Plant Secrets in Science | Silvia Vignolini

Описание: There is an entire field called biomimetics that essentially deals with trying to extract design principles from nature and then apply them to solve technological problems.

About Silvia Vignolini
I am Director of the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam (Germany) and Professor of Chemistry and Bio-materials at the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge (UK). I am a 2019 Philip Leverhulme Prize Winner.
I work on light’s interaction with materials in order to understand how it produces optical effects. I study man-made materials that mimic natural structures. My research interest is located at the interface of chemistry, physics and biology.

Key Points
• Nature inspires innovation through multifunctional designs, offering sustainable models for material development, such as structural color derived from nano-architectures in plants.
• Interdisciplinary collaboration between physicists, biologists, chemists and engineers is essential to understanding and replicating complex natural systems in technological applications.
• True sustainability in material science is challenging, requiring not only low-impact lab practices but also systemic changes in industrial production, which are often constrained by cost.
• Humans are not separate from nature; recognizing our biological capabilities as part of natural engineering can reshape how we approach science and sustainability.

0:00 Introduction
0:25 Borrowing from nature
1:30 Biomimetics
3:07 Addressing new challenges
5:30 Manipulating light
7:10 Nature's fantastic engineering