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In 1948, Swiss chemist George de Mestral was impressed with the clinging power of burrs snagged in his dog’s fur and on his pant legs after he returned from a hike. While examining the burrs under a(5) microscope, he observed many hundreds of small fibers that grabbed like hooks. He experimented with replicas of the burrs and eventually invented Velcro,® a synthetic clinging fabric that was first marketed as “the zipperless zipper.” In the 1960s,(10) NASA used de Mestral’s invention on space suits, and now, of course, we see it everywhere. You might say that de Mestral was the father of biomimicry, an increasingly essential field that stud- ies nature, looking for efficiencies in materials and(15) systems, and asks the question “How can our homes, our electronics, and our cities work better?” As one biomimetics company puts it: “Nature is the largest laboratory that ever existed and ever will.” Architecture is one field that is constantly(20) exploring new ways to incorporate biomimicry. Architects have studied everything from beehives to beaver dams to learn how to best use materials, geometry, and physics in buildings. Termite mounds, for example, very efficiently regulate temperature,(25) humidity, and airflow, so architects in Zimbabwe are working to apply what they’ve learned from termite mounds to human-made structures. Says Michael Pawlyn, author ofBiomimicry in Architecture, “If you look beyond the nice shapes(30) in nature and understand the principles behind them, you can find some adaptations that can lead to new, innovative solutions that are radically more resource-efficient. It’s the direction we need to take in the coming decades.”(35) Designers in various professional fields are draw- ing on biomimicry; for example, in optics, scientists have examined the surface of insect eyes in hopes of reducing glare on handheld device screens. Engi- neers in the field of robotics worked to replicate the(40) property found in a gecko’s feet that allows adhesion to smooth surfaces. Sometimes what scientists learn from nature isn’t more advanced, but simpler. The abalone shrimp, for example, makes its shell out of calcium carbonate,(45) the same material as soft chalk. It’s not a rare or complex substance, but the unique arrangement of the material in the abalone’s shell makes it extremely tough. The walls of the shell contain microscopic pieces of calcium carbonate stacked like bricks,(50) which are bound together using proteins just as concrete mortar is used. The result is a shell three thousand times harder than chalk and as tough as Kevlar® (the material used in bullet-proof vests). Often it is necessary to look at the nanoscale(55) structures of a living material’s exceptional properties in order to re-create it synthetically. Andrew Parker, an evolutionary biologist, looked at the skin of the thorny devil (a type of lizard) under a scanning elec- tron microscope, in search of the features that let the(60) animal channel water from its back to its mouth. Examples like this from the animal world abound. Scientists have learned that colorful birds don’t always have pigment in their wings but are some- times completely brown; it’s the layers of keratin(65) in their wings that produce color. Different colors, which have varying wavelengths, reflect differently through keratin. The discovery of this phenomenon can be put to use in creating paints and cosmetics that won’t fade or chip. At the same time, paint for(70) outdoor surfaces can be made tougher by copying the structures found in antler bone. Hearing aids are being designed to capture sound as well as the ears of theOrmiafly do. And why can’t we have a self-healing material like our own skin? Researchers(75) at the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois are creating just that; they call it an “autonomic materials system.” A raptor’s feathers, a whale’s fluke, a mosquito’s proboscis—all have functional features we can learn from.(80) The driving force behind these innovations, aside from improved performance, is often improved energy efficiency. In a world where nonrenew- able energy resources are dwindling and carbon emissions threaten the planet’s health, efficiency has(85) never been more important. Pawlyn agrees: “For me, biomimicry is one of the best sources of inno- vation to get to a world of zero waste because those are the rules under which biological life has had to exist.”(90) Biomimicry is a radical field and one whose prac- titioners need to be radically optimistic, as Pawlyn is when he says, “We could use natural products such as cellulose, or even harvest carbon from the atmosphere to create bio-rock.”
Based on the information in paragraph 6, how does the shell of an abalone shrimp compare with soft chalk?
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