Biomimicry

I've had a huge rapprochement with bio and nature lately, and this book really hit the spot. The basic premise is that we should be looking towards nature to solve all of our most pressing problems: agriculture, energy, medicine, and even business/econ. You know, cuz of ev'lution and all. (Which is just mind-blowing in and of itself; can we take a moment to marvel at natural selection?) You don't realize until halfway through that the book was written in the 1990s - kind of amazing, given that it feels so fresh and crazy and revolutionary! That said, I was dying for an update; most of this stuff is 20 years out of date.

Each chapter followed a similar structure: the author, Benyus, would introduce a problem (“yo, computers are slow”), walk us through the way nature “solves” the problem (with some nitty gritty science; indeed, it often went over my head), and then introduce us to some “biomimics”, scientists who are actively researching ways to mimic, say, photosynthesis, or quantum tunneling, or a prairie.

The most exciting chapters, for me, were those on energy (mimicking photosynthesis) and medicine (Big Pharma hunting for new meds in the rainforest). I went on a walking safari recently with a reformed poacher-turned-bushman-tour-guide named Didi. Didi mentioned that, in addition to smoking elephant dung (!) for its mind-expanding abilities (!!), it's common among poachers/bushmen to keep track of what plants or water sources the elephants and chimpanzees use, as those are then deemed safe for humans too. He also mentioned certain plants being known to have medicinal properties. At the time, this reminded me of the wonderful science/tech blogger Xeni Jardin, who has breast cancer, mentioning that some of her chemo drugs came from a “healing tree bark” and a fungus that grows on a particular Italian castle. Mind-blowing! So Benyus's chapter on bio-medical research hunting for drugs in the rainforest - and even investing resources into preserving indigenous knowledge of which plants heal, etc. - was just really exciting.

Perhaps the weakest chapter was the final one, examining business and economics (“like a redwood forest”). This felt like the most fuzzy and underdeveloped chapter, lacking in the passion and clarity which Benyus imbued in the others. Also, I'm an economist, and I was a bit miffed that Benyus only focused on interviewing “industrial ecologists” - a field I'm unfamiliar with, but that sounded a lot like environmental economics. She basically touches on the main points of negative externalities, and trying to embed social and environmental costs into market prices, and the role of government in doing that, but it just felt uninspired and a bit blah.

That said, the whole book was great. Oh, and there's a TED talk.