Darina’s Reviews > Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature > Status Update

"Organisms in a mature ecosystem:
1. Use waste as a resource
2. Diversify and cooperate to fully use the habitat
3. Gather and use energy efficiently
4. Optimize rather than maximize
5. Use materials sparingly
6. Don’t foul their nests
7. Don’t draw down resources
8. Remain in balance with the biosphere
9. Run on information
10. Shop locally"

The Type II system consists of perennial berry bushes and woody seedlings that move into the field. They are there for the longer haul. Unlike Type I species, they won’t spend their energy on making millions of seeds. Instead, they’ll make a few seeds and funnel the rest of the energy into hardy roots and sturdy stems that will see them through winter.

"Life doesn’t number-crunch; life computes by feeling its way to a solution.
If you are going to rely on shape to feel your way to a solution, you have to
use molecules that can assume millions of different shapes. Life knew what it was doing when it chose carbon as its substrate for computing. For one thing, carbon is free to participate in a great variety of strong bonds with other atoms..."

"These tough cookies are the special forces of living creatures, thriving in environments that would wilt lesser species. By deliberately looking for creatures that awe us, we may just stumble upon a whole new chemistry—the spoils of survival."

"...in addition to being a structural material, food is also a batch of [reactive] chemicals. When these substances enter the body, they bump into and interact with the bath of hormones, enzymes, genes, and neurotransmitters that govern and regulate cell life. Above a certain threshold concentration, food chemicals may begin to influence which enzymes start to work, or when genes will turn on or turn off."

"“The difference,” he goes slowly, patiently, “between a dead bacterium and a live one is membrane potential. In living cells, the concentration of chemicals or charges inside the enclosing membrane is different from the
concentration outside. The law of entropy says that all systems want to go to a position of lower energy—they want to equalize uneven gradients or
concentrations."

"Piper talks about the plants as if they are neighbors in a community—the nitrogen fixers, the deep-rooted ones that dig for water, the shallow-rooted ones that make the most of a gentle rain, the ones that grow quickly in the spring to shade out weeds, the ones that resist pests or harbor heroes such as beneficial insects."

"Nature runs on sunlight.
Nature uses only the energy it needs.
Nature fits form to function.
Nature recycles everything.
Nature rewards cooperation.
Nature banks on diversity.
Nature demands local expertise.
Nature curbs excesses from within.
Nature taps the power of limits."