Nature Reading

“Nature manages to craft materials of a complexity and functionality that we can only envy. The inner shell of abalone is twice as tough as our high tech ceramics. Spider silk, ounce for ounce, is five time stronger than steel. Mussel adhesive works underwater and sticks to anything, even without a primer. Rhino horn manages to repair itself, though it contains no living cells.

Nature has at least four tricks of the trade when it comes to manufacturing materials:
1) Life-friendly manufacturing processes
2) An ordered hierarchy of structures
3) Self-assembly
4) Templating of crystals with proteins.” (p.97)

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Comments

Ross Mayfield says:

Now all I need to do is get bit by a radioactive Rhino.
Posted 54 months ago. ( permalink )

jhritz says:

I really enjoyed this book. I particulary like that all of this is done at one atmosphere of pressure and within a dozen or so degrees of room temperature. Cool stuff and nice shot.
Posted 54 months ago. ( permalink )

OldCola says:

One of the problem with natural production processes is that they don't fit to any previously available specification.

And most of them do whatever is possible to produce different individuals rather then calibrated products.

And, the best part is non-self assembly, isn't it?
Posted 54 months ago. ( permalink )

alfarman says:

wonderful stuff,what do you think of the string theory.
Posted 54 months ago. ( permalink )

caterina says:

She's great. I had breakfast with her in Amsterdam once. I'm embarrassed to say that I haven't read the book yet (!).
Posted 54 months ago. ( permalink )

Eppie says:

Interesting stuff - I must read this. And I also recommend highly all of the David Suzuki's "The Nature of Things" programs (see front cover of book).

Suzuki opens people's minds to the simplicity, complexity
and interrelatednes of life.

His most important message in my mind is that the amount of oil that we use in the world is harmful to our survival. Oil is a limited resource, made possible only by dead life. While life on earth has been relatively a new thing in the context of cosmic time, these oil resources took an "infinite" (or an "inconceivable") amount of time to be "created" relative to a single lifetime of a human being... The cost of wars and the strifes involved in gaining access to oil are "minute" (and I am not trivializing this folks, just making a comparison) compared to the effect of the pollution (caused by the use of oil) on our planet. Alternative energy sources are the answer.

Let's stop being brainwashed and manipulated by the oil lords... Lets find a way to mimic the way nature accesses and utilizes energy... To me it always comes back to the enzymes...

Think of the people who build, develop and otherwise affect the nature of society - influencing the system, the structure, the function and the process by finding new ways to process and exchange information, matter and energy - think of these people as various different kinds of enzymes.

In my opinion biomimicry is most feasible in the minds of people and their interactions with one-another - rather than in any new kind of technology.

Not to be a technology basher or anything, but... well... I think we need to pay attention to the wise words of Old Cola. I think that there is great insight in his comment above.

In the end, it seems to me that, in this phase of human evolution, awareness and experience with the interrelatedness of life is essential to our future viability. I think that this will enable our biomimicry to be percieved not as mimicry, but as the unfolding of life itself.
Posted 54 months ago. ( permalink )

txkimmers says:

Don't know why, but this reminds me of Botany of Desire, by Michael Pollan
Posted 54 months ago. ( permalink )

jurvetson says:

Wow. Thanks everyone. Some great stuff... especially in the dynamic tension of directed design vs. evolved discovery.

Some more quotes from the book:
Eppie:
“society spends ten kilocalories of hydrocarbons to produce one kilocalorie of food. That means each of us eats the equivalent of thirteen barrels of oil a year.” (p.19)

PepsiVieux:
“Having enough springs (weak bonds) to accept change is the protein’s secret to success… Proteins can graciously accept incremental mutational change without falling apart. It means they can improve over time. Life experiments like a child at play… When small changes are permitted without a fuss, helpful effects gradually accumulate and evolution pounces to a new level. In the age of Silicon, we feel powerful, but what we have really done is trade our power for control.” (p.200)
Posted 54 months ago. ( permalink )

TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³ says:

We are like immature kids: we try to pass through the wall instead of using the door. Needless to say which is which (Nature - Technology) in this alegory.

I hope that one day we grow up, and that it won´t be too late.

Shall Nanotechnology be, if not the way to the door, a wonderful window.
Posted 54 months ago. ( permalink )

TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³ says:

Btw, this shot, the one of the nude Casio and various others are calling my attention... You should think seriously about dedicating to advertising photography!!!

You´ve got skills for standing out the commercial face of the things you point at.

...er mm... well, I think we knew this about you already, didn´t we? ;-D
Posted 54 months ago. ( permalink )

Eppie says:

Steve. How does that compare to hunter-gatherers and other animals? (we are, after all animals too...)
Posted 54 months ago. ( permalink )

jurvetson says:

Do you mean the kcal of oil used? That is because of the cycle of fertilizer and pesticides that we have adopted. Even traditional agricultural societies would use less.

