This is Bert Note. For as long as humans have been solving problems, we've looked to the living

world for inspiration. We've even got a word for it.

Biomimicry is a term that comes from the Greek, bios meaning life, and mimesis meaning to imitate.

And so the idea is problem solving and innovation and design where we are

imitating what nature has already created. That's Billy Allman, a futurist and biomimicry expert,

who says that lots of modern inventions incorporate elements of biology, like airplanes.

That's an example of mimicry of form.

So the Wright brothers, they actually studied turkey vultures and the aerodynamics of their wings

as they were working on their first iterations of the airplane.

Nowadays, biomimicry is helping engineers design state-of-the-art technology,

like energy-efficient vehicles and climate-resilient architecture.

And Billy says there's still a lot more we can learn from nature, our first teacher.

I do believe that nature holds maybe not all solutions to all things, but I think a lot of what will be will be based on our continued understanding and exploration of the natural world.

Learn more about biomimicry in the latest season of Bring Birds Back,

available in your favorite podcast app,

and at our website, birdnote.org.

I'm Jazzy Johnson.