Author: Henry Dicks
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231557639
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 197
Book Description
Modernity is founded on the belief that the world we build is a human invention, not a part of nature. The ecological consequences of this idea have been catastrophic. We have laid waste to natural ecosystems, replacing them with fundamentally unsustainable human designs. With time running out to address the environmental crises we have caused, our best path forward is to turn to nature for guidance. In this book, Henry Dicks explores the philosophical significance of a revolutionary approach to sustainable innovation: biomimicry. The term describes the application and adaptation of strategies found in nature to the development of artificial products and systems, such as passive cooling techniques modeled on termite mounds or solar cells modeled on leaves. Dicks argues that biomimicry, typically seen as just a design strategy, can also serve as the basis for a new environmental philosophy that radically alters how we understand and relate to the natural world. By showing how we can imitate, emulate, and learn from nature, biomimicry points us toward a genuinely sustainable way of inhabiting the earth. Rooted in philosophy, The Biomimicry Revolution has profound implications spanning the natural sciences, design, architecture, sustainability studies, science and technology studies, and the environmental humanities. It presents a sweeping reconception of what philosophy can be and offers a powerful new vision of terrestrial existence.
The Biomimicry Revolution
Author: Henry Dicks
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231557639
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 197
Book Description
Modernity is founded on the belief that the world we build is a human invention, not a part of nature. The ecological consequences of this idea have been catastrophic. We have laid waste to natural ecosystems, replacing them with fundamentally unsustainable human designs. With time running out to address the environmental crises we have caused, our best path forward is to turn to nature for guidance. In this book, Henry Dicks explores the philosophical significance of a revolutionary approach to sustainable innovation: biomimicry. The term describes the application and adaptation of strategies found in nature to the development of artificial products and systems, such as passive cooling techniques modeled on termite mounds or solar cells modeled on leaves. Dicks argues that biomimicry, typically seen as just a design strategy, can also serve as the basis for a new environmental philosophy that radically alters how we understand and relate to the natural world. By showing how we can imitate, emulate, and learn from nature, biomimicry points us toward a genuinely sustainable way of inhabiting the earth. Rooted in philosophy, The Biomimicry Revolution has profound implications spanning the natural sciences, design, architecture, sustainability studies, science and technology studies, and the environmental humanities. It presents a sweeping reconception of what philosophy can be and offers a powerful new vision of terrestrial existence.
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231557639
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 197
Book Description
Modernity is founded on the belief that the world we build is a human invention, not a part of nature. The ecological consequences of this idea have been catastrophic. We have laid waste to natural ecosystems, replacing them with fundamentally unsustainable human designs. With time running out to address the environmental crises we have caused, our best path forward is to turn to nature for guidance. In this book, Henry Dicks explores the philosophical significance of a revolutionary approach to sustainable innovation: biomimicry. The term describes the application and adaptation of strategies found in nature to the development of artificial products and systems, such as passive cooling techniques modeled on termite mounds or solar cells modeled on leaves. Dicks argues that biomimicry, typically seen as just a design strategy, can also serve as the basis for a new environmental philosophy that radically alters how we understand and relate to the natural world. By showing how we can imitate, emulate, and learn from nature, biomimicry points us toward a genuinely sustainable way of inhabiting the earth. Rooted in philosophy, The Biomimicry Revolution has profound implications spanning the natural sciences, design, architecture, sustainability studies, science and technology studies, and the environmental humanities. It presents a sweeping reconception of what philosophy can be and offers a powerful new vision of terrestrial existence.
Biomimicry
Author: Janine M. Benyus
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061958921
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
Repackaged with a new afterword, 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 readers 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 must reading for anyone interested in the shape of our future.
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061958921
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
Repackaged with a new afterword, 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 readers 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 must reading for anyone interested in the shape of our future.
