A He even draws inspiration from nature’s past: on the eye of a 45-million-year-old fly trapped in amber, Parker noticed microscopic corrugations that reduced light reflection. This feature is now being built into solar panels.
B Glowworms produce a cool light with almost zero energy loss, while a normal light bulb wastes 98 percent of its energy as heat.
C The abalone makes its shell out of calcium carbonate, the same stuff as soft chalk. Yet by coaxing this substance into walls of staggered, nanoscale bricks through a subtle play of proteins, it creates an armor 3,000 times harder than chalk.
D Potentially one of the most useful embodiments of natural design is the bio-inspired robot, which could be deployed in places where people would be too conspicuous, bored to tears, or killed.
E For all the power of the biomimetics paradigm, and the brilliant people who practise it, bio-inspiration has led to surprisingly few mass-produced products.
Questions
1. how an organism turns a basic material into something incredibly strong
2. a claim that biomimetics has had limited commercial impact so far
3. an example of nature being far more efficient than a common household object
4. an ancient specimen that inspired a modern innovation
5. situations where it is preferable to replace a human with a machine