A rally cry for biomimicry

I am a huge fan of Bill Bryson. I just finished reading “The Body: A Guide for Occupants”. The book illustrates how miraculous, wondrous, special and mysterious our bodies are. We are not cheap. The full cost of building a new human being, using the obliging Benedict Cumberbatch as a template, would be £96,546.79. Where carbon, calcium, phosphorus and potassium would be the biggest outlays. That excludes VAT.

How our body works is amazing

Most of the best technology on Earth is right here inside us. And everybody takes it almost completely for granted. For example:

• You blink fourteen thousand times a day — so many that your eyes are shut for twenty-three minutes of every waking day.
• Every second of every day, your body undertakes a literally unquantifiable number of tasks(a vigintillion) without requiring an instant of your attention.
• We make between 4,100 to 10,000 facial expressions per day.
• Your ear is filled with 2,700 delicate hair-like filaments called stereocilia, which wave like ocean grasses as sound…