Just started a blog about graphic design + biomimicry: http://designmomentum.wordpress.com/

Would love to hear any thoughts on some of the topics in the blog!

the shape of bones in nature is more to do with a combination of a) saving building materials plus b) load spread at pin jointed nodes (at hips, knees, elbows etc). The tapered shape saves materials so long bone element lighter but strong enough. The bigger ends are to reduce stresses on cartlidge at load transfer point (pin jointed node). Muscles and tendons both promote and restrict mobility. The tapered shape of the "bone" columns in the building structure proposed are for a structural form with fixed end moments at nodes i.e. shape required is to safely resist moments to limit building deflections and sway. Similar shapes but for different reasons. Animals need to be flexible but buildings/structures with brittle finishes need to be stiffer!

Interest in Algorithm

This article casts doubt on the hydraulics idea at least for the species Ancylometes concolor: http://jeb.biologists.org/content/215/4/iii.short?rss=1

Planet Victory , One Site To Save the World

I'm scrambling a developers community to crowd source a single hub suite that combines open source, social networking, solutions vetting, gamification and crowd funding to expedite the resolution of all sociological and ecological issues in the world today.

Please inquire at info@planetvictory.com

Planet Victory , One Site To Save the World

I'm scrambling a developers community to crowd source a single hub suite that combines open source, social networking, solutions vetting, gamification and crowd funding to expedite the resolution of all sociological and ecological issues in the world today.

Please inquire at info@planetvictory.com

Planet Victory , One Site To Save the World

I'm scrambling a developers community to crowd source a single hub suite that combines open source, social networking, solutions vetting, gamification and crowd funding to expedite the resolution of all sociological and ecological issues in the world today.

Please inquire at info@planetvictory.com

Dear Friends,

I'd like to comunicate our experience in this interesnting field of knowledge. Our main goal was at first, only "learn to learn" from Nature. For this, what first we done was study a local specie that lives in "La Albufera" in Valencia (Spain), and of course in USA, to see if it was possible take "a book from the biggest library in the world" (one specie from Nature).

Our modus operandi was: select a problem, take a target specie, study morphologies, simplify, extract solutions, and... serendipity.

Our first problem was that we did'nt know how to take data without damaging the animals. The problem was solved with the information thanks to the Texas University and Mr T. Rowe, in the interesting page of Digimorph.org, were there are amounts of MRI that can be used by permision and for research pursuits. After that, we had a 3D image of the flamingo's head, but no knowledge about how did this extraordinary things with its beak.

After that, we needed the asistance of biologists, and specialists who explained us the extrange way that the flamingo take its nutrients from water, and skulls and prototipes to understanding how water moves into beak. We thought about emulating this beak for variate pursuits (like mining, construction, etc). It was this way that "serendipity" taked its part. We return reading Janine's wonderful work, tryied to find solutions in Pettigrew's books, but it was very difficult to emulate. We needed to "simplify"

There come to us another gift: the "herodontus portjatsoni" egg. It's a very interesting morphology that has the egg added to the helix. After that, another living morphologies come to our help (mammals heart, jellyfish, etc.), and we tryied to understand the "mathematics of life" through the Lawrence Edwards book "the vortex of life".

We did several prototipes, but no one of they were efficient. On the way, we were learning how to use this big "library", but we had the solution in our noses and we were blind: the flamingo gived us an interesting "turbine", that has one interesting characteristic: rotates in the same direction independent that water direction. Its only an idealitization of flamingo's beak, but it works. We gone to the Politechnical University of Valencia, and a PhD in Ingenierring said us that the "fireproof" was "to confront two inversed water flows".

We done, and it works.

What's the purpose of this? Wave energy. All technologies are based on convert sinusoidal movement to rotational one, but the flamingo's beak is always doing this only due to the "morphologies power" and only in one movement. Now we have prototipes, and soon we'll going to have our web page, trying to profit this great amount of energy that is the sea wave power.

The most important of that is that our inspiration come through mixing engineering with a very great respecto for Nature, and of course to the briliant talks and books of Janine M. Benyus.

Thank you for catching that. I've added the full abstract and changed the title and summary sentence.

Perennial grain cropping is an application of permaculture principles, but does not represent the totality of permaculture design. The way this article is worded suggests that permaculture is limited to agriculture, when in fact it, like biomimicry, is a method of inquiry and a design methodology that can be used for solving a myriad of challenges.