The Shark's Paintbrush Quotes

“Leaves are also teaching scientists about more effective capture of wind energy. Wind energy offers great promise, but current turbines are most effective when they have very long blades (even a football field long). These massive structures are expensive, hard to build, and too often difficult to position near cities. Those same blades sweep past a turbine tower with a distinctive thwacking sound, so bothersome that it discourages people from having wind turbines in their neighborhoods. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also estimates that hundreds of thousands of birds and bats are killed each year by the rotating blades of conventional wind turbines. Instead, inspired by the way leaves on trees and bushes shake when wind passes through them, engineers at Cornell University have created vibro-wind. Their device harnesses wind energy through the motion of a panel of twenty-five foam blocks that vibrate in even a gentle breeze. Although real leaves don't generate electrical energy, they capture kinetic energy. Similarly, the motion of vibro-wind's "leaves" captures kinetic energy, which is used to excite piezoelectric cells that then emit electricity. A panel of vibro-wind leaves offers great potential for broadly distributed, low noise, low-cost energy generation.”
― Jay Harman, The Shark's Paintbrush: Biomimicry and How Nature is Inspiring Innovation

“Researchers at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China, Saga University in Japan, and the University of California, Davis, proposed creating an artificial inorganic leaf modeled on the real thing. They took a leaf of Anemone vitifolia, a plant native to China, and injected its veins with titanium dioxide-a well-known industrial photocatalyst. By taking on the precise branching shape and structure of the leaf's veins, the titanium dioxide produced much higher light-harvesting ability than if ti was used in a traditional configuration. The researchers found an astounding 800 percent increase in hydrogen production as well. The total performance was 300 percent more active than the world's best commercial photocatalysts. When they added platinum nanoparticles to the mix, it increased activity by a further 1,000 percent.”
― Jay Harman, The Shark's Paintbrush: Biomimicry and How Nature is Inspiring Innovation

“The herb ephedra has been used in China and India for five thousand years as a stimulant for cold and flu sufferers. Later known as Mormon tea, ephedra is now synthesized as pseudoephedrine and is found in many marketed cold remedies. (Unfortunately, it's also a key ingredient in the illicit manufacture of highly addictive and destructive methamphetamine.) Quinine, from the bark of the rain forest tree, Cinchona ledgeriana, is an effective preventive to malaria, one of the greatest killers of humanity, with up to one million deaths per year. The heart drug, dioxin, is synthesized from the foxglove flower. Aspirin's principle ingredients were recognized in willow bark by Hippocrates around 400 BCE. It was named and marketed by Bayer in 1899 and is still one of the biggest selling drugs in the world.”
― Jay Harman, The Shark's Paintbrush: Biomimicry and How Nature is Inspiring Innovation

“Our deeply troubled world can be reinvented through biomimicry. Nature's trillions of solutions throw open the door to far-reaching opportunities for building a better world; rescuing our ailing environment and atmosphere; and giving rise to a powerful, new, sustainable economy. To quote rock musician Tom Petty, "The future ain't what it used to be." No matter who you are, you can be a pioneer and leader in creating a new golden age on earth. A sweet twenty-first century and a third millennium are possible.

Imagine.

It's your life, your world, your opportunity, and your responsibility.

The possibilities are endless.”
― Jay Harman, The Shark's Paintbrush: Biomimicry and How Nature is Inspiring Innovation

“The greatest wealth and satisfaction of our desires lies not in clear-cutting forests, stripping the oceans, or spewing billions of tons of toxins into the atmosphere but within the forces of nature's wild movement and growth. Nature is the mother of all invention and many of humankind's greatest achievements have been made by copying nature. However, our copies have been rough. We haven't succeeded in mimicking nature's grace, efficiency-and most importantly-sustainability. We're coloring outside the lines and making a mess. Let's look again, using nature as our model as the earliest humans did, but aided by the tools of science.

