Jay Harman - The Sharks Paintbrush

Praise forTHE SHARKS PAINTBRUSH

Jay Harman is a principled inventor who sees solutions everywhere he looks in the natural world. He moves with grace from a world of waving sea kelp to the world of sustainable design, bringing natures wisdom into the boardrooms of global companies, to the design tables of the engineers and designers who make our world. This is more than a business book, more than a memoir, more than a new way to solve global challenges. Its a book about a new way to think.

Janine Benyus, author of Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature
and founder of Biomimicry 3.8

Imagine Indiana Jones, Huckleberry Finn, and Erasmus Darwin rolled into one person, and you will have some sense of what it is like to roam and see the world through Jay Harmans biomimetic eyes. The Sharks Paintbrush is a memo of kindness from the living world in a time of crisis and doubt: life in all its intricacy offers untold possibilities for the transformation of civilization.

Paul Hawken, author of Blessed Unrest

When scientists and engineers mimic nature, more efficient designs for windmills and fuel efficient vehicles are the result, Many of these breakthroughs are counterintuitive. Essential reading!

Temple Grandin, author of Thinking in Physics and Animals in Translation

The Sharks Paintbrush reveals how nature is inspiring design to be more efficient, effective, resilient, and beautiful. In Natures 3.8 billion years of design experience, the roughly 99% of designs that didnt work got recalled by the Manufacturer. The 1% that survived can teach profound lessons about how things should be made, how they work, and how they fit. The Sharks Paintbrush is a masterly field guide for all designers and entrepreneurs who aspire to help the world of the made work like, and live harmoniously with, the world of the born.

Amory B. Lovins, Chairman and Chief Scientist, Rocky Mountain Institute

In this brilliant and hopeful book, Jay Harman shows us how far the new field of Biomimicry has already progressed

The Sharks Paintbrush makes for fascinating and joyful reading.

Fritjof Capra, author of The Tao of Physics and the Hidden Connections

This book filled my heart with joy. Equal parts adventure story for entrepreneurs, savvy management and business oracle, and romance novel with nature, The Sharks Paintbrush is a page-turner. For social entrepreneurs, biologists, designers, engineers or any innovators seeking encouragement and inspiration to follow a passionately-held, seemingly far-fetched dream, this book will help to reassure you that its all (anythings) possible if you are willing to persevere, spiral like seaweed, and curl into the wind like oak leaves.

Nina Simons, co-founder, Bioneers

Mind-boggling Readers will see another side to nature and grapple with concepts that seem overwhelmingly complex yet conceivable. Harmans knack for storytelling and ability to simplify these complex processes speak to his gift for gab. Few books successfully combine the wonders of nature with sound business sense, but Harman manages to do exactly that here. Simply put, The Sharks Paintbrush is a reverent tribute to the Mother Nature and a call for more copycat inventors equally enthusiastic and perplexed by the world around them.

Vox Magazine

Overall, this is a tour-de-force combination that includes memoir, a broad overview of biomimicry, a detailed review of spiral geometry and its applications, views on creating and running a transformative business, and practical advice on using biology to build an effective organization. [We] recommend this book to anyone interested in biomimicry.

Zygote Quarterly

The worlds most elegant engineer is without a doubt Mother Nature. Shes efficient, creative, and has time on her hands to put her innovations to the test, and Harman thinks we can learn a lot from watching her work His vision of a biomimetic new global economy is timely, crucial, and thrillingly eye-opening.

Publishers Weekly

BIOMIMICRY
AND HOW
NATURE
IS INSPIRING
INNOVATION

JAY HARMAN

First published in the UK and Australia by
Nicholas Brealey Publishing in 2013

www.nicholasbrealey.com
www.jayharman.com

Jay Harman 2013
The right of Jay Harman to be identified as the author of
this work has been asserted in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Hardback ISBN: 978-1-85788-605-4
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-85788-606-1
eISBN: 978-1-85788-931-4

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording and/or otherwise without the prior
written permission of the publishers. This book may not be lent, resold, hired
out or otherwise disposed of by way of trade in any form, binding or cover
other than that in which it is published, without the prior consent of the
publishers.

Printed in Finland by WS Bookwell.

To the shareholders and staff of PAX, who took the risk of supporting a new paradigm and whose generosity, trust, patience, and hard work brought it to life; and especially to Marion Webera true angel.

THE SHARKS PAINTBRUSH

Why does the bumblebee have better aerodynamics than a 747?

How can a seashell keep a microchip from overheating?

How can the colors of a butterflys wing reduce the worlds lighting energy bill by 80 percent?

How can fleas knees and bees shoulders help scientists formulate a near-perfect rubber?

How will the answers to these and similar questions forever change our lives?

Most young ladies sunning by the pool or beach probably arent thinking about a hippopotamus, let alone its perspiration. However, it turns out that hippo sweat provides a highly effective, four-in-one sunblock. We humans perspire by allowing salt water to leave our pores, using the physics of evaporation to cool the skin. Hipposlong-lost cousins of whales and dolphinssolve more than just a cooling problem by secreting a blend of chemicals that takes care of many challenges simultaneously. Besides being an excellent, nontoxic sunscreen (though perhaps a little aromatic in its natural form), hippo sweat is also antiseptic, insect repelling, and antifungal.

Researchers at Kyoto Pharmaceutical University and the University of Trieste, as well as Dr. Christopher Viney and his materials engineering team at the University of California, Merced, have studied the rust-colored combination of mucus and chemicals secreted by hippos. They found two pigments that absorb light across the ultraviolet-visible range, with crystalline structures that ensure the material spreads over the entire skin without the need for being rubbed on by hand (a challenge for a hippo). The pigments turn white skin a shade darker, while simultaneously slowing the rate of bacteria growth.