Nature as Measure
Author: Wes Jackson
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 1582438935
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 193
Book Description
An essential and timely collection of wise and compelling essays from one of the longtime leaders of the sustainable agriculture movement in America. Wes Jackson, “a well–known and admired advocate for sustainability especially as it relates to agriculture, has the rare ability to transform his convictions into captivating prose . . . Jackson’s thoughts are still as significant and profound as they were nearly 20 years ago” (Publishers Weekly) and can teach us many things about the land, soil, and conservation, but what most resonates is this: The ecosphere is self–regulating, and as often as we attempt to understand it, we are not its builders, and our manuals will often be faulty. The only responsible way to learn the nuances of the land is to study the soil and vegetation in their natural state and pass this knowledge on to future generations. “[A] small book rich in ideas” (The New York Times Book Review), Nature as Measure collects Jackson’s essays from Altars of Unhewn Stone and Becoming Native to This Place, presenting ideas of land conservation and education that are written from the point of view of a man who has practiced what he’s preached and proven that it is possible to partially restore much of the land that we’ve ravaged. Wes Jackson lays the foundation for a new farming economy, grounded in nature’s principles and located in dying small towns and rural communities. Exploding the tenets of industrial agriculture, Jackson seeks to integrate food production with nature in a way that sustains both. His longtime friend Wendell Berry provides an informative, contextual Introduction. “For those concerned about what will be left and how many billion will be starving in twenty years, this is a must read.” —Register of the Kentucky Historical Society “A good introduction to a thinker whose ideas on agriculture are radical both in their technical approach to food production as well as in terms of the economic, social, and cultural context within which it is practiced.” —Review of Radical Political Economics
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 1582438935
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 193
Book Description
An essential and timely collection of wise and compelling essays from one of the longtime leaders of the sustainable agriculture movement in America. Wes Jackson, “a well–known and admired advocate for sustainability especially as it relates to agriculture, has the rare ability to transform his convictions into captivating prose . . . Jackson’s thoughts are still as significant and profound as they were nearly 20 years ago” (Publishers Weekly) and can teach us many things about the land, soil, and conservation, but what most resonates is this: The ecosphere is self–regulating, and as often as we attempt to understand it, we are not its builders, and our manuals will often be faulty. The only responsible way to learn the nuances of the land is to study the soil and vegetation in their natural state and pass this knowledge on to future generations. “[A] small book rich in ideas” (The New York Times Book Review), Nature as Measure collects Jackson’s essays from Altars of Unhewn Stone and Becoming Native to This Place, presenting ideas of land conservation and education that are written from the point of view of a man who has practiced what he’s preached and proven that it is possible to partially restore much of the land that we’ve ravaged. Wes Jackson lays the foundation for a new farming economy, grounded in nature’s principles and located in dying small towns and rural communities. Exploding the tenets of industrial agriculture, Jackson seeks to integrate food production with nature in a way that sustains both. His longtime friend Wendell Berry provides an informative, contextual Introduction. “For those concerned about what will be left and how many billion will be starving in twenty years, this is a must read.” —Register of the Kentucky Historical Society “A good introduction to a thinker whose ideas on agriculture are radical both in their technical approach to food production as well as in terms of the economic, social, and cultural context within which it is practiced.” —Review of Radical Political Economics
The Shark's Paintbrush
Author: Jay Harman
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1857889312
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 441
Book Description
The wave of the future has been around since the beginning of times: it's called Nature. Let inventor and entrepreneur Jay Harman introduce you to stunning solutions to some of the world's thorniest problems. Why does the bumblebee have better aerodynamics than a 747? How can copying a butterfly wing reduce the world's lighting energy bill by 80%? How will fleas' knees and bees' shoulders help scientists formulate a near-perfect rubber? Today an interdisciplinary and international group of scientists, inventors and engineers is turning to nature to innovate and find elegant solutions to human problems. The principle driving this transformation is called biomimicry, and Harman shares a wide range of examples of how we're borrowing from natural models to invent profitable, green solutions to pressing industrial challenges. Aimed at a business audience, aspiring entrepreneurs, environmentalists and general science readers, The Shark's Paintbrush reflects a force of change in the new global economy that does more than simply gratify human industrial ambition; it teaches us how to live in harmony with nature and opens bright opportunities for a better future.
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1857889312
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 441
Book Description
The wave of the future has been around since the beginning of times: it's called Nature. Let inventor and entrepreneur Jay Harman introduce you to stunning solutions to some of the world's thorniest problems. Why does the bumblebee have better aerodynamics than a 747? How can copying a butterfly wing reduce the world's lighting energy bill by 80%? How will fleas' knees and bees' shoulders help scientists formulate a near-perfect rubber? Today an interdisciplinary and international group of scientists, inventors and engineers is turning to nature to innovate and find elegant solutions to human problems. The principle driving this transformation is called biomimicry, and Harman shares a wide range of examples of how we're borrowing from natural models to invent profitable, green solutions to pressing industrial challenges. Aimed at a business audience, aspiring entrepreneurs, environmentalists and general science readers, The Shark's Paintbrush reflects a force of change in the new global economy that does more than simply gratify human industrial ambition; it teaches us how to live in harmony with nature and opens bright opportunities for a better future.
