BioInspired! So What? Now What!

Ille Gebeshuber got interested in how we can address global challenges through the Alpbach Conference.  As shown by the work of the Millennium project, the top fifteen challenges are highly interconnected.  We need to combine our specialized/linear ways of thinking with the generalist/holistic Aristotelian approach that integrates knowledge across fields and cultures.  Ille has being running courses in the Indonesia rain forest helping students representing a broad range of disciplines to gain a deeper understanding of how things are connected in nature.  Her talk includes several examples of structural color, the slime mold life cycle, beetle-inspired robots and bio-mineralization of glass in water.