With nature, it's never too late. Nature is a survivor. Nature never gives up. She heals all wounds. Nature pushes up tiny little blades of grass through city concrete and asphalt and overgrows Mayan cities. She keeps putting out billions of seeds, spores, and baby spiders, growing mountains, evolving new species. She is always creating. It's not just okay to feel optimistic, it's natural, and essential. Combining our human intelligence with optimism is the best way we can give back to our earth. Right now, across the globe, we humans, the products of nature, have the skills and the technology to solve just about any problem we're facing, without sacrifice-if the will is there. There is a way, if we allow ourselves to be guided by nature's optimism and nature's wisdom.

We can do it.”
― Jay Harman, The Shark's Paintbrush: Biomimicry and How Nature is Inspiring Innovation

“Nature is always showing us the best model," explains John. "Because of my training, I know that molecules can be stretched to do something that doesn't suit their fundamental structure, but they'll always strain to go back to where they were before. A biomimetic way of looking at them is more behavioral. Instead of forcing molecules to interact, I 'ask' molecules what their role should be by studying their fundamental structure. For example, some molecules have strong adhesive properties. If it wants to do that, let it be a paint molecule. The benefit is that in chemistry, molecular structure always impacts the manufacturing process, so if you go along with that-like a molecule that already 'knows how' to be a paint molecule-it's going to be a more facile manufacturing route and straightforward product development. We have to let go of ego and let the inherent properties of materials teach us what to do." I understand John's orientation. At PAX, we let fluids in motion show us how they prefer to flow, rather than starting from what an engineer's diagram wants them to do.”
― Jay Harman, The Shark's Paintbrush: Biomimicry and How Nature is Inspiring Innovation

“It's essential to do exhaustive due diligence and consult with specialized legal counsel before committing your technology to a VC contract. Interview management and staff at other companies in the VC firm's portfolio including some that failed. Research the history of how employees and other common stock holders fared as the companies grew. When in doubt, listen to your gut and speak up-and get any promises in writing.”
― Jay Harman, The Shark's Paintbrush: Biomimicry and How Nature is Inspiring Innovation

“There are around two million new businesses started each year in the United States. Fewer than one thousand receive VC funding (a chance of one in two thousand). Typically, fewer than one hundred of those portfolio companies will create really significant wealth (one in ten VC investments). These are steep odds, so venture capitalists have developed fierce survival strategies about how, and in what, they invest their funds. They seek as high a return on their investment as possible in as short a time as possible-hundreds of times their investment within three years, if they can get it. Remember that a VC firm typically sees one significant success out of ten start-up companies. Your start up company, if successful, must therefore make enough profit, and the VC must have enough ownership, to compensate the investment firm for their other nine failures. That puts a lot of pressure on you to deliver.”
― Jay Harman, The Shark's Paintbrush: Biomimicry and How Nature is Inspiring Innovation

“The shell of the scaly foot possesses a number of additional energy-dissipation features compared to typical mollusk shells that are primarily composed of calcium carbonate." The industrial opportunities already anticipated include superior helmets, protective armor, and new structural materials. Pyrites and gregite are also cheap being evaluated as an alternative to silicone for the creation of cheap, abundant solar cells.”
― Jay Harman, The Shark's Paintbrush: Biomimicry and How Nature is Inspiring Innovation

“I asked Brent if he had any tips for other aspiring entrepreneurs. "Do something that has significance," he replied, "something that makes a difference and that you have passion for. Second, successful entrepreneurs are the ones who follow through. As Winston Churchill said, 'Never, never, never, give up.' Third, don't set goals too high. Fourth, do it without raising lots of capital. Fifth, stay focused. Sixth, every quarter, make an operating plan, and stick to it.”
― Jay Harman, The Shark's Paintbrush: Biomimicry and How Nature is Inspiring Innovation

“The real issue, according to Brent, is a combination of cynicism and outright hostility from the status quo, which is quite typical with new paradigm-changing technologies, and the efficacy or otherwise of management, funders, and commercialization tactics. "The biggest obstacles we face in this world are doubt and greed," says Brent. "The world needs this technology. It's whether it happens now or in thirty years. It's just a matter of time before we're faithfully copying nature and creating benign cement.”
― Jay Harman, The Shark's Paintbrush: Biomimicry and How Nature is Inspiring Innovation

