A cutting-edge science book in the style of ‘Fermat’s Last Theorem’ and ‘Chaos’ from an exciting and accessible new voice in popular science writing.
Bio-inspiration is a form of engineering but not in the conventional sense. Extending beyond our established and preconceived notions, scientists, architects and engineers are looking at imitating nature by manufacturing 'wet' materials such as spider silk or the surface of the gecko's foot.
The amazing power of the gecko's foot has long been known – it can climb a vertical glass wall and even walk upside down on the ceiling – but no ideas could be harnessed from it because its mechanism could not be seen with the power of optical microscopes. Recently however the secret was solved by a team of scientists in Oregon who established that the mechanism really is dry, and that it does not involve suction, capillary action or anything else the lay person might imagine. Each foot has half a million bristles and each bristle ramifies into hundreds of finer spatula-shaped projections. The fine scale of the gecko's foot is beyond the capacity of conventional microengineering, but a team of nanotechnologists have already made a good initial approximation.
The gecko's foot is just one of many examples of this new 'smart' science. We also discover, amongst other things, how George de Mestral's brush with the spiny fruits of the cocklebur inspired him to invent Velcro; how the shape of leaves opening from a bud has inspired the design of solar-powered satellites; and the parallels between cantilever bridges and the spines of large mammals such as the bison.
The new 'smart' science of Bio-inspiration is going to produce a plethora of products over the next decades that will transform our lives, and force us to look at the world in a completely new way. It is science we will be reading about in our papers very soon; it is the science of tomorrow's world.

The Gecko’s Foot: How Scientists are Taking a Leaf from Nature's Book

Science & Math

Forbes, Peter

Biological Sciences

Harper-perennial

A cutting-edge science book in the style of FERMAT'S LAST THEOREM and CHAOS from an exciting and accessible new voice in popular science writing. Bio-inspiration is the new engineering. Instead of - in its crudest terms - welding large piece of hard 'dry' right-angled metal together scientists, architects and engineers are looking at imitating (or mimicking) nature by manufacturing 'wet' materials such as spider silk or the surface of the gecko's foot. The amazing power of the gecko's foot has long been known - it can climb a vertical glass wall and even walk upside down on the ceiling - but nothing could be done with it because its mechanism was beyond the power of optical microscopes. Recently though the secret of the gecko's foot has been solved by a team of scientists in Portland, Oregon who have established that the mechanism really is dry, and that is does not involve suction, capillary action or anything else the lay person might imagine. Each foot has iGBP million bristles and each bristle ramifies into hundreds of finer spatula-shaped projections. The fine scale of the gecko's foot is beyond the capacity of conventional microengineering but a team of nanotechnologists have already made a good initial approximation. The gecko's foot is just one of many examples of this new 'smart' science. In Peter Forbes' accessible and engaging book we also discover, amongst other things, how George de Mestral's brush with the spiny fruits of the cocklebur inspired him to invent Velcro; how the shape of leaves opening from a bud has inspired the design of solar-powered satellites; how scientists are trying to mimic the self-cleaning leaves of the Scared Lotus plant to create the first self-cleaning pane of glass; and the parallels between cantilever bridges and the spines of large mammals such as the bison. The new 'smart' science of Bio-inspiration is going to produce a plethora of products over the next decades that will transform our lives, and force us to look at the world in a completely new way. It is science we will be reading about in our papers very soon; it is the science of tomorrow's world.

The Gecko's Foot : Bio-Inspiration - Engineering New Materials and Devices from Nature

Engineering & Transportation

Engineering

Fourth Estate Ltd.

Nature has perfected the art of deception. Thousands of creatures all over the world—including butterflies, moths, fish, birds, insects and snakes—have honed and practiced camouflage over hundreds of millions of years. Imitating other animals or their surroundings, nature’s fakers use mimicry to protect themselves, to attract and repel, to bluff and warn, to forage, and to hide. The advantages of mimicry are obvious—but how does “blind” nature do it? And how has humanity learned to profit from nature’s ploys?
Dazzled and Deceived tells the unique and fascinating story of mimicry and camouflage in science, art, warfare, and the natural world. Discovered in the 1850s by the young English naturalists Henry Walter Bates and Alfred Russel Wallace in the Amazonian rainforest, the phenomenon of mimicry was seized upon as the first independent validation of Darwin’s theory of natural selection. But mimicry and camouflage also created a huge impact outside the laboratory walls. Peter Forbes’s cultural history links mimicry and camouflage to art, literature, military tactics, and medical cures across the twentieth century, and charts its intricate involvement with the perennial dispute between evolution and creationism.
As Dazzled and Deceived unravels the concept of mimicry, Forbes introduces colorful stories and a dazzling cast of characters—Roosevelt, Picasso, Nabokov, Churchill, and Darwin himself, to name a few—whom its mystery influenced and enthralled. Illuminating and lively, Dazzled and Deceived sheds new light on the greatest quest: to understand the processes of life at its deepest level.

