I first encountered Janine Benyrus’ brilliant thinking when she wrote a book entitled Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature, that was full of stories about nature’s ideas to solve our toughest 21st-century problems. I remember being tremendously impressed by learning that it was possible to regrow the complexity of the prairie – something others have shown you can do with a jungle as well – because I had read many times that this was impossible.

“In these pages,” she wrote,”you’ll meet men and women who are exploring nature’s masterpieces–photosynthesis, self-assembly, natural selection, self-sustaining ecosystems, eyes and ears and skin and shells, talking neurons, natural medicines, and more–and then copying these designs and manufacturing processes to solve our own problems. I call their quest biomimicry–the conscious emulation of life’s genius. Innovation inspired by nature.”