“Coral is built by trillions of tiny organisms called polyps that extract magnesium, calcium, and carbon from ocean water to build a community of skeletons. In a similar way, Calera, which Brent founded in 2007, creates cement by running carbon dioxide from flue gas from a nearby power plant through water containing calcium, magnesium, sodium, and chloride-such as seawater. This combination of chemicals and minerals also converts the carbon dioxide in the flue gas to related materials called carbonates, which are heavier and precipitate out of the salt water. After removing the water and drying, the product is ready for use as cement. In effect, the company makes chalk, and indeed, Calera's cement is bright white. As a side benefit, the source water has had its salt removed and can be purified to fresh water with only a few additional steps. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, rather than giving off carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, Calera's process absorbs half a ton of carbon dioxide for every ton of cement it produces.”
― Jay Harman, The Shark's Paintbrush: Biomimicry and How Nature is Inspiring Innovation

“There are four hundred billion tons of carbon dioxide in earth's atmosphere, with billions more added each year due to human activities-and burning fossil fuels is not the only major source of humans' contribution. The release of carbon dioxide in the process of cement making for concrete is a leading source, because one ton of traditionally produced cement generates at least one ton of carbon dioxide. As concrete is the most traded material in the world after water, cement production has become the third largest contributor of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, at three billion tons per year.”
― Jay Harman, The Shark's Paintbrush: Biomimicry and How Nature is Inspiring Innovation

“We clear-cut forests and destroy entire habitats to produce paper when superior, cheaper, and far less destructive bamboo alternatives are available.”
― Jay Harman, The Shark's Paintbrush: Biomimicry and How Nature is Inspiring Innovation

“A spoon with a Lotus Effect surface can be dipped into honey and come out totally clean-without a hint of stickiness. As just one example, perhaps we could reduce the need for high water use and environmentally damaging detergents in dishwashers by keeping our plates and utensils cleaner to begin with.”
― Jay Harman, The Shark's Paintbrush: Biomimicry and How Nature is Inspiring Innovation

“The lotus is one of the most commercially successful sources of inspiration for biomimetic products. Apart from their intoxicating, heavenly fragrance, lotus plants are a symbol of purity in some major religions. More than two thousand years ago, for example, the Bhagavad Gita, one of India's ancient sacred scriptures, referred to lotus leaves as self-cleaning, but it wasn't until the late 1960s that engineers with access to high-powered microscopes began to understand the mechanism underlying the lotus' dirt-free surface. German scientist Dr. Wilhelm Barthlott continued this research, finding microstructures on the surface of a lotus leaf that cause water droplets to bead up and roll away particles of mud or dirt. Like many biomimics, this insight came quickly, while its commercialization took many years more. The "Lotus Effect"-short for the superhydrophobic (water-repelling) quality of the lotus leaf's micro to nanostructured surface-has become the subject of more than one hundred related patents and is one of the premier examples of successfully commercialized biomimicry.”
― Jay Harman, The Shark's Paintbrush: Biomimicry and How Nature is Inspiring Innovation

“When I bumped into Dr. Daniel Bedo, a boyhood friend who I hadn't seen for many years, I learned that he had become one of the world's foremost authorities on the chromosomes of blackflies. He had spent his career studying them. I asked him how there could possible be enough happening in a bunch of microscopic chromosomes to keep him fascinated. His response: "When you enter the world of a single chromosome, it's like you walked through the door to an entirely new and unique universe. The lessons nature has to teach us are infinite.”
― Jay Harman, The Shark's Paintbrush: Biomimicry and How Nature is Inspiring Innovation

“No matter which species or phenomena you study, from the lowest, wriggling life-form to the soaring masters of the sky, from the curl of a bird's beak to the intricacies that enable a snake to fly, science is uncovering a vast array of solutions to challenging human problems. These can provide companies with unassailable competitive advantages and the profits that go with them.”
― Jay Harman, The Shark's Paintbrush: Biomimicry and How Nature is Inspiring Innovation

