Your taxonomy is very good, and as such is very inspiring, lucid and inviting across sectors and disciplines. Has anyone begun to build the crosswalk to green chemistry? Here are the 12 principles. Perhaps they should be preceeded with the question, "How does nature accomplish....?" Also one could spend some time challenging these principles against natural models, adding conditions for shades of grey.

1. Prevention: It is better to prevent waste than to treat or clean up waste after it has been created.
2. Atom Economy: Synthetic methods should be designed to maximize the incorporation of all
materials used in the process into the final product.
3. Less Hazardous Chemical Syntheses: Wherever practicable, synthetic methods should be
designed to use and generate substances that possess little or no toxicity to human health and the
environment.
4. Design Safer Chemicals: Chemical products should be designed to affect their desired function
while minimizing their toxicity.
5. Safer Solvents and Auxiliaries: The use of auxiliary substances--solvents, separation agents,
and others--should be made unnecessary wherever possible and innocuous when used.
6. Design for Energy Efficiency: Energy requirements of chemical processes should be
recognized for their environmental and economic impacts and should be minimized. If possible,
synthetic methods should be conducted at ambient temperature and pressure.
7. Use Renewable Feedstocks: A raw material or feedstock should be renewable rather than
depleting whenever technically and economically practicable.
8. Reduce Derivatives: Unnecessary derivatization--use of blocking groups,
protection/deprotection, and temporary modification of physical/chemical processes--should be
minimized or avoided if possible, because such steps require additional reagents and can generate
waste.
9. Catalysis: Catalytic reagents (as selective as possible) are superior to stoichiometric reagents.
10. Design for Degradation: Chemical products should be designed so that at the end of their
function they break down into innocuous degradation products and do not persist in the
environment.
11.Real-Time Analysis for Pollution Prevention: Analytical methodologies need to be further
developed to allow for real-time, in-process monitoring and control prior to the formation of
hazardous substances.
12. Inherently Safer Chemistry for Accident Prevention: Substances and the form of a
substance used in a chemical process should be chosen to minimize the potential for chemical
accidents, including releases, explosions, and fires.

Hi Mark et al,

I am not sure "living chemistry" is the same as "green chemistry", and know many toxins exist in nature that should not be taken out of context. I think asking nature is a query, to be informed by such things as safety, end of life performance, etc. The match may not be perfect, and should be informed by some green chemistry, toxicological, logistical, etc. concepts.

Also, aren't there chemical challenges throughout the taxonomy -- from storage to sensing? This is not to suggest enlarging the taxonomy, just many opportunities to bridge to other disciplines such as green chemistry. Interdisciplinarity is messy and risks losing the wholistic perspective nature offers, but systems analysis and communication benefit from pathways and guidance.

Janet

Hi. Sorry to ask something irrelevant to this particular topic but i was denied access to create a new topic. >"<

I'm an Architecture student and is doing my Master thesis on Biomimicry as a potential approach to sustainable architecture. I propose my design to be a chimera of strategies/ideas from different organisms but have been having difficulty finding the acutal organisms as models, which is largely due to the climate in which my design is to be sited. It is the tropical climate, where the environment has 4 main characteristics: high temperature, high humidity, high rainfall and high amounts of sunlight. Are there any tropical organisms whose "form-follows-function" strategy i can learn from?

As i went deeper into my research, i began to realise that it is easier to find models from extreme environments like deserts than from tropical environment because the organisms' adaptations in extreme environments are so pronounced. Take for instance the polar bear. Its hollow fur, dark skin and low surface area to volume ratio can easily be translated into architecture. Unfortunately the tropical climate is almost like a haven to the organisms. The organisms get all the sun they need, all the water they need and all the shade they need. Therefore, their physical adaptions may not be that obvious.

I'm currently using the cactus as the model to tackle the high tempearture issue, the Namib beetle as the model for the high humidity issue and perhap the Venus flower basket as the model to address the high amounts of sunlight. But i feel that it could perhaps be more meaningful if i can find tropical organisms as my models since the design will be in the tropics. Any suggestions?=]