1914
2.Will our ideology change to recognize that we share earth with other species rather than use them
VI.Chapter 2: How will we feed ourselves—Farming to fit the land; growing food like a prairie
A.Agriculture in an area would take its cue from the vegetation that grew there before settlement. 13 Nature-based Agriculture=Biodiversity; Rutherford, Allan Savory
B.Agriculture as wound
1.Deepest wounds on the planet—the gash made by till agriculture [Ovid]
2.Box canyon of industrial farming
3.Loss of soil—selection of annuals over perennials
4.Plowing simplifies soil structure; baring the soil is bad
5.Gradual depletion; slow sterilization
6.Fetish for production—cf. Cows
7.Sodbusters; destruction of prairie led to dustbowl
8.Soil conservation service reversed trend, but then reversed again; windbreaks and other methods abandoned during and after wwII
9.Homogenization and monoculture
10.Subsistence to industrial farming; indebtedness to petrochemical companies
11.More you spray the more you have to spray
12.Seed companies now belong to chemical compnies
13.Pesticides make ag the number 1 polluting industry in the country
14.Success of inputs mask the problem of growing infertility [controversial perception]
C.Biometic approach
1.Land Institute, Kansas--Wes Jackson
a)The prairie
(1)“From where I am now I can see both wheatfield and prairie, and it’s like a visual parable…one is the expression of imposed will, the other the expression of the land’s will.”
(2)Wauhob—a prairie never sodbusted
(3)Choked with blossoms..no hint of hail damage or drouught wilt, no such thing as weeds. Every plant--231 species in this patch alone—has a role…diversity of form 23
(4)Nitrogen fixers, deep-rroted ones that dig for water, shallow rooted ones that makes most of gentle rain, ones that grow quickly in the spring to shade out weds, the ones that resist pests or harbor heroes such as beneficial insects
(5)70 percent of weight are roots and rootlets…fibrous plumbing…miniature zoo: ants springtails, centipedes, sowbugs, worms bacteria and molds, thousands of species in a single teaspoon…tilth that transforms prairie into living sponge
(6)diversity keeps change from being catastrophic
(7)Prairie species are perennials—no runoff because soil isnt exposed at any time of year—big sponge
(8)self fertilizing and self weeding
(a)30%decay going back into soil
(b)the rest bloom before weeds can
(9)diversity—adjust to different climatic conditions
(10)pest control—attacks don’t become epidemics
(11)four plant types (or suits) in every prairie; warm season grasses, cool season grasses, legumes and composites
b)objective is to design domestic plant community that behaves like a prairie, but that is predictable enough in terms of seed yield to be feasible for agriculture
c)cultivating perennials
(1)trying to develop eight crop species that fit these requirements
(2)there are very few natural species that are perennial, herbacious and seedyielding
(3)can perennial produce as much seed as annual crop?—going against conventional wisdom
(4)try to increase seed yield without stripping plant of wild hardiness 27
(5)looking for crops dependable but not dependent on us
(6)search for native perennials that would survive in Kansas and had agronomic characteristics: reuced sheed shattering, uniform time of maturity, ease of threshing and large seed size.
(7)Careful breeding process of selection of individuals
(8)Progress is encouraging
d)Holy Grail is growing these desired strains in polycultures—community assembly
(1)In addition to other characteristics you have to breed for compatibililty—e.g. coevolution
(2)This is developed by natural selection over long periods of random experiment—outcome is order for free NB—the concept of natural selection as not random, but using random to create order
(3)Prairie or any stable community needs a succesional history, the past of the species dropped out make it possible for the for the final assembly to be there.
(4)Expect to take five years to produce this combination
(5)Recipe might include fire, mowing or grazing at different stages
(6)Best hedge is variety
e)Prelimininary findings
(1)Polyculture can overyield monoculture
(a)Not competing for the same nich
(2)polyculture can defend itself against insects, pests, andweeds?
