The Good Ship

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If Harman has his way, his invention will transform not just ship propellers, but also fans, turbines, fuselages, air and water purifiers, industrial mixers -- any technology that requires the movement of fluid. According to Harman, that's 'most fields of human endeavor -- from architecture to engineering, from medical science to aerospace.' Implemented that way, this little seaweed-aping gadget really could change the world.

Harman's impeller is an example of biomimicry -- the idea that humans can learn a lot from nature's 4.5 billion years of design experience. Writer and naturalist Janine Benyus coined the term in her 1997 book Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature (William Morrow), but the idea is hardly new. People have been fashioning boat hulls after the shapes of fish for thousands of years. Solar panels were inspired by plant leaves, Velcro by cockleburs. With so many successful examples, you'd think modeling technology after nature would be the norm. But as Harman told an audience at the annual Bioneers conference in San Rafael, California, last October, it's more affordable for manufacturers to stamp out straight lines than curves. 'But,' he noted, 'nature never travels in straight lines.'

Today the technology exists to affordably mass-produce curved lines. That fact, combined with the increasing desire to reduce energy waste, is creating a sudden demand for Harman's ideas. Like the boats driven by his impellers, spirals are charging full steam ahead.

TELL ME MORE

You can hear an interview with Jay Harman on PRI's Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen, public radio's weekly program on creativity, pop culture and the arts, by going to www.wnyc.org/studio360

The Bioneers Conference is an annual gathering of those who seek 'visionary & practical solutions for restoring the earth and people' in San Rafael, California. To read about the work of other Bioneers, go to >

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