Another side effect:
"In Iowa, up to six bushels of soil are washed out to sea for every bushel of corn produced."
Posted 54 months ago. ( permalink )

knautia says:

I've just started a group for photos of seeds:

www.flickr.com/groups/seeds/

Would you like to join? I think this photo would fit really well.
Posted 54 months ago. ( permalink )

my soul says:

Bioneers- a series on f.s. tv has been fantastic. nature is pretty smart
Posted 54 months ago. ( permalink )

Vanita says:

Nature, you've got to give it a round of applause.
Posted 53 months ago. ( permalink )

cxJeff says:

Chaos theory, ba-bee! Nature knows best!

But I'm not keen on going back to the days of my parents, when there were no antibiotics, and polio was a killer. Science has made our live unimaginably better than that of our grandparents. Shame on us for forgetting our history.

And those days when malaria killed 3 million children a year...oh, wait, those arecurrent figures. The United States National Academy of Sciences estimated that DDT saved 500 million lives before it was banned.

Bad old DDT.

Three. Million. Children.
Posted 53 months ago. ( permalink )

my soul says:

cxjeff- this is a new way of discovery to improve the science app in our lives. look it up!
( there is a new term on the block- it's called sustainability, maybe you should look that one up too.)
Posted 53 months ago. ( permalink )

cxJeff says:

Sorry if I was too pedantic--dashing off a post on the way to bed can be dangerous!

my soul: I think you're right on both counts. We've learned but a fraction of what nature has to teach us.

It'll be fascinating to see what the study of biomimicry can teach us about sustainability. We need all the help we can get in that department.
Posted 53 months ago. ( permalink )

TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³ says:

Maybe it is about natural sustainability that 3mill children die of malaria -among other diseases- per year.

Mother nature, I guess, was not expecting that humans would live 3 times more of what they are prepared to, would drastically change the enviromental conditions, and would have children indiscriminately without proper conditions of care, shelter and food.

Sorry for my unusual hardness, but we should see the broader picture about what nature is teaching us. But seems to be quite taboo.
Posted 53 months ago. ( permalink )

my soul says:

i'm so proud of flickrers-
so many people who are really trying so hard to SEE!
cxjeff- thanks- in this crazy world i need know who's who! ps- monsanto really has me worried- but in my heart, i know the true farmers will fuckin kick their greedy asses!
oh- and gisela- nice to see you're back!
Posted 53 months ago. ( permalink )

jurvetson says:

Alieness: interesting point. I can see why you became a spacefaring culture.

Viruses rebalance concentration gradients.

For a nomadic and sparse population, the virus host co-evolutionary balance finds an optima where the virus does not kill off the host too quickly since it would terminate its own propagation in a natural quarantine zone.

When the concentration of hosts becomes high enough, the hyper-lethal strains can propagate, as we are seeing with avian flu.

Given the growing concentration of super-cities, epidemiologists conclude that we are entering the golden age of viruses.

Consider the pox viruses. Each species that crosses a population concentration threshold has its own pox virus (ant, chicken, mouse, seal, toad, mosquito, locust, cow, human, etc.).

Human smallpox killed a billion people last time around, becoming a deity in the religious pantheons of China and India (with temples to Shitala Ma all over India). Blog on this

Richard Preston concludes: “Viruses keep herds and swarms of living things in check, preventing them from growing into large and overwhelming populations. Viruses are an essential part of nature. If all the viruses on the planet were to disappear, a global catastrophe would ensue, and the natural ecosystems of the world would collapse in a spectacular crash under burgeoning populations of insects.”
Posted 53 months ago. ( permalink )

TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³ says:

"burgeoning populations of insects" means...

burgeoning populations of insects?
Posted 53 months ago. ( permalink )

jurvetson says:

Yes! and swarms of locusts. real wrath of God-type stuff.
Posted 53 months ago. ( permalink )

TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³ says:

See that I just read this quote and thought of this photo and conversation below so here I am to share it with you:

""Human subtlety will never devise an invention more
beautiful, more simple or more direct than does Nature,
because in her inventions, nothing is lacking and nothing is
superfluous."
- Leonardo DaVinci
Posted 28 months ago. ( permalink )

AsiaIsGreen says:

Thanks for sharing the photo. I'm using it for my website and credited to you at www.asiaisgreen.com/2007/09/12/ted-talk-12-su stainable-de....
Posted 22 months ago. ( permalink )

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Taken with a Casio EX-Z3.
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Taken on December 2, 2004

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Nature Reading

Comments

Ross Mayfield says:

jhritz says:

OldCola says:

alfarman says:

caterina says:

Eppie says:

txkimmers says:

jurvetson says:

TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³ says:

TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³ says:

Eppie says:

jurvetson says:

knautia says:

my soul says:

Vanita says:

cxJeff says:

my soul says:

cxJeff says:

TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³ says:

my soul says:

jurvetson says:

TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³ says:

jurvetson says:

TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³ says:

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