Biomimetics in Engineering - Learn from Nature

This comes courtesy of Stephanie Y.:

This remains to be one of my favorite Ted Talks. It presents the concept of integrating solutions to world problems from nature in to present day building and engineering techniques. One example of this concept of biomickery was derived from the nubian beattle. Its shell is hydrophillic, meaning that it attracts water, and due to this property, the beattle is allowed to attract gaseous water in the air to its shell at night and from drinkable water. This technique can be applied to desert buildings in order to "cultivate" water from desert areas.