Biomimicry

I am a true believer in the benefits of ‘biomimicy’. Biomimicry is the practice of overcoming obstacles by looking for ways in which nature overcomes them. For example, psychologists are learning how to treat depression by studying the traits of people who are resistant to depression ..computer scientists are developing speech recognition systems by studying the way people communicate in real life. I used to advise all second year psychology and computer science students to take at least one course in ‘naturalistic observation’. I’m reading today’s LA Times where researchers in the field of medicine say that biomimicry may be the only way they have left to fight life-threatening diseases like cancer and AIDS. The AIDS virus is a changeling ..it mutates so fast that doctors have a hard time developing drugs fast enough to recognize them. Vaccines don't work because antibodies can’t see them either. They’ve got sort of like a Star Wars shield protecting them. However, we are beginning to see that not everybody who gets the infection suffers from the disease. It turns out that the best chance we have of fighting AIDS is by looking for naturally occurring substances in the body that give these people built-in immunity.