Could the secret to the next big technological breakthrough be all around us -- slithering, crawling or flowering among our natural surroundings? More than ever, scientists and designers are looking to nature to emulate the ingenuity of the living world. They call it "biomimicry." 
Imagine sellotape so powerful that an index card-sized piece can hold up over 300kg. Researchers at UMass Amherst have developed Geckskin, inspired by Geckos ability to walk up sheer glass windows and hang upside down on wooden doors. The scientists looked to these scuttling reptiles toe pads -- lined with microscopic hairs that create an adhesive effect -- for the secret. 
Nature has known a way to produce clean, cheap, carbon-negative energy for over 400 million years -- and humans might be about to catch up. Scientist Daniel Nocera's Artificial Leaf uses nothing but the suns rays to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, much like plants have been doing for countless millennia. Where plants store these energy sources in leaves and roots and fruit and vegetables, Nocera plans for everyone to one day have a personal hydrogen cell power plant in their home. 
Some colors, like the the slick sheen of oil on water, owe their hue to curious physical properties. Microscopic gaps in the surface of the material creates interference when reflecting light that can give off a variety of colors. Electronics manufacturers Qualcomm has developed the Mirasol smartwatch display that takes advantage of the same phenomenon, and Morphotex uses it to make dresses shine. Each cite the shimmering Morpho butterfly as inspiration. 
A thin membrane lined with Aquaporin Inside technology could turn seawater into drinking water and let dirty water run clean. It's based on the water-transporting proteins found in all organisms. Aquaporins allow only water through hourglass-shaped channels into and out of an organism's cells. 
No prizes for guessing what inspired this roo-bot. The BionicKangaroo improves the efficiency of legged robots by emulating the jumping behavior of Australia's bounciest residents. Researchers hope that kangaroos' ability to effectively store energy from one leap to the next can show them how to recover energy in industrial processes. 
Natural design is so good it's illegal: when Fastskin was briefly allowed in competition, world records fell and regular humans couldn't keep up. At the Beijing Olympics in 2008, every event in men's swimming was won by a competitor wearing a body suit lined with performance enhancing fabric. Advertisers claimed it was inspired by sharks' unique physiology: great whites skins are covered with a fine layer of "dermal denticles" -- tiny teeth pointing backwards toward the tail -- to smooth the flow of water. 
BioBatteries which run off sugary liquids can now rival lithium-ion cells in energy storage. This little car, made by Sony and toy manufacturers Tomy, runs off fizzy soda. Nearly all living organisms generate energy from glucose, and now your appliances can too. 
The Sabin Design lab at Cornell University are developing eSkin "adaptive building skins" which respond to their surroundings. They want buildings to behave more like organisms and are interested in probing the human body for design models. 
Ever wondered how Japan's super-fast Shinkansen Bullet Trains got their distinctive beak-shaped noses? It's not just about smooth aerodynamics. Older trains caused a build-up of pressure in tunnels, which resulted in ear-cracking noises as the train burst out. Engineer Eiji Nakatsu was inspired by a kingfisher's smooth entry into the water to catch prey for his novel design. 
NASA's brightest idea for exploring far-away planets could take design inspiration from one of earth's dumbest organisms. The Super Ball Bot is an experimental structure for planetary landing and exploration, which could use a rustling martian breeze to roll its way across the Red Planet's surface. The design owes a debt to the lowly tumbleweed. 
The best known piece of biomimetic design is surely Velcro. Swiss engineer George de Mestral returned home one day to find his dog covered in prickly burdock burrs from plants it had walked past and decided to examine them under a microscope. Seeing that they were covered in tiny hooks -- which locked into his pet's fur -- he was inspired to create the fastening fabric. 
Concentrated solar plants -- where rows of mirrors reflect the suns rays into a central generator tower -- already work a lot like a field of flowers. As the sun tracks across the sky, the shining mirrors rotate to follow it. But researchers at MIT have found that plants have more to offer -- and the secret is in the center of a sunflower. They tried to find the most efficient layout for a field full of mirrors and found their strange spiral-shaped answer matched the arrangement of sunflower seeds in the head of the plant. 
It's not just individual plants and animals that humans are learning from, either. When architect Mick Pearce was commissioned to design the Eastgate Centre mall and apartments in Harare, Zimbabwe he looked for an alternative to energy-consuming air conditioning in natural systems that circulate air passively. He struck on inspiration in an unlikely animal's home: termite mounds, which include long flues that vent through the top and sides of the mound, and wind-catching features at the top.
