Biomimicry

For those of you who have read my book, you know that I love gradients and that the world is full of them. I was reading Biomimicry, Innovation Inspired by Nature by Benyus when I came upon this comment by a materials scientist. Though he is speaking of specific materials, I find it interesting thinking about this in terms of the gentle gradients I see everywhere in the world.

“Even within a layer, a mixture of two or more materials could be used, allowing you to blend from one material to another in a gradient. A gradient of one material to another makes for a stronger joint and eliminates the need for glues or snaps. Nature uses blurred boundaries all the time, avoiding abrupt interfaces, which are crack prone and require some kind of fastening together,” says Calvert. “…[N]ature loathes fasteners-instead it blends gradients so that the fiber has no single vulnerable point.”