Nature has spent hundreds of millions of years optimizing solutions
For hundreds of millions of years, the natural world has been quietly solving problems that human civilization is only beginning to face. In 2022, a generation of scientists chose to listen — finding in okra, cow mucus, fireflies, ants, and squid skin not curiosities, but blueprints. Their work is a reminder that even as we lose species to climate and expansion, the wisdom encoded in living things may yet outlast our neglect of them.
- Nature is vanishing faster than we can study it, yet the organisms disappearing around us carry solutions to some of medicine and engineering's most stubborn problems.
- A vegetable slime, a cow's saliva, a firefly's glow, an ant's nose, and a squid's skin each became the unlikely starting point for technologies that could change how we heal wounds, fight infection, build robots, detect cancer, and preserve heat.
- Most of these breakthroughs remain in early or laboratory stages — human trials, peer review, and real-world deployment are still ahead, and researchers are careful to temper excitement with caution.
- The underlying momentum is unmistakable: biomimicry is compressing decades of trial-and-error into rapid, cost-effective discovery, and 2022 offered a concentrated glimpse of what that acceleration looks like in practice.
The natural world is vanishing — and yet, even as species disappear, they are leaving behind something extraordinary: answers to problems that have resisted human ingenuity for generations. In 2022, a series of research teams turned that inheritance into tangible innovation.
At Canada's University of Manitoba, Malcolm Xing ran okra through a juicer, dried it into powder, and produced a bioadhesive capable of sealing wounds in animal hearts and livers without a single stitch. The material triggers the body's own clotting response and is fully biodegradable. Human trials are on the horizon. Meanwhile, scientists in Sweden extracted mucus from cow salivary glands and transformed it into a gel that may constrain the spread of certain sexually transmitted infections — exploiting the same dual solid-liquid nature that makes mucus so effective in living bodies. The work is preliminary and not yet tested on humans, but the biological logic is compelling.
At MIT, researchers looked to fireflies and built bee-sized robots with glowing artificial muscles that can communicate through light — a capability that could one day guide search-and-rescue missions through rubble and disaster zones. In France, scientists at Sorbonne Paris Nord University trained ants to detect human tumor markers in mouse urine, pointing toward a cheaper alternative to cancer-sniffing dogs. The study awaits peer review, but the principle is striking.
Perhaps the most visually elegant work came from biomedical engineer Alon Gorodetsky at UC Irvine, who mimicked the color-shifting organs of squid skin to create a stretchable material that controls heat loss. Wrapped around a warm object, it can be tuned simply by how much it is stretched — a packaging solution drawn directly from the ocean floor.
Taken together, these discoveries suggest that nature is not merely a source of wonder but a working archive of engineering solutions. The deeper question — whether these laboratory breakthroughs can reach the people who need them — remains open, but the direction of travel is clear.
The natural world is disappearing. Climate change, habitat destruction, and human expansion are erasing species at an accelerating pace. Yet even as animals and plants vanish, they are leaving behind a gift: a blueprint for solving problems that have stumped engineers and doctors for decades.
Alon Gorodetsky, a biomedical engineer at the University of California, Irvine, frames it plainly. Nature has had hundreds of millions of years to refine its answers to impossibly difficult questions. When scientists pay attention to those answers, they can skip the long trial-and-error phase and arrive at working solutions almost immediately. In 2022, a handful of research teams did exactly that, turning the bodies and behaviors of animals and plants into medical devices, robots, and materials that could reshape how we treat disease, communicate, and keep food warm.
Start with okra. The vegetable is unremarkable to most people—fuzzy, green, slimy. Malcolm Xing at Canada's University of Manitoba saw something else: a source of natural adhesive. He ran okra through a juicer, dried the result into powder, and discovered he had created a bioadhesive capable of sealing wounds. In a study published in Advanced Healthcare Materials in July, researchers showed that the okra-based plaster could stop bleeding in the hearts and livers of dogs and rabbits without requiring a single stitch. The material works by creating a physical barrier and triggering the body's natural clotting response. Human trials are planned for the coming years.
Cow mucus sounds like a punchline, but the research is serious. Scientists extracted mucus from cow salivary glands and transformed it into a gel with potential antiviral properties. In preliminary tests published in Advanced Science in September, the gel showed promise at constraining the spread of certain sexually transmitted infections. The mechanism is elegant: mucus contains a protein called mucin that may have antiviral activity, and mucus itself exists as both solid and liquid simultaneously. As a solid, it traps pathogens. As a liquid, it clears them from the body. Hongji Yan, a researcher at Sweden's KTH Royal Institute of Technology, explained the dual nature of the material. The work is preliminary—it has not been tested on humans and should not replace condoms or other proven protections—but the principle is sound.
At MIT, researchers watched fireflies light up summer nights and asked: what if we could build that? They created bee-sized robots with glowing artificial muscles that emit light when they fly. The robots can communicate with each other through these light signals, a capability that could eventually make them useful for search and rescue operations in collapsed buildings or disaster zones. For now, they exist only in laboratory conditions, but the potential is clear.
The world contains an estimated 20 quadrillion ants. One species may be able to detect cancer in human breast tissue. Researchers at Sorbonne Paris Nord University trained ants to distinguish between mouse urine with and without human tumors by rewarding them with sugar water. Dogs can already be trained to sniff out cancer, but the process is expensive and time-consuming. Ants offer a cheaper alternative, though admittedly less charming. The study, published on the preprint server bioRxiv, has not yet undergone peer review.
Finally, there are squid skins. Squids possess miniature organs called chromatophores that change size and help the animal shift color. Gorodetsky and his team mimicked these structures by creating tiny metal islands that can be moved apart or contracted. When stretched around a warm object—a coffee cup, a hot sandwich—the material controls how quickly heat escapes. The more you stretch it, the faster cooling occurs. The less you stretch it, the longer warmth persists. The research, published in Nature Sustainability in March, suggests that nature really is the ultimate engineer. The question now is whether these discoveries can move from the laboratory into the world where people actually live.
Citas Notables
Nature has spent hundreds of millions of years optimizing elegant solutions to extremely complicated problems. If we look to nature, we can shortcut our development process and get to a valuable solution right away.— Alon Gorodetsky, biomedical engineer, UC Irvine
Being a solid, it can trap bacteria or viruses in the body. Being a liquid, it can clear those pathogens from the body.— Hongji Yan, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, on cow mucus lubricant properties
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why does it matter that these solutions come from nature rather than being invented from scratch?
Because nature has already solved the hard part. It's spent millions of years testing what works and discarding what doesn't. When we copy that, we skip years of failed experiments.
But aren't most of these still in early stages? The okra plaster hasn't been tested on humans yet. The cow mucus is preliminary.
True. But that's the point of showing them now. They're proof that the method works. Once you know okra can seal a wound in a rabbit, you know it's worth testing in humans.
The cancer-detecting ants seem almost absurd. Why would we use ants instead of dogs?
Cost. Training a dog takes months and thousands of dollars. Ants are cheap to breed and train. If they work, you could screen thousands of people quickly.
What about the firefly robots? What's the actual use case?
Search and rescue. Imagine a building collapses. You send in hundreds of tiny glowing robots. They navigate the rubble, find survivors, and signal their location with light. Right now they only work in labs, but that's how all technology starts.
Is there a risk that we're just copying nature without understanding why it works?
That's a real concern. But understanding comes after you know something works. The okra adhesive works—now researchers can study why and make it better.
What happens if these all fail in human trials?
Then we learned something. But the fact that nature solved these problems first gives us confidence they're solvable at all.