Skoltech at Tochka Kipeniya presents a lecture by Ilya Gomyranov: Technology inspired by nature.
All along its history, humankind has been exploiting nature, often in a brutal and careless way. However, human evolution over the past few hundred thousand years has taught us to borrow nature’s smartest ideas instead of using its gifts without much thought. Modern humans turn to nature for help in dealing with challenging issues and complex engineering tasks.
It turns out that many common things, like hydraulic pumps and brakes, black boxes and even Velcro fasteners, were copied from animals or plants. The mid-20th century witnessed the emergence of bionics which is rapidly developing across the globe. What is it about? Why and how do we “steal” inventions from nature? How do we use bionics in our daily life? How do animals and plants help architects, engineers and even doctors?
Ilya Gomyranov is a zoologist, an employee of the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech), and a winner of the Russian award “For Fidelity to Science”.