Biomimicry in Architecture
Author: Michael Pawlyn
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000701603
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 279
Book Description
When searching for genuinely sustainable building design and technology - designs that go beyond conventional sustainability to be truly restorative - we often find that nature got there first. Over 3.5 billion years of natural history have evolved innumerable examples of forms, systems, and processes that can be applied to modern green design. For architects, urban designers and product designers, this new edition of Biomimicry in Architecture looks to the natural world to achieve radical increases in resource efficiency. Packed with case studies predicting future trends, this edition also contains updated and expanded chapters on structures, materials, waste, water, thermal control and energy, as well as an all-new chapter on light. An amazing sourcebook of extraordinary design solutions, Biomimicry in Architecture is a must-read for anyone preparing for the challenges of building a sustainable and restorative future.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000701603
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 279
Book Description
When searching for genuinely sustainable building design and technology - designs that go beyond conventional sustainability to be truly restorative - we often find that nature got there first. Over 3.5 billion years of natural history have evolved innumerable examples of forms, systems, and processes that can be applied to modern green design. For architects, urban designers and product designers, this new edition of Biomimicry in Architecture looks to the natural world to achieve radical increases in resource efficiency. Packed with case studies predicting future trends, this edition also contains updated and expanded chapters on structures, materials, waste, water, thermal control and energy, as well as an all-new chapter on light. An amazing sourcebook of extraordinary design solutions, Biomimicry in Architecture is a must-read for anyone preparing for the challenges of building a sustainable and restorative future.
Homo Mimeticus II
Author: Nidesh Lawtoo
Publisher: Leuven University Press
ISBN: 9462704414
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 382
Book Description
After the linguistic and the affective turns, the new materialist and the performative turns, the cognitive and the posthuman turns, it is now time to re-turn to the ancient, yet also modern and still contemporary realization that humans are mimetic creatures. In this second installment of the Homo Mimeticus series, international scholars working in philosophy, literary theory, classics, cultural studies, sociology, political theory, and the neurosciences engage creatively with Nidesh Lawtoo’s Homo Mimeticus: A New Theory of Imitation to further the transdisciplinary field of mimetic studies. Agonistic critical engagements with precursors like Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, Bataille, Irigaray and Girard, involving contributions by leading international thinkers such as Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen, William E. Connolly, Henry Staten and Vittorio Gallese among many others, reveal the urgency to rethink mimesis beyond realism. From imitation to identification, mimicry to affective contagion, techne to simulation, mirror neurons to biomimicry, homo mimeticus casts a shadow—but also a light—on the present and future, from social media to the Anthropocene.
Publisher: Leuven University Press
ISBN: 9462704414
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 382
Book Description
After the linguistic and the affective turns, the new materialist and the performative turns, the cognitive and the posthuman turns, it is now time to re-turn to the ancient, yet also modern and still contemporary realization that humans are mimetic creatures. In this second installment of the Homo Mimeticus series, international scholars working in philosophy, literary theory, classics, cultural studies, sociology, political theory, and the neurosciences engage creatively with Nidesh Lawtoo’s Homo Mimeticus: A New Theory of Imitation to further the transdisciplinary field of mimetic studies. Agonistic critical engagements with precursors like Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, Bataille, Irigaray and Girard, involving contributions by leading international thinkers such as Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen, William E. Connolly, Henry Staten and Vittorio Gallese among many others, reveal the urgency to rethink mimesis beyond realism. From imitation to identification, mimicry to affective contagion, techne to simulation, mirror neurons to biomimicry, homo mimeticus casts a shadow—but also a light—on the present and future, from social media to the Anthropocene.
Consumer Moral Leadership
Author: Sue L.T. McGregor
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9460911161
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 223
Book Description
This book shares a collection of novel ways to re-conceptualize and envision the moral imperatives of consumption, thereby providing invigorating insights for future dialogue and intellectual and social action. It privileges a consumer moral leadership imperative, which augments the conventional management imperatives of sustainability, ethics, simplicity and environmental integrity.
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9460911161
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 223
Book Description
This book shares a collection of novel ways to re-conceptualize and envision the moral imperatives of consumption, thereby providing invigorating insights for future dialogue and intellectual and social action. It privileges a consumer moral leadership imperative, which augments the conventional management imperatives of sustainability, ethics, simplicity and environmental integrity.