“In fact, a dolphin's whistles, pulses, and clicks, made by air sacs just below its blowhole, are among the loudest noised made by marine animals. A scientist at Penn State's Center for Information and Communications Technology Research has been analyzing these underwater messages not for meaning but for hints on how to make our wireless signals more effective. As the Ask Nature database describes, Dr. Mohsen Kavehrad uses "multirate, ultrashort laser pulses, or wavelets, that mimic dolphin chirps, to make optical wireless signals that can better penetrate fog, clouds, and other adverse weather conditions." The multiburst quality of dolphin sounds "increases the chances that a signal will get past obstacles" in the surrounding water. In the same way, Dr. Kavehrad's simulated dolphin chirps increase the odds of getting around such tiny obstacles as droplets of fog or rain. This strategy could expand the capability of optical bandwidth to carry even greater amounts of information. Such an application technology could optimize communication between aircraft and military vehicles, hospital wards, school campus buildings, emergency response teams, and citywide networks.”
― Jay Harman, The Shark's Paintbrush: Biomimicry and How Nature is Inspiring Innovation

“The human heart weighs ten ounces and pumps blood through sixty thousand miles of veins and arteries. The humpback whale's two-thousand-pound heart effectively pumps enough blood to fill a small swimming pool, through forty-five hundred times as many veins and arteries as humans-with as few as "three or four beats a minute" at times.”
― Jay Harman, The Shark's Paintbrush: Biomimicry and How Nature is Inspiring Innovation

“Stephen Dewar, vice president of operations, cofounded WhalePower with Frank Fish, Bill Bateman and Phil Watts. I've known Stephen for several years and have watched with interest the challenges faced by the company since it was incorporated. I recently asked him if he had advice for aspiring biomimicry entrepreneurs. His number one message: Have a clear vision of why you're taking on your project and where you want to go. Then, like nature, be flexible and adaptable. his staff even made T-shirts that quote one of his favorite sayings: "For every vision, there is an equal and opposite revision." Second: Do your homework. Be deeply interested in the science, so you can clearly differentiate what's not just a good biomimetic idea but one for which there is a strong market demand.”
― Jay Harman, The Shark's Paintbrush: Biomimicry and How Nature is Inspiring Innovation

“Biomimicry offers the opportunity to meet our resource needs and to reinvent almost every industry on earth. But as we all learned in school, an object at rest wants to stay at rest, and an object in motion doesn't like to stop or change direction. Like all engineers who must deal with those two fundamental laws of physics (as yet still proven), innovators must cope with this corollary to our survival instinct: resistance to change and the resulting inertia created by systems and institutions that are already in place. The trick is to find the path of least resistance. All it takes is for each of us to be willing to recognize our human nature and take ourselves in hand. We are voting every day by our action or our inaction, by what we buy and what we talk about. Whether by supporting biomimicry education in our schools, speaking up for a biomimetic project or practice in our businesses, showing up for a city council meeting on sustainability, or researching the products we buy, each of us can be a tremendously powerful force for positive change.”
― Jay Harman, The Shark's Paintbrush: Biomimicry and How Nature is Inspiring Innovation

“When we can say, in all humility, that we still don't know everything, and that there may be better ways of achieving our goals, we can look with fresh eyes and discover new and more relevant paradigms.”
― Jay Harman, The Shark's Paintbrush: Biomimicry and How Nature is Inspiring Innovation

“A new green economy can easily suffer from the same predatory form of capitalism that created the global economic meltdown. As Kenny Ausubel of Bioneers notes, "The world is suffering from the perverse incentives of 'unnatural capitalism.' When people say 'free market,' I ask if free is a verb. We don't ave a free market but a highly managed and often monopolized market. We used to have somewhat effective antitrust laws in the United States. Now we have banks and companies that are 'too big to fail,' but in truth are too big not to fail. The resulting extremes of concentration of wealth and political power are very bad for business and the economy (not to mention the environment, human rights, and democracy). One result is that small companies can't advance too far against the big players with their legions of lawyers and Capitol Hill lobbyists, when in truth it's small and medium-sized companies that provide the majority of jobs as well as innovation.”
― Jay Harman, The Shark's Paintbrush: Biomimicry and How Nature is Inspiring Innovation