Dazzled and Deceived: Mimicry and Camouflage

Yale University Press

The remarkable story of how mimicry is used by some of the most extraordinary creatures in the world Nature has perfected the art of deception. Thousands of creatures all over the world—including butterflies, moths, fish, birds, insects and snakes—have honed and practiced camouflage over hundreds of millions of years. Imitating other animals or their surroundings, nature’s fakers use mimicry to protect themselves, to attract and repel, to bluff and warn, to forage, and to hide. The advantages of mimicry are obvious—but how does “blind” nature do it? And how has humanity learned to profit from nature’s ploys?
Dazzled and Deceived tells the unique and fascinating story of mimicry and camouflage in science, art, warfare, and the natural world. Discovered in the 1850s by the young English naturalists Henry Walter Bates and Alfred Russel Wallace in the Amazonian rainforest, the phenomenon of mimicry was seized upon as the first independent validation of Darwin’s theory of natural selection. But mimicry and camouflage also created a huge impact outside the laboratory walls. Peter Forbes’s cultural history links mimicry and camouflage to art, literature, military tactics, and medical cures across the twentieth century, and charts its intricate involvement with the perennial dispute between evolution and creationism.
As Dazzled and Deceived unravels the concept of mimicry, Forbes introduces colorful stories and a dazzling cast of characters—Roosevelt, Picasso, Nabokov, Churchill, and Darwin himself, to name a few—whom its mystery influenced and enthralled. Illuminating and lively, Dazzled and Deceived sheds new light on the greatest quest: to understand the processes of life at its deepest level.

About commitment and passion as much as marriage and wedding vows, ALL THE POEMS YOU NEED TO SAY I DO is a pocket-sized Cyrano de Bergerac for the romantically tongue-tied, a veritable dictionary of all the ways in which love can be announced. If you're in the first throes of new love, need to put a relationship to the test, or have reached the point of affirmation, you'll find a poem here beautifully fitted to the occasion. This is an ideal book when a speech -- whether public or private -- has to be made, an instant cure for love-letter writer's block, and the perfect companion on those lonely evenings when we need our strongest emotions put into words -- written by the greatest poets in the language.

All the Poems You Need to Say I Do

Literature & Fiction

Poetry

Picador

A riveting account of the unexpected relationship between nature and scientific design. "Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you." When Frank Lloyd Wright said this, he probably wasn't envisioning self-cleaning surfaces, the photonic crystal, or Velcro. But nature has indeed yielded such inventions for those scientists and engineers who heeded the architect's words. The cutting-edge science of bio-inspiration gives way to architectural and product designs that mimic intricate mechanisms found in nature. In Peter Forbes's engaging book we discover that the spiny fruits of the cocklebur inspired the hook-and-loop fastener known as Velcro; unfolding leaves, insect wings, and space solar panels share similar origami folding patterns; the self-cleaning leaves of the sacred lotus plant have spawned a new industry of self-cleaning surfaces; and cantilever bridges have much in common with bison spines. As we continue to study nature, bio-inspiration will transform our lives and force us to look at the world in a new way.

The Gecko's Foot: Bio-inspiration: Engineering New Materials from Nature

Reference

W.W.Norton&Company

Alta

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Thrillers & Suspense

Cyclosunshine

The Great Remembering is an activist's exploration of what land means to our culture. In three chapters, "The Extinction of Experience," "Dissent and Defiance," and "Building a New Commons," the author traces the roots of our disconnection from place and from meaningful stories about our lives. He discusses what he terms the "ethics of enough"--the growing trend to slow down and place the quality of our experiences over the quantity of our possessions. It is through preserving land and rebuilding the relationship between land and people, he argues, that our culture can not only restore natural habitats, but revitalize human communities as well. In his introduction to the book, the Trust for Public Land's president, Will Rogers, writes, "The time has come for some hard questions and new approaches to land conservation. . . the pace of development and the impact of often poorly conceived growth on the American landscape have accelerated. . . How can we rethink our work as conservationists to change how our society approaches not just land use, but also our relationship with each other, our sense of community, and our responsibilities of citizens of a rapidly shrinking world?" Whether we are conservationists or citizens concerned about the quality of our lives and landscapes, The Great Remembering helps us begin to answer these questions and to work toward restoring a vital, interdependent, whole-land community. Trust for Public Land's companion book, Our Land, Ourselves (1999), gathered together a diverse collection of readings on the many themes of people and place. Peter Forbes' introductions to those readings suggested a new way of viewing land conservation as the process of building values and shaping human lives. In The Great Remembering, he goes a step further, arguing that land conservation has the power to transform the heart and soul of our communities and to restore a set of values to a society that is increasingly fragmented and individualistic.

The Great Remembering: Further Thoughts on Land, Soul and Society

Business & Money

Economics

Trust for Public Land

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