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It's Time to Ask Nature (site tagline)

How does nature ...
produce color?

Humanity faces many challenges. Nature holds
solutions. To discover them, all we have to do is
ask. Begin your search here, or explore featured
content below to learn from other species'
successful strategies and adaptations.

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Nature is more than the sum of its parts. Explore the connections between individual biological strategies, innovations, or educational resources as leading thinkers, scientists, artists, and others reflect on unifying themes in biomimicry.

How Does Nature
Build a Home?

What’s vital is to recognize we’re part of a continuum of homemaking and homebuilding entities, learning to find ways of housing who and what we care about through the creation of structures and frameworks that can make us be comforted and comfortable. Camilo Garzón, Poet and Journalist

Traditional and Indigenous building methods in Colombia reveal how construction is an intimate engagement with other species, the work they do, and the very core of our planet.

The Sisterhood of Species

When it comes to certain aspects of my health, I may have more in common with other female animals than with my husband Barbara Natterson-Horowitz, Cardiologist and Evolutionary Biologist

Applying biomimicry to female health and wellness, researchers are learning from other species how to better care for our own.

For Educators

The world of the future will be designed by the students of today. AskNature has tools to help educators bring biomimicry into the classroom for a single day or for a whole school year.

Students examine a plant specimen in lab classroom

Introducing Biomimicry in High School

Biomimicry Institute

This collection of activities provides a high school level introduction to the concept of biomimicry, along with instruction to support student use of the resources on the AskNature website to apply biomimicry to any design challenge.

Looking skyward through a bamboo forest

Biological Strategy Printables

Biomimicry Institute

If you need an offline version of AskNature's content, these pages have you covered.

Biomimicry: Nature as Model, Measure, and Mentor

Cloud Institute for Sustainability Education

In this three-part lesson students explore what nature can teach us about the principles of sustainable design and reflect on applications to a problem in their home, school, or community.

Keeping It Clean

Biomimicry Institute

Explore resources for teaching about superhydrophobicity and nanotechnology using the story of how super water‑repellent lotus leaves inspired self‑cleaning surface coatings.

Binoculars and hiking maps on rocky cliffs with landscape

AskNature Scavenger Hunt

Biomimicry Institute

Get familiar with how to use the AskNature website by exploring what it has to offer.

Biological Strategies

We've curated more than 1700 strategies of living things that can serve as inspiration for human innovation. Whatever challenge you're looking to address, nature can serve as your model, measure, and mentor.

Innovations

AskNature’s innovation database makes it easy to explore hundreds of products and design solutions inspired by nature's genius and the workings of living organisms.

Keyword:

Trees

Living System:

Whales and dolphins

Function:

Prevent Fatigue

When materials that comprise living systems are subjected to repeated loads, they can weaken over time. This is called fatigue and it can lead to cracks and eventually failure. However, fatigue doesn’t occur just anywhere on a material; the cracks usually start in areas subjected to elevated local stresses. Therefore, living systems often employ shapes, materials, and/or smooth transitions to decrease the potential for fatigue. An example of using shape is found in brown algae, an intertidal seaweed. Rather than being bent by the constant flow forces of waves and currents, its shape causes it to be pulled. This reduces stress by roughly 800 times compared to another species that bends with the flow, ultimately reducing structural fatigue.

Most Popular Pages for May 2023

With over 1700 biological strategies cultivated on AskNature, there are dozens of somethings for anyone. But time has shown that at any given time, a few things seem to be the right thing for everyone. Explore some of our most popular pages now.

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