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Everything filed under biomimicry.
Fact-based Nature Did It First
The lantern of a firefly is covered in scales that fit together badly, like wonky roof tiles, and copying that jagged pattern let a lab LED give out up to 55 per cent more light.
Fact-based Nature Did It First
A pine cone opens in dry air and shuts in the rain without a single living cell, and engineers have copied its swelling layers to build shading that needs no motor and no electricity.
Fact-based Nature Did It First
The florets in a sunflower head sit in a spiral that wastes no space, and engineers found that the same pattern fits a field of solar mirrors into a fifth less land.
Fact-based Nature Did It First
A shark's skin is covered in tiny tooth-shaped scales, and copying their fine ridges gave engineers a film of grooves, no deeper than a scratch, that helps hulls and wings meet less drag.
Fact-based Nature Did It First
The eyes of a moth are covered in bumps far too small to see, and copying them helps screens, lenses and solar panels shake off their glare.
Fact-based Nature Did It First
In the Namib Desert a small black beetle stands on its head at dawn to catch fog on its back, and engineers have been borrowing its trick ever since.
Fact-based Nature Did It First
In the middle of Harare stands a big office and shopping centre with no ordinary air conditioning, designed after a long look at the tall earth towers that termites build.
Fact-based Nature Did It First
A lotus leaf is far too bumpy for dirt to hold on to, and once a microscope explained why, the same trick went onto building walls, fabrics and glass.
Fact-based Nature Did It First
Japan's fast trains made a loud bang every time they left a tunnel, until engineers gave one a long nose shaped like the beak of a diving kingfisher.
Fact-based Nature Did It First
A walk in the woods in 1941 ended with burrs clinging to a dog's fur, and one close look under a microscope gave the world the hook-and-loop fastener.