(3)polyculture can sponsor its own nitrogen fertility
(4)Genius loci should dictate best agricultural system
f)We are 25-50 years from being able to use these crops now under development
2.Other alternate agricultures
a)Do Nothing farming, or natural farming
(1)Mimics natural succession and soil covering
(2)Completely contradicts modern agricultural techniques
(3)Sowing rye and barley and rice in same fields in overlapping succession
(4)The harvested crop waste mulches the coming crop
(5)Requires little labor and water and land
(6)Used on 1 million acres in China—no inputs
b)Permaculture—Bill Mollison
(1)Companion plants
(2)Planning location of crops in relation to gardener
(3)Edge-transition zones
(4)Use of animals—chickens in the greenhouse
c)New Alchemy
(1)Ecoculture in place of agriculture
(2)Work of machines and humans replaced by biological organisms or systems
(3)Principle of succession [fragmentary report and explanation]
d)Three story farming in Costa Rica
(1)Use of domestic jungle in costa rica, replacing volunteer jungle species with domestic species in success they appeared
e)New England Hardwood Forest
(1)Farming method proposed in 1943 and 1953 books, now republished with introduction by Wendell Berry
f)The Desert
(1)Native people’s mimicing ecology:
(a)Planting right before or after rains on flood watered alluvial fans
(b)Leaving mesquite in place to restore nitrogen
g)Rodale Regenerative Ag
h)Grass Farming Dairy— this idea is growing in popularity
(1)take cows to fields instead of bringing them hay; manure the fields; dry off cattle during winter—as used to be done in SLO county—take a vacation
(2)farmers consider themselves solar harvesters, turning sunlight into grass and then meat and milk
(3)grassfarmers look to cowpies: with healthy microfauna and flora should break down in three weeks in midsummer
(4)read nature instead of rely on word of pesticide salesman
i)How to implement change in Ag
(1)100 million acres now planted in perennial grass in response to federal program to retire ag land through Conservation Reserve Program (CRP)
(2)this is in useless exotic grasses; no good for wildlife
(3)use this land for perennial polyculture—allow for harvest and grazing
(4)looking forward to “sunshine future” [this depends on success of theprairie project]
j)Ag research: how to grow crops in presence of stronger herbicides
k)Principles
(1)Ecology is accounting;
(a)systems must sustain farmers and their communities
(b)they must pay their own energy bills and not draw down the resources of the locl landsape or the planet
(2)solution: depend on farmers and small farms
(a)raising prices of food commodities
(b)eliminate tax breaks that substitute capital for labor and subsidize irrational farm expansion and overproduction
(c)break coupling between farming and petrochemical industry.
(d)Make yield expectation more realistic [optimize rather than maximize]
(3)Sunshine Farm—organic ag and sustainable energy use
(a)One big accounting project**
(b)Everything measured
(c)Track labor in kilocalories
(d)Tracking of true costs
(4)Becoming native to the place
(a)Bringing people back to the country
(b)Matfield Green—Utopian farm community in Kansas
(5)Wes Jackson—the Land
l)Crossing into the Eddy
(1)Right-living projects—attemptsto create counterpoints to the extractive economy
(2)Discussion of CSA—523 farms are doing it
(3)Food is more than a commodity
VII.Chapter 3: How will we harness energy: Light into life: gathering energy like a leaf
A.Whats wrong with burning carbon fuels
1.Danger of releasing so much CO2 by burning it all now
a)Flux in the biosphere
2.Discovery of fire is not so great compared to photosynthesis—primary egg in our energy producing basket
3.Uphill vs. downhill reactions—those requiring energy inputs vs. those not—e.g. biochemical reactions fueled by catalysts and sunlight
B.Photosynthesis
1.Nature took 3 billion years to evolve it
2.Photovoltaics are no good compared to leaves
3.All plants and fossil fuels store solar energy
4.Photosynthesis produces 300 billion tons of sugar a year
5.How it works: based on electron transfer
a)Physical chemistry: photons activate electrons in chlorophyll pigment reaction center and they move outside of the thylakoid membrane separatingthem from the rest of the atom [or molecule], leaving positively charged ions on the inside
b)the separation is what holds the solar energy
(1)Donor-pigment-acceptor device
(2)The tension created=membrane potential=chemical and elctricla potential=life
(3)A molecular mechanism working on atoms
(a)The charge separation takes place in a few hundred pico seconds—10 to minus ten seconds
(b)The reaction center is 30 by 80 angstroms—3 by 10 billionths of a meter
