Architech - February 2009
One of the handful of places where biomimicry, applying nature's solutions to man's design challenges, is alive and well is at Georgia Tech University in Atlanta. In fact, in addition to a course on Bio-Inspired Design, researchers like Craig Tovey, a professor in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering and College of Computing, are involved in a number of such projects. Interestingly enough, Tovey's biomimicry claim to fame was figuring out how to apply the way bees scout out and strategically collect nectar to the design of an Internet server system that optimally adapts and responds to changes in user demand. "I had studied honey bee colony foraging for several years with colleagues, so, more than 10 years later, when a student described a web host problem, I saw the similarity," Tovey recalls. Read more>>>