Design and Science
Author: Leslie Atzmon
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350061948
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 361
Book Description
Design and Science addresses the inter-relationship, in both historical and contemporary contexts, between design thinking and design processes and scientific and medical research methods. Contributors address the parallels between research methodologies in design and the sciences, both of which involve the recognition of an issue, conceptualisation of ways to resolve it, and then the modelling and implementation of a viable solution. Much research across various scientific disciplines follows a similar pattern. Thematic sections explore visualisation, visual narrative and visual metaphor; biodesign and biomimicry; makers and users in design and science, and data visualisation, discussing the role of data from nature as an ultimate source of design.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350061948
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 361
Book Description
Design and Science addresses the inter-relationship, in both historical and contemporary contexts, between design thinking and design processes and scientific and medical research methods. Contributors address the parallels between research methodologies in design and the sciences, both of which involve the recognition of an issue, conceptualisation of ways to resolve it, and then the modelling and implementation of a viable solution. Much research across various scientific disciplines follows a similar pattern. Thematic sections explore visualisation, visual narrative and visual metaphor; biodesign and biomimicry; makers and users in design and science, and data visualisation, discussing the role of data from nature as an ultimate source of design.
NanoInnovation
Author: Michael Tomczyk
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 3527650067
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 400
Book Description
NanoInnovation: What Every Manager Needs to Know is the most comprehensive book written to-date on innovative technologies and applications in the field of nanotechnology. Author Michael Tomczyk conducted more than 150 interviews with nano-insiders to present the inside story of scientific discoveries, research breakthroughs, and commercial products and applications that are already changing our lives, thanks to the remarkable ability to manipulate atoms and molecules at the nanoscale.
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 3527650067
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 400
Book Description
NanoInnovation: What Every Manager Needs to Know is the most comprehensive book written to-date on innovative technologies and applications in the field of nanotechnology. Author Michael Tomczyk conducted more than 150 interviews with nano-insiders to present the inside story of scientific discoveries, research breakthroughs, and commercial products and applications that are already changing our lives, thanks to the remarkable ability to manipulate atoms and molecules at the nanoscale.
Animal Ethics in the Age of Humans
Author: Bernice Bovenkerk
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319442066
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 412
Book Description
This book provides reflection on the increasingly blurry boundaries that characterize the human-animal relationship. In the Anthropocene humans and animals have come closer together and this asks for rethinking old divisions. Firstly, new scientific insights and technological advances lead to a blurring of the boundaries between animals and humans. Secondly, our increasing influence on nature leads to a rethinking of the old distinction between individual animal ethics and collectivist environmental ethics. Thirdly, ongoing urbanization and destruction of animal habitats leads to a blurring between the categories of wild and domesticated animals. Finally, globalization and global climate change have led to the fragmentation of natural habitats, blurring the old distinction between in situ and ex situ conservation. In this book, researchers at the cutting edge of their fields systematically examine the broad field of human-animal relations, dealing with wild, liminal, and domestic animals, with conservation, and zoos, and with technologies such as biomimicry. This book is timely in that it explores the new directions in which our thinking about the human-animal relationship are developing. While the target audience primarily consists of animal studies scholars, coming from a wide range of disciplines including philosophy, sociology, psychology, ethology, literature, and film studies, many of the topics that are discussed have relevance beyond a purely theoretical one; as such the book also aims to inspire for example biologists, conservationists, and zoo keepers to reflect on their relationship with animals.
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319442066
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 412
Book Description
This book provides reflection on the increasingly blurry boundaries that characterize the human-animal relationship. In the Anthropocene humans and animals have come closer together and this asks for rethinking old divisions. Firstly, new scientific insights and technological advances lead to a blurring of the boundaries between animals and humans. Secondly, our increasing influence on nature leads to a rethinking of the old distinction between individual animal ethics and collectivist environmental ethics. Thirdly, ongoing urbanization and destruction of animal habitats leads to a blurring between the categories of wild and domesticated animals. Finally, globalization and global climate change have led to the fragmentation of natural habitats, blurring the old distinction between in situ and ex situ conservation. In this book, researchers at the cutting edge of their fields systematically examine the broad field of human-animal relations, dealing with wild, liminal, and domestic animals, with conservation, and zoos, and with technologies such as biomimicry. This book is timely in that it explores the new directions in which our thinking about the human-animal relationship are developing. While the target audience primarily consists of animal studies scholars, coming from a wide range of disciplines including philosophy, sociology, psychology, ethology, literature, and film studies, many of the topics that are discussed have relevance beyond a purely theoretical one; as such the book also aims to inspire for example biologists, conservationists, and zoo keepers to reflect on their relationship with animals.