Yale Averill

“Despite what we would call ‘limits,’ nature manages to craft materials of a complexity and a functionality that we can only envy. The inner shell of a sea creature called an abalone is twice as tough as our high-tech ceramics. Spider silk, ounce for ounce, is five times stronger than steel. Mussel adhesive works under water and sticks to anything, even without a primer. Rhino horn manages to repair itself, though it contains no living cells. Bone, wood, skin, tusks, antlers and heart muscle–miracle materials all–are made to live out their useful life and then to fade back, to be absorbed by another kind of life through the grand cycle of death and renewal.”
― David Devine, Growing Food God's Way: How Paul Gautschi Takes Us Back to Eden and Beyond