- Technology has long learned from nature -- but now it's going micro
- "Cellular biomimicry" sees designers take inspiration from plant and animal cells
- It's already helping prevent spam emails, filter drinking water, and provide energy
(CNN) -- When the body comes under attack by flu, dendritic cells rush to the site of infection and identify the alien forms attacking it. Millions raise the alarm and the immune system is fired into action.
It is a reliable and effective response, and what is good enough to protect our health has also proved capable of safeguarding inboxes. Artificial immune systems (AIS) based on the body's cellular response to disease are being used to target spam.
'It's an adaptive system that can be more nuanced in detecting what's dangerous", says Dr. Uwe Aickelin, professor of computer science at the university of Nottingham and leading AIS developer. "Millions of pieces of information are gathered so the cells are very accurate."
While the cells in our bodies will respond to signals such as stress and inflammation, Aickelin's software analogue picks up on the traffic bombardments associated with spam. While generic filters can cope with conventional phishing, the cellular system is suited to a user facing frequent new threats, and has been employed by leading security companies.
This model represents a potentially transformative shift in the rapidly expanding field of biomimicry. The trend for nature-inspired designs has spread across industries from crab-style deep-sea vessels to insect-inspired buildings, and is projected to generate $1.6 trillion by 2030 according to Da Vinci Index. But now technologies based specifically on cellular designs are making nature itself the driving force.
In addition to computing, cellular biomimicry is making its mark in water filtration, meeting President Nixon's historic challenge to make the oceans drinkable, using a membrane present in humans and plants.
Artificial leaf mimics nature 
Can spider silk help you self-heal? Meanwhile, photosynthetic processes are being applied to the capture and storage of solar energy, while millions of dollars have been invested in applying the properties of lung cells to building exteriors -- the 'Eskin' - to create a layer that allows them to interact efficiently with both people and the environment.
"It represents a shift and ultimately where we are heading", Janine Benyus, biologist, author and founder of Biomimcry 3.8 told CNN. "We have become very successful in mimicking form, but the real transformational change comes in how we build our material world. Every day we are learning more about molecular machinery in cells and how they work so as to understand and use their design principles is key.
These principles are being applied to some of the most critical resource issues, including fuel through the development of biobatteries. Researchers at the University of Utah have created a battery based on the process of metabolism, using sugar as fuel, catalyzed with the natural energy conversion properties of enzymes.
Natural chemistry is completely different to our 'heat, beat and treat formula'
Janine Benyus, founder of Biomimcry 3.8
"If you see a small child consume sugar they convert it to run around all day, so it's very efficient and we take the same pathways to apply to the battery", says lead developer Shelley Minteer, who claims the design has favorable performance qualities.
The biobattery can already operate devices such as smartphones, and may prove more versatile than traditional batteries as it can function in extremely low temperatures. The technology is proved to the extent that offshoot company Akermin has received a $3 million grant to use the technology in one of the US' largest carbon cleaning operations in power plants.
The combination of living process and synthetic materials is rarely seamless, Minteer admits.
We should not simply assume that systems working at nanoscales can easily be translated to large scales.
Skylar Tibbits, MIT self-assembly lab
Yet advances in the technology of modeling are now allowing greater control and accuracy. Scientists can sculpt the synthesized cells at nano scale into ever more efficient arrangements, getting closer to the natural design. Visualization tools are being driven by creative fields, notably architecture, while manufacturing is improving rapidly through 3D printing.
There are skeptics that believe natural processes are being too readily applied. "Natural systems evolved for very specific reasons, over millions of years, with very specific parameters, scale-lengths, forces, and the process of translating these phenomena to other scales, function and human desires does not come naturally or directly.", Skylar Tibbits, lead researcher at MIT's self-assembly lab, argued in a 2013 TED talk. "We should not simply assume that systems working at nanoscales can easily be translated to large scales."
Critics have also warned of 'Jurassic Park' unpredictable and unwanted side effects when natural process are transplanted into technology. Such effects have been noted in Uwe Ackelein's anti-spam program, where the target adapts the defense as well as vice versa.
But these risks pale compared to the potential benefits, exponents believe. Using the processes of nature can deliver designs uniquely adaptive to the environment, with better function and resource management, that can transform industries to deliver solutions to the most critical questions of the age.
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'Miracle material' graphene one step closer to commercial use
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