Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
For many thousands of years, humans lived harmoniously with nature and migrated periodically
allowing for nature to recover from the damage to the specific habitat. As the human race advanced
its capability, efforts have increasingly been made to deviate from the process of evolution. We have
significantly extended our life, increased our survival rate, reduced our reproduction, and stopped
migrating to allow recovery of our habitats. Also, we are using significant amount of energy,
consuming oil at enormous levels, processing our food, polluting the environment with nondegrad-
able chemicals, changing the temperatures around us, affecting the weather (e.g., inducing rain),
blocking or diverting the path of rivers, bringing many species to extinction, destroying the ozone
layer, and doing so many other things that affect our environment in nonreversible ways. The
pollution that we have released into our environment has reached levels where every aspect of our
life has been impacted including the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. For
example, there are some fish that are not recommended for consumption because of the levels of toxic
chemicals in their system, including mercury, PCB, and others. In defiance of other organisms, we
often adapt our environments to suit ourselves and even change those constraints that are supposed to
make us adapt to the environment. Effectively, we are operating against the laws of biology and
pushing the limits of our existence. However, we are also increasingly becoming aware of these facts
and making greater efforts to live more in harmony with nature. There are examples now of our
efforts to ensure our own sustainability with many success stories. These include increased use of
biodegradable materials, making and operating mechanisms that consume energy more efficiently,
recycling our resources, and protecting the ozone layer from our pollution and chemicals.
Biomimetics can provide an important guide in our efforts to live harmoniously with nature
(Benyus, 1998). We can learn from plants how to use the Earth's pollution that is in the form of CO
2
to produce oxygen, which is also critical to human life. Also, plants pump water and minerals from
the ground to great heights and use these as resource for growth and also as a source of energy that is
completely Earth-friendly, that is, solar energy. Another example is nature's recycling of its
resources where plants are eaten by plant-eaters, which in turn are consumed by predators whose
bodies decompose to fertilize plants. The mimicking of this recycling process can be seen in
the recycling of trash to produce recycled materials as well as energy and it is one of the human
success stories.
20.8
PRESENT TECHNOLOGY, FUTURE POSSIBILITIES, AND POTENTIALS
The focus of this topic has been on the making of technologies that one can label ''artificial'' as
opposed to the ones that are known as ''natural''. Parallel to the efforts to mimic biology in
engineering and science terms, there are also efforts to create synthetic systems that include making
cells, tissues, and in future years, possibly organs. Although the latter is a form of mimicking nature
it is outside the scope of this topic.
Developing biomimetic mechanisms requires employing many disciplines, tools, and capabil-
ities. It involves materials, actuators, sensors, structures, control, and autonomous operations. As
described in this topic, mimicking nature has immensely expanded the collection of tools that are
available to us in performing tasks that were once considered science fiction. As technology
evolves, increasing numbers of biologically inspired mechanisms and functions that emulate the
capability of creatures and organisms are expected to emerge. The challenges to making such
biomimetic technologies that are copied or adapted depend on the complexity that is involved.
Many examples of biomimetic applications that are currently in use or expected to emerge in future
were described and discussed in this topic. Other examples may include marine vehicles that mimic
shark skin by having low friction surface in water or use antifreeze proteins found in some marine
creatures allowing them to sustain temperatures below freezing points.
One of the emerging areas of biomimetics is artificial muscles, a moniker for electroactive
polymers (EAP). It offers enormous potential for many areas of our life. The easy capability to
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