Biomimicry

Innovation Inspired by Nature

By: Janine M. Benyus

Narrated by: Callie Beaulieu

This "valuable and entertaining" (New York Times Book Review) book explores how scientists are adapting nature's best ideas to solve tough 21st-century problems.

Biomimicry is rapidly transforming life on earth. Biomimics study nature's most successful ideas over the past 3.5 million years, and adapt them for human use. The results are revolutionizing how materials are invented and how we compute, heal ourselves, repair the environment, and feed the world.

Janine Benyus takes listeners into the lab and in the field with maverick thinkers as they: discover miracle drugs by watching what chimps eat when they're sick; learn how to create by watching spiders weave fibers; harness energy by examining how a leaf converts sunlight into fuel in trillionths of a second; and many more examples.

Composed of stories of vision and invention, personalities and pipe dreams, Biomimicry is a must-listen for anyone interested in the shape of our future.

©2009 Janine M. Benyus (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers

nearly 30 years old

Narrator has an ok voice, but with excessive sibilance. Maybe a mic issue? While I agree with nearly everything in the book it does a lot of preaching on oft repeated ideas, not actually a whole lot about the title subject.

Good, but out of date

While the product page says this was released in 2020, the material is seemingly from the early 2000s. All the citations and quotes are from the 90s and early 2000s. The author references cassette tapes and CDs as things that could benefit from biomimicry. She says that "we don't make electric cars". Things like solar panels and 3D printing are discussed at length in an elementary, out of date way. It's disappointing because the concepts are great, but I get the sense that the material is simply old. When the product page says released in 2020, I had assumed that perhaps the material would be at least up to the mid-2010s.

Amazing book

Despite I have the printed version of the book I finished in audiobook. Really loved this audio version of one of my favorites books.

Loved it

This book tackles so many different ways to change how we think. Love it.

Dated but good

This is a poetic work of non fiction with colorful descriptions and a good pacing. Much of the information is dated because it’s a book about cutting edge technology but was written in 1997 so expect a bit of speculation about future exciting technological/scientific achievements that have currently happened years ago. I did enjoy the future thinking of this book though and appreciated how many things this woman predicted that came true, and enjoyed even more those that didn’t. Overall I think this is a worthy snack for a hungry mind.

Biochemical processes

The book deal’s mostly with biochemical processes. I teach biomimicry to design students so this book isn’t very helpful for that. Though it was mostly over my head, I did find it interesting. Have these discoveries been implemented?

Great topic, but full of flawed logic and inaccuracies

This is likely the worst non-fiction book I have read. I don't disagree with many of the author's positions, but too often the author attempts to rationalize them with very flawed and non-scienttific logic and ideas. It makes me think of an essay by a high school student that doesn't take time to contemplate the ideas enough or back them up with facts.

Outdated book + subpar recording + Malthusian

If you're wanting to learn about advancements in biomimicry that'll excite and inspire, look elsewhere. this book is too focused on the Malthusian, humanity-is-the-problem, mindset. About a third of the content is great, except that it seems to have been written in the late 90s.

Thought this was going to be something fun and sciencey

Very preachy and opinionated. Not what I expected. I expected to learn a lot of interesting facts, however much of the content is opinionated. What facts there are are insert essay style from other researchers. I would classify this as more political than scientific.

SUPER DATED!!!

Written in 2000 so nearly everything mentioned is either disproven or mainstream technology already.