Hello everyone!

Biomimicry is the part of biology where engineers look at what an animal can do and try to mimic that in their inventions. A common misconception about biomimicry is that it uses animals in their machines, but that is not the case. In biomimicry we look at nature and use it as an template. Let me give an example:

The most popular example is gecko feet. The little creatures are able to climb upside down on a seiling, making use of intermolecular forces. The reason they can do this is because they have have really big atoms on the underside of their feet. Scientists and engineers tried to make small robots that use this concept to climb walls, and they actually managed to do it.

I think this is important because animals are easily forgotten when inventing things. We might be able to use systems found in animals to optimize life at our new home.

Leave your ideas in the comments below, I would love to hear them!

Greetings Jens

There are many good examples of this technique - older too, like cats eyes in roads. Older than that, even. Nature is a pretty efficient designer, factoring in evolution, it's a shame to waste valuable lessons. Like the way shark skin inspires the designs of high end wetsuits, leveraging nature can lead to more efficient use.

i like the concept, in my aproach as an architect, i have been working in a design of a bio laboratory aimed to study how to colonize outer space, i made an academic document about how a Bryosphere can feed a Biosphere with multiple species, the focus is tolerate our extinction, this makes me wonder, all living creatures are huge ecosystems, i think that Asgardia must be a design of biomimicry, as a machine that houses multiple species, a reflex of living being biologic networks.

Link to video and PDF https://comingplanet.com/2016/07/03/post-apocalyptic-architecture/

Hi Metaborg

Your idea sounds really interesting! Sadly enough I don't speak spanish, so I couldn't understand what they say in the video. I would love to hear more of you though!

The other day I saw a video about designers that created high heels based of the skeleton of a birds head. They were really strong because of there structure. I loved this example of biomimicry, it is so simple yet so complex. So I thought I'd share it with you guys.

Greetings Jens

Hi -Jens- i find important shape in many matters, self organized organisms have functions due to the shape they have, all organisms have a sepecific response to the enviroment, i think there is enough evidence that proves that shape is not random,for example millions of years ago, species still had 2 or 4 legs to name a few examples, this of course responds to earth minerals, im not sure which shapes should be used for the design of a space station that can support a minimum of 250.000 people, maybe you do have some ideas about it, i do imagine it as a living being. but im not sure which shape will have the best impact for the space city, at the same time, how to design such complex networks, we even need to get a sea to asgardia. not sure if it must be seen as a pool or part or the networks, what do you think about it? or the same to other readers, what do you think about the shape and the networks within that shape and around it. also asgardia must be conceived as a mutualist system, earth / asgardia / other space cities.

You can find a free PDF file with the full speech, you could translate it, at least the index to find your subjects of interest.

Shapewise, the most efficient use of a given area is boringly enough a cube. However, factoring in various other requirements, I'd personally suggest a hollow "disc", "torus", or "cylinder" to be suitable shapes, as they easily allow for centrafugal force to replicate gravity - solving several other problems with a single swing.

Each has their own merits and drawbacks - but all stand equal chance of being successful. Rotation to provide centrafugal forces results in a "sweet spot" - to hit 1G for a given radius requires an approriate rotational speed - outside this radial belt effects lesser or greater(depending on moving in or out across the radius) than 1G. In the case of a disc, this would result in much 0G area, potentially wasted(but, potentially useable for things 0G can suit. Like cargo storages). A torus has advantages that it doesn't "waste mass" covering the central area the disc would cover. It could potentially be mounted to and rotating around a static "spire" or "needle" - which would give a low G area suitable for cargo storages etc, and make docking significantly easier. A cylinder could give the least amount of "wasted space" in the central, and potentially modularly expand lengthways.

The design of complex networks isn't particularly any form of issue, it's in reality a collection of simple systems nested together in a tree like structure. Attacked in the "correct" sequences, and paying enough attention to how each bit acts as much as how pieces interact, it's not that difficult.

So we can be Babylon 5 (rotating cylinder), Sigil (torus), or damned near every sci-fi movie and book for the last 30 years (spindle).

I can deal with that.

(Sigil is a D&D reference to their Planescape campaign setting.)

These are not the only options - just the easy ones. If wanting a more "nature inspired" shape, then the heliptical whorl of the grastropod seems suitable... and someone is already looking into growing "organic structures".

And Athur C. Clarke had toroidial designs a lot longer than 30 yrs ago.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/355/6329/1055 Bone-like crack resistance in hierarchical metastable nanolaminate steels.

Study of bones from ornothological systems resulting in a mulltiphase steel developed to resist cracks via laminated substructures in an effort to build fatigue resistant structures.

-This is the core bibliography that sustains my thesys

-Stuart Kauffman, investigations: chapter 8 Candidate laws for the coconstruction of a Biosphere

-The Bryosphere: An Integral and Influential Component of the Earth’s Biosphere Zoe¨ Lindo* and Andrew Gonzalez

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2014/10/29/floating-laboratory-seaorbiter-spaceship-sea/#.WNa5sTvhCM9