“If indigenous peoples have a sense of "enough," what has happened with the rest of humanity? Many of us in the developed world have tamed and caged and bored ourselves. Like animals domesticated for use, we have become fat and unhealthy. With more than half of us living in urban areas, we've largely lost our connection to nature and the historic initiation rites that oriented us to our place in the cycle of life. Instead, we distract ourselves with everything from shopping to stimulants to video games.”
― Jay Harman, The Shark's Paintbrush: Biomimicry and How Nature is Inspiring Innovation

“A friend who lives in Micronesia told me that the inhabitants of one of the islands of Polynesia were given refrigerators by a group of visiting, well-intentioned missionaries. They had noticed that the locals, who were subsistence fishermen, had to fish every day because any excess catch spoiled in the tropical heat. The missionaries thought it would be a blessing if excess fish could be refrigerated, allowing the fishermen to put their attention to other wealth-generating activities. On a return visit a year later, the missionaries noticed that there was no trace of the refrigerators in the community. Their inquiries informed them that the elders had ordered all the equipment dumped in the ocean. The reason? Refrigerating excess fish meant that surplus was no longer given to the elderly or infirm, as had been their custom for a thousand years. It was unacceptable to the tribe that "progress" resulted in more wealth for some and hunger for others.”
― Jay Harman, The Shark's Paintbrush: Biomimicry and How Nature is Inspiring Innovation

“Unbridled desire-the more, more, more syndrome-shows up over and over in humans interacting with the material world. We all want more-more money, more security, more luxuries, a better car, a bigger house, new clothes, to be more famous, a better job, a better spouse, a better nose or boobs, to be more enlightened, or for the world to have more peace-or more sex, more power, more hair, better weather. Everyone wants something he or she doesn't have and goes to great lengths to get it. And when we've got it? We want something else. We alone, among all the millions of life-forms on earth, seem to spend virtually no time satisfied. This appears to be a defining characteristic of modern humanity-the incessant, seemingly obsessive, often illogical striving for more.”
― Jay Harman, The Shark's Paintbrush: Biomimicry and How Nature is Inspiring Innovation

“Of all the species on earth, we seem to be the only ones lacking an "enough" gene. In the wild, dogs, lions, cows, monkeys, apes, even mosquitoes and houseflies, eat until they are satisfied. They don't keep eating to obesity. Animals from squirrels to blue jays store food for winter-and some do store a little more than their needs. This might be seen as suboptimized evolution, as if they weren't evolved enough to remember where they'd hidden all their stores. However, the leftovers benefit other animals and move seeds to new growing sites. It's all part of a balanced ecosystem with zero waste.”
― Jay Harman, The Shark's Paintbrush: Biomimicry and How Nature is Inspiring Innovation

“As we'll see throughout this book, nature's problem-solving strategies offer immense opportunities for wealth creation in a new economy. Whether the shatter-resistant ceramics of an abalone shell, the superior drag resistance demonstrated by seaweeds, or the pure combustion of plant photosynthesis, impacted industries range from construction to transportation to medicine to software. Nature's paradigm does what human technology tries to do-and does it sustainably without stripping out the base resources that create wealth. So what's preventing us from more rapid adoption of bio-inspired design?”
― Jay Harman, The Shark's Paintbrush: Biomimicry and How Nature is Inspiring Innovation

“Dayna emphasized that the main challenge for companies deciding whether to adopt biomimetic solutions hinges on value generation. Profit is usually the only metric that is used, and while she recognizes the tremendous potential for profit offered by biomimicry, she stressed that there are also highly valuable, albeit less easily measured, benefits for companies that adopt biomimicry into their practices. Employees see real purpose and personal mission in their work. It creates passion, loyalty, creativity, and team building. Biomimetic product development starts from a nontoxic, nonharmful stance. Rather than designing for end effect and then compensating for toxicity and waste management, it also saves adopters considerable money on increasingly arduous and expensive environmental regulations-and future remediation liability.”
― Jay Harman, The Shark's Paintbrush: Biomimicry and How Nature is Inspiring Innovation