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"It’s a technicolour dreamcoat for your crisp packet – a strong, flame-retardant and airtight new material that mimics mother of pearl. The natural version, also called nacre, is found on the inner shell of some molluscs, where it is built up of layers of the mineral aragonite separated by organic polymers such as chitin. It is remarkably strong, without being brittle or dense. We would like to use nacre and similar materials as a protective coating in many situations." 
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"Sharks have tough skin that is worthy of biomimicry by nanotechnology designers and engineers. New coatings, textiles and other technologies that mimic the special biological properties of shark skin have been developed in recent years and many more such innovations are emerging across multiple industries."
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From
phys
"Butterfly wings can do remarkable things with light, and humans are still trying to learn from them. Physicists have now uncovered how subtle differences in the tiny crystals of butterfly wings create stunningly varied patterns of color even among closely related species. The discovery, reported today in the Optical Society's (OSA) open-access journal Optical Materials Express, could lead to new coatings for manufactured materials that could change color by design, if researchers can figure out how to replicate the wings' light-manipulating properties."
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The unusually shaped hairs on the leaves of this floating weed is the foundation for a high-tech waterproof material.
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"From a whale shark keeping unwanted freeloaders off its skin to water droplets rolling off a duck’s feathers, nature has many ingenious ways of keeping surfaces clean. The science of biomimicry, or biomimetics, seeks to harness nature’s cleverest capabilities which have taken aeons to evolve. Scientists at AkzoNobel, a global paints and coatings company, are using principles derived from nature to develop coatings that protect surfaces such as the hulls of cargo ships. And other heavy industries such as rail are experimenting with biomimicry."
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"Harvard scientists say that they've managed to replicate one of the most fascinating organs of the animal kingdom in a lab. Their finely-detailed synthetic shark skin could make some of the fastest underwater robots around, and maybe even one day grace human wetsuits or the hulls of ships."
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"For a long time, scientists have been fascinated by the dramatic changes in color used by marine creatures like squids and octopuses, but they never quite understood the mechanism responsible for this. Only recently they found out that a neurotransmitter, acetylcholine, sets in motion a cascade of events that culminate in the addition of phosphate groups to a family of unique proteins called reflectins. This process allows the proteins to condense, driving the animal's color-changing process. The latest findings revealed that there is a nanoscale mechanism behind cephalopods' ability to change color."
Ruth Obadia's curator insight,
August 13, 2013 6:40 AM
Watch this amazing video of a camouflaging octopus
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The leaves of carnivorous plants could hold the key to repelling ice from pipes and keeping them cleared.
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