Page 179 - Biomimetics: Technology Imitates Nature

reating technology—all the manufacturing
methods and equipment used in a particular
branch of industry—is no easy matter, because
so many components need to be brought to-
gether. In order to produce technology in any
given area, first of all we need to possess information. Next, the
scientists and technical personnel who are to use this informa-
tion must be added to the equation. These personnel need the
right materials and the facilities in which to make use of them.
For all these reasons, producing technology is a difficult busi-
ness. Indeed, the history of those advances
we describe as “technological” is by
no means a long one. Even today,
though many countries enjoy
technology, very few of them
actually produce it.
As scientific circles have
noted, most of the technologi-
cal products emerging as the
result of investment, information
and research have their “originals”
and counterparts in nature.
Phil Gates, a well-known scientist and author of the book
Wild Technology, expresses this in the following terms:
Many of our best inventions are copied from, or already in use by,
other living things. We have only discovered a tiny fraction of the
vast numbers of living organisms that share our planet. Somewhere,
amongst the millions of organisms that remain undiscovered, there
are natural inventions that could improve our lives. They could pro-
vide new medicines, building materials, ways of controlling pests

and dealing with pollution. 123