(c)Charge separation is what is done in batteries—these are molecular batteries
6.Research methods
a)Study reaction center in purple bacteria; trying to duplicate in simplified form
(1)Building a new molecule that would slow down the separation reaction—a triad—through organic synthesis
(2)Purple bacterium is ambidextrous—it both photosynthesizes and oxidizes
(3)Difficulty of getting picture of molecular structure—x-ray crystallography
(a)Mutagenesis used to discover functions of different proteins in reaction center, by genetically engineering specific defects in the proteins and observing results
(b)Methods of tracking what molecules are doing with laser pulse of light and pico photos
(c)Making movies of different impaired reactions and comparing them to “wild” reactions; when one of the impaired reactions shuts down the process, they know its essential and try to model it 74
b)Creating charge separation
(1)Difficulty of separation: the electron wants to go back; how do you keep it moving forward away from its original location
(2)Moving further to create pentad—longer and more distant charge separation; Team in Tempe arizona; describes lab
c)Next stage is to put the reaction center molecule into a membrane
(1)Membrane potential is what biochemistry uses for “pumping ions, making ATP—the gasoline of life, importing sugars”
(2)Scientists already know how to make an artificial cell—lipids in water, shake, they self assemble into watery spheres—liposomes
d)Photozymes
(1)Another issue in photosynthesis: how do photosynthesizers trap the two photons at once coming from sun required for the reaction
(2)Arrays of antennae resonating with one another—two hundred pigment molecules in each—funnel photons to reaction centers and focus the inflow to allow for two to come in simultaneously; drain photons to a basin in the energy landscape
7.Application and purpose
a)Scientists looking for solar cell of molecular proportions that will turn light energy to electricity, storable fuel or…
b)Producing hydrogen gas from sunlight and water
(1)Hydrogen is worlds cleanest storable fuel
(2)Fuel cell technology—not yet feasible
(3)It involves cracking water and extracting hydrogen gas;
(4)Nature does it with enzyme, hydrogenase; photosynthetic charge separators could be used for this
c)Photosynthesis-mimicked technology applied to computers
(1)Light activated charge separating devices can be used as switches faster than electron activated switches because they respond to light at specific frequencies
VIII.Chapter 4: How will we make things—fitting form to function: Weaving Fibers like a Spider
A.Materials science revolution
B.Conventional approach--New alchemy—heat, beat and treat 97—unearthly synthetics vs. in water, room temperature, without harsh chemicals or high pressures
C.Natural materials-manufacture principles
1.Life friendly
2.Ordered hierarchy of structures
3.Self-assembly
4.Templating of crystals with proteins
D.Natural materials
1.Abalone shell, spider silk, mussel adhesive, rhino horn
E.Inorganic materials used for skeletal structure or protective armor; crytallized version of Earth-derived materials
1.Abalone nacre investigated at Uwash.
a)Twice as tough as any ceramic known; under stress it deforms and behaves like metal
(1)Problem with ceramics, now used for all kinds of high-tech applications—is cracking
b)Hexagonal disks of calcium carbonate, mortar of polymer; brick wall pattern
2.Twinned structure of mirrored elements
a)Like tendon—bundle of bundled bundles –self-referential fractal kaleidescope; mathematical beauty
b)Ordered hierarchical structure
3.How to grow these crystall structures?
a)Mixture of inorganic minerals and organic polymers
b)Polymer mortar produced first and self assemble into three dimensional compartments in seawater; ions of calcium and carbonate ions attracted to reverse charges on matrix
(1)The protein template attracts ions in seawater, that then crystallize the structure
(2)Proteins are necklaces of amino acids, having different pattern of charges; neutral water fearing ones burrow into the center of the medium; charged water-loving ones go to peripheries; they also either repel or bond with one another, resulting in three dimensional shapes
c)Principles of self-assembly
(1)Use forces ruled by classical and quantum mechanics
(2)Like charges repel; opposites attract, weak electrostatic bonds hold molecules gingerly for correction and change; stronger more permanent bonds consummated with help of lock and key catalysts—enzymes
(3)Molecules are always in motion; so they tend to collide
(4)Genes are informational templates for making proteins; proteins are templates for making structures