Nature's Operating Instuctions

As I read through the first part of this book I found it refreshing to think that different fields were collaborating. Instead of engineers being separate from biologists, the new ideas behind biomimicry were bringing the two fields together in hopes of creating new systems that are most sustainable then most of hte ones that we use today.
It seems to me that most of the answers to sustaining our lifestyle are represented by many of the organisms that we are surrounded by everyday. All the other species on this planet are able to thrive without advanced technology which makes biomimicry an obvious solution to many of our current problems.
I did my project this week on Janine Benyus, who was the first person we read about in this book. On her website about biomimicry she was talking about how boats were going to be coated with a layer just like a shark's skin. Shark skin is covered in sharp scales, and their shape creates a constant water flow on the surface of the sharks skin making it impossible for particles to become attached and for organisms to burrow into the shark's skin. Currently the way boats are today they gather debris while they sit in the water which makes them less efficient. If the design of shark skin was replicated for a coating on boats they would be more efficient because they wouldn't have the build-up on them that slows boats down.
I think that looking towards nature as answers to sustaining our lifestyle is awesome. I wish that more engineers were collaborating with biologists so all of the new technology was sustainable. I think that if we had more collaboration we would have more sustainable solutions to our selfish lifestyles.