Terrence Mcnally Podcast

Aired 12/16/08 After 3.8 billion years of R&D, failures are fossils. The conscious emulation of life's genius is a sustainable survival strategy for the human race. Biomimicry (from bios, meaning life, and mimesis, meaning to imitate) is a new science that studies nature's best ideas and then imitates these designs and processes to solve human problems. Studying a leaf to invent a better solar cell is an example of this "innovation inspired by nature." The core idea is that nature, imaginative by necessity, has already solved many of the problems we are grappling with. Animals, plants, and microbes are the consummate engineers. They have found what works, what is appropriate, and most important, what lasts here on Earth. We are learning how to grow food like a prairie, build ceramics like an abalone, create color like a peacock, self-medicate like a chimp, compute like a cell, and run a business like a hickory forest. Learn more at www.biomimicryinstitute.org and www.asknature.org Janine Benyus' luscious 1