But as modern methods of investigation and analysis decode and elucidate the cell's molecular machinery piece by piece, this disparity between the natural and synthetic art of manufacture begins to diminish. There is no assembly plant so delicate, versatile and adaptive as the cell.
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One of the biggest obstacles to taking full advantage of what nature has to offer is that the living world has an awesomely elaborate means of construction. And yet the materials and devices emerging from biomimetics are unmistakably forward-looking: new solar cells, smart sensors, advanced robotics and aerospace materials.īut today, biomimetics has something much more dramatic to offer than an aircraft wing or an anti-drag surface coating modelled after some natural example. This rich heritage means that the diverse array of scientists and technologists who today take their lead from nature may feel they are immersed in the paradigm of an earlier age, with its traditional-sounding considerations of morphology, stress distribution and hydrodynamic forces. Observing how the trabeculae of the porous material traced out lines of tension and compression, he cried out: “That's my crane!”
Culmann in Zürich, pondering on the design of a new construction crane, wandered into the laboratory of the anatomist Hermann Meyer who was studying cross-sections of bone. D'Arcy Thompson 2 tells how in 1866 the engineer C. Gustave Eiffel's tower supports its own immense weight along elegant curves inspired by bone structure. Joseph Paxton is said to have paid tribute to the ribbed stem of a lily leaf in his Crystal Palace, which housed the Great Exhibition of 1851. The Wright brothers took flight after watching vultures swoop, giving a nod to Leonardo da Vinci's explicitly aviamorphic flying machines. But others recognized the inventiveness, economy and sound engineering of nature's structures.
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