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Choose a living design. Follow it from organism to mechanism to human possibility.

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The Kingfisher and the Bullet Train MOTION · TWB-BP-0001

The Kingfisher and the Bullet Train

How a small blue bird taught Japan's fastest train to stop firing a cannon

 The Termite Mound and the Building That Breathes EXCHANGE · TWB-BP-0002

The Termite Mound and the Building That Breathes

How an office block in Zimbabwe stays comfortable with almost no air-conditioning - and why the famous version of the story is half wrong

 The Burr That Taught Us How to Look INTERFACE · TWB-BP-0003

The Burr That Taught Us How to Look

A weed stuck to a sock became a fastener you touched today - but the real invention was a repeatable way of reading nature's finished designs

 The Lizard That Didn't Give Us Ozempic CHEMISTRY & MEDICINE · TWB-BP-0004

The Lizard That Didn't Give Us Ozempic

A desert reptile's venom carried a molecule that lasts for hours instead of minutes - and the real story is better than the myth

 The Fist That Never Breaks STRUCTURE · TWB-BP-0005

The Fist That Never Breaks

A finger-length shrimp throws one of the fastest strikes in nature, thousands of times, without shattering its own club - and the secret is a shape hidden inside the material

 The Colony With No Boss SYSTEM · TWB-BP-0006

The Colony With No Boss

No ant is in charge, none can see the whole map, yet the colony reliably finds the shortest path - and the same idea now helps route network traffic and delivery trucks

 The Silk We Still Can't Spin STRUCTURE · TWB-BP-0009

The Silk We Still Can't Spin

Spider silk is tougher than steel for its weight, we've known how to make the protein for years - and a string of well-funded companies still failed to turn it into thread. The lesson is about which half you copy.

 The Glue That Works Underwater INTERFACE · TWB-BP-0010

The Glue That Works Underwater

Almost every glue fails the moment things get wet - water sneaks between the glue and the surface. A mussel solved underwater sticking with one clever chemical trick, and it now coats medical implants and helps seal wounds.

 The Surface That Makes Flow Behave INTERFACE · TWB-BP-0011

The Surface That Makes Flow Behave

A shortfin mako shark does not wear a smooth wetsuit. Its skin is a field of tiny, directional teeth - and the lesson is not “make it rough,” but make texture answer to the flow.

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