Transcriber: Alan G. Mayén Reviewer: Denise RQ
Nature's beauty and her genius
lay in the details.
Natural designs are most often beautiful,
like the elegant spiral you see in this leaf.
So beautiful that sometimes we overlook the functionality in the design.
But when we open our eyes,
and we pay attention to the details,
we find infinite innovation in the natural world.
So today, I want to share some examples,
and I want to start with the humble spiral.
We see spirals repeated in the natural world
on a small and very large scale,
and these are not just random spirals,
they are logarithmic spirals.
Some of them are even called golden spirals
because their shape can be described by a specific mathematical equation.
It makes you wonder
what secrets are locked up in their spiral design,
what benefit could there be in building, growing, moving,
in a spiral.
Well, first, a spiral is a smart way to build a shell.
It allows the organism to start small
and grow by expanding outward without changing its existing shape.
Liquids and gases naturally move in a spiral;
if you think about the bath water running down your drain,
the eye of the storm, [etc.].
And that's because the spiral is the path of least resistance,
it's an energy-efficient way to move.
These are super solar-powered, green energy machines,
commonly known as trees
(Laughter)
and at first glance, you might see a trunk, branches, leaves;
but if you pay attention for long enough,
you will uncover ingenious designs.
So, plants and trees are obviously experts
when it comes to capturing sun light.
Trees branch in specific patterns
and then, the branches branch according to the same pattern.
And this creates a canopy of leaves
with a spiral blueprint,
and this spiral-shaped canopy allows the tree to capture sunlight
regardless of the Sun's position in the sky as it moves during the day.
Traditionally, when we make solar panels, we make them as flat, static surfaces.
But what would happen if we apply the tree's genius to our designs?
This design mimics the tree branch pattern
and in doing so, it almost doubles the efficiency of the solar panels.
This nature-inspired innovation has earned his inventor a US patent.
He just happens to be 13 years old.
Just goes to show you don't need to have gray hair to change the future,
you just need to use your gray matter.
Nature has taught us other things when it comes to capturing light:
sunflowers have the amazing ability to sense the Sun's position
and move accordingly during the day
to allow them to capture the most possible sunlight,
and engineers have applied this lesson to solar panels,
adding some motors and senses that allow the panels
to track the Sun's movement and align themselves accordingly,
increasing their efficiency.
We've mimicked other plants like ivy,
- at the bottom you see an artificial ivy solar system -
and that turns walls of buildings into energy-generating surfaces.
The added benefit of the ivy design is, if one solar leaf brakes,
it doesn't compromise the entire system's ability to generate energy.
So we have a lot to learn when it comes to capturing light,
but what can we learn from nature about using light?
Plants use light as a an energy source, I'm sure most of you knows this equation.
Plants use sunlight to turn carbon dioxide into sugar and starches.
So, effectively, what they are doing
is they are using the biggest pollutant of our time, CO2,
as a building block to make complex materials.
What if we learn the plant's recipe
and use CO2 to make biodegradable plastics,
using CO2 instead of emitting it?
Nature uses light to create color
and although the butterfly wing appears to be brilliant blue,
the microscopic scales that make up that wing are transparent,
but they create an interesting microscopic surface
that diffracts and scatters light waves allowing blue light to bounce off,
and that's why we see blue.
This is structural color
that doesn't fade over time and requires no toxic pigments.
So what if we learn from the butterfly
how to improve the displays of our cell phones and our computers,
without using the hazardous chemicals
we currently include in electronic screens?
Nature uses light as information,
so, cephalopods like squids have the mind-blowing capacity
to sense changes in light in their environment,
use that information
to either disappear completely and hide from their prey
or to stand out and say:
"Wow! This is my space."
Researches have shown
that they have a special protein in their skin called opsin,
it's the same protein we have in our eyes.
This skin can 'see' changes in light,
send that information to the color pigments, the chromatophores,
and that allows them to make the right change.
What if we learn from squids to make smart materials
that can respond to changes in the environment?
Plant plastics, butterfly screens, squids surfaces,
they all sound far-fetched and futuristic,
but there are already a couple of companies
that have quite successfully used nature's recipes
to make green plastics, green cement,
using CO2.
There are commercially available butterfly-inspired e-readers,
and researches are working on
proof of concept artificial squid materials.
Learning from nature and looking to nature for inspiration isn't a new idea.
We've done it instinctively for years.
And that's because we are nature.
We are not that different to the organisms that surround us.
We build, we eat, we generate and store energy
- most of the time on our hips - (Laughter)
we protect ourselves from disease and physical forces.
And the organisms around us meet the same challenges,
but in sustainable ways.
Ways that don't pollute, don't make the planet warmer,
and that use resources and energy sparingly.
I'm not saying that we are not smart.
Yes, we've made technologies that fly us to the Moon and back.
But sometimes those technologies makes us forget how to live here,
on the tiny blue planet.
And this is our home, it is our only home,
but it's not only our home.
So, as we study the genius of nature,
this beautiful, elegant, sophisticated designs,
we relearn how to fit in here, on the blue planet.
And as we look around with new eyes, new respect,
we see nature as a mentor
that can show us how to make
products, processes, even systems that enhance the planet.
Many people predict dark clouds on the horizon
when it comes to the future of the planet,
most specifically, our future on the planet.
We're looking at 8 billion people in ten years time.
More than half of them need to squeeze into cities.
Food is becoming scarce, water even more so.
Oil sources are being depleted while oil prices are sky-rocketing.
Sea levels are rising, the planet is heating up
and this future belongs to you.
Did you choose it?
No.
Can you change it?
I'll tell you what I see when I gaze into the future:
I see shell-inspired houses,
forest-inspired cities,
monkey-inspired medicine.
I see engineers, designers, architects, even economists,
going outside to find inspiration for innovations.
I see a future,
your future,
and it is illuminated.
Thank you.
(Applause)