Higher altitude Is it a bird or a plane? How nature inspires green design

Nature has influenced many of the world’s greatest inventions. The idea for Velcro fabric fasteners was sparked as its inventor was removing burdock burrs from his dog’s fur after a walk. Airplanes, naturally, mimic a bird in flight. And micro-needles have the mosquito to thank for a design that minimizes the pain of an injection. Tasked with searching for a sustainable, proven solution to tricky engineering challenges, designers are increasingly allowing nature and their imaginations to take the lead. The field of biomimetics or biomimicry looks to structures and biological processes found in nature for inspiration.

“One of the common elements of humanity and throughout history and across cultures is imagination,” said Robert Blasiak, a researcher at the Stockholm Resilience Center, which looks at how to reconnect society with nature. “And I think biomimetics is an area where dreaming is required. It’s one of the ingredients for making the whole thing work.”

A classic example of biomimicry is the Japanese bullet train, the Shinkansen, first introduced in 1964. Travelling at a top speed of 320 km per hour, the high-speed train network has revolutionized mass transit in Japan and provided a cleaner alternative to private automobiles.

Earlier designs weren’t as sleek and aerodynamic as today’s engines, resulting in vibrations and noise during travel — especially when the train would shoot through tunnels and leave behind a sonic boom.

In 1994, engineer Eiji Nakatsu was tasked with eliminating the explosive bang, vibration and pressure waves and develop a smoother ride. An avid birdwatcher, Nakatsu made changes to the train’s design based on an owl’s wing and the spindle-like body shape of an Adelie penguin.

To eliminate the sonic boom, he modelled the nose of the train after the kingfisher’s long, tapered beak, which allows it to dive into water to catch fish with barely a splash. The booms stopped, and as a bonus, the trains were able to travel 10% faster and use 15% less electricity.

As the world tries to move away from fossil fuels, solar photovoltaics are “becoming the lowest-cost option for new electricity generation in most of the world,” according to the International Energy Agency. To make them even more efficient, engineers took their cue from the wing of the rose butterfly, a cold-blooded insect native to Southeast Asia, which absorbs energy from the sun to stay warm. To do so, the creature has developed black wings marked with tiny holes only a millionth of a meter wide. These holes scatter light as it hits the dark surface, making it easier for the butterfly to use the sun’s energy to heat up. By incorporating similar holes in their designs, engineers have developed solar panels that are thinner and lighter. Not only that — they absorb more energy than traditional solar panels, according to the researchers. Scientists at Princeton University were also inspired to improve solar panel efficiency by looking at leaf structures. They included microscopic folds in the panel’s surface to channel light waves and increase electricity generation by nearly 50%.