The World's Largest R&D Lab
Nature invents high-tech solutions but it works by different rules than humans do
The same proving grounds have developed a water and dirt repellent surface utilizing a covering of microscopic raised structures; a nearly silent flight system based on specialized wing surfaces; and a dry adhesion system, creating a bond strong enough to support body weight, yet removable without residue. A secret government lab? No, Mother Nature. These "inventions" I've described are the lotus leaf, the owl, and the gecko.
Billions of years of experimentation
Nature has developed a number of surprisingly high-tech solutions in a wide variety of areas. However, nature is not the most efficient R&D lab, it does not follow the scientific method, nor is there any thought at all behind what it does. But it makes up for it in volume. Simply through random variation, followed by natural selection, nature has essentially been running countless experiments for billions of years.
Sometimes this process results in elegant solutions, and sometimes in solutions that are, let's just call them inelegant, but still work.
Biomimicry
When humans figure out a solution by copying the same technique found in nature, this is called biomimicry. This is not to suggest that every problem can be solved by looking to nature, but it might be a good starting point.
For all the examples above, there are modern inventions that have been inspired by the natural version. The lotus leaf effect, only first explained in the late 1970s, is now used in a number of manufactured products sometimes marketed as free of any conventional water repellent chemicals. Some turbine blades reduce noise by employing serrated edges that are inspired by the feathers of owls. And more recently devices such as robotic grippers have started appearing that use gecko technology, essentially a huge number of microscopic contact points that can be released by changing orientation.
Scientists are continuing to find solutions to problems that turn out to have been sitting in plain sight waiting to be discovered. Sometimes they are not very optimized, or may be difficult to implement, but the approaches can seem quite ingenious.
Different labs, different methods
Because of how nature operates there are some things it does better than human-designed experiments. For one thing most real situations are far more complicated than a simple experiment can capture. By the sheer number of trials done in nature, it effectively reveals all sorts of hidden relationships or unintended consequences that human-designed experiments miss.
Human R&D has advantages too. For one thing, many solutions are never found by natural processes. The targeted and intentional experimentation humans do lets us develop things that we actually want, like a refrigerator for example. It is also much quicker than waiting for nature, perhaps a few years instead of millions of years.
Nature also operates under a rule humans cannot accept: nature is not concerned with any moral code. It runs many "experiments" where the outcome is failure. Usually, that means the subject did not survive. Brutal, yes, but a fact of life. Almost by definition every living thing around us is the result of a series of experiments that were successful enough.
It is easy to forget that all of us, even now, are part of nature's continuing experiment.
So next time you use Velcro (hook and loop from seed burrs), relax in a new energy efficient building (termite mound ventilation), or cheer on your favorite swimmer (wearing shark skin inspired suits), you owe a small amount of gratitude to the world's largest R&D lab. Maybe not the most efficient lab, but surely the biggest.
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