Biomimetics: where mocking at nature is sometimes good

For the 2008 Beijing Olympics, China is getting a bit fancy with the swimming center, using an innovative method of construction for the external surface.
You'd have to be an architect or very bored to find this of any interest. But I see this as an influence of biotechnology and more specifically 'biomimetics' where scientists realised that most of natures shapes are the most functional in their environments and have begun to 'mimic' them for their designs.
Thin films of soapy water automatically take the shape of a round bubble(as opposed to a square shaped bubble) because that is the most stable shape possible for intermolecular forces. I guess this could also be the same for crystal lattices.

The skin itself is made from a transparent mutant of teflon which is the same substance used to protect important people from bullets and your omlette from getting too jiggy with your frying pan.

"Using steel and a fluorocarbon-based polymer instead of soap. When it's finished, in time for the 2008 Olympics, the 337,000-square-foot Watercube (as the locals call it) will have an airy, almost transparent frame, and it'll use less raw material than if it were built with a traditional skeleton. The look, more foam than dome, is the result of innovative construction: four edges, three faces, and three intersecting nodes repeated 40,000 times."

For architects and people just bored, check out the article and more cool pics here.

Some other sweet examples of biomimetics are:

1) The mercedes benz high fuel efficiency concept vehicle:
This fish is supposed to have the most aerodynamic shape on the planet.
Based on the body shape of a boxfish, a common cube-shaped fish found in tropical marine habitats. The bionic car will offer 20 percent lower fuel consumption and up to 80 percent lower nitrogen oxide emissions according to a release from DaimlerChrysler.



2)Velcro resulted in 1948 from a Swiss engineer, George de Mestral, noticing how the hooks of the plant burrs stuck in the fur of his dog.













3) Scientists at the University of Leeds in Great Britain are studying the "jet-based defese mechanism" of the bombardier beetle to see if the insect can help them learn how to re-ignite a gas-turbine aircraft engine in mid-flight. The bombardier beetle is capable of spraying would-be predators with a high-pressure stream of boiling liquid.









4)A research team at Bell Labs has found that tropical deep-sea sponge, Euplectella or Venus's Flower Basket, builds remarkably strong structures from extremely fragile materials, according to a press release from Lucent Technologies. This discovery led to unique insights in the production of commercial fiber optic strands. The same team also looked to the visual systems of brittlestars -- sea creatures related to starfish and sea urchins -- for inspiration to improve lens design.




"Nature works for maximum achievement at minimum effort". Reminds me of my preparation for exams.