The Disrupt Dispatch Issue #29
Biomimicry Innovation Lab
We are the nexus between science and innovation, driving the integration of nature-inspired solutions.
Hey there,
It’s the summer holidays with the schools out here in the UK. Time for work to slow down and spend time with the family. Running your venture doesn’t need to be a 365-day, 24/7 mission despite what the social media influencers would like you to believe. No silly biological metaphors from me here. Let’s save that for the marketers and management consultants selling their next grift.
As always, I’ve enjoyed pulling the list of reading and listening material for you. The podcast is really interesting and worth it, instead of reading the transcript.
A big shout out to Michael Pawlyn, who has finished Biomimicry in Architecture 3rd Edition (RIBA Books), and to Catherine Weetman on A Circular Economy Handbook 3rd Edition (Kogan Page). From speaking to you regularly, I know how much goes into refreshing these publications. Well done!
So enjoy your summer and more to come in the coming weeks.
Thank you for reading,
Richard
Our CPD-ACCREDITED online course with industry leaders is now live. Use NaturalVIP for a special 20% discount. Our CPD-ACCREDITED online course with industry leaders is now live. Use NaturalVIP for a special 20% discount. £152 instead of £190.
#01 Industry - Funding Ideas, not Companies - Rethinking EU Innovation from the Bottom Up
A new report by the Institute for European Policymaking and EconPol/ifo Institute finds that the EU’s major research and innovation program, Horizon, disproportionately funds large corporations and consultancies in mature industries, with little evidence of lasting improvements in innovation or growth. The analysis shows that single-recipient grants to small, independent SMEs are most effective, driving meaningful long-term competitiveness and technological advances. The authors call for reform: redirect resources from large, top-down consortia to bottom-up, flexible funding that empowers independent innovators and promotes breakthrough ideas, rather than incremental improvements by established players.
#02 Research - A neuromorphic model of active vision shows how spatiotemporal encoding in lobula neurons can aid pattern recognition in bees
A new study by MaBouDi et al. presents a neuromorphic model of bee vision, revealing how bees achieve efficient pattern recognition through active vision and spatiotemporal neural coding. By simulating bee-like scanning behaviours and incorporating non-associative learning, the model reproduces key features of the insect brain’s visual processing, specifically, how lobula neurons self-organise to encode orientation, motion, and contrast. The study shows that these sparse and decorrelated neural responses enhance recognition accuracy and generalisation, offering insights for bioinspired, low-resource machine vision systems and advancing our understanding of how compact brains support complex visual learning.
#03 Research Lab - BIOMIM Group
The Biomimetics and Fluid-Structure Interaction (BIOMIM) group at PMMH, ESPCI Paris, led by Ramiro Godoy-Diana and Benjamin Thiria, investigates the physics of bio-inspired systems. Their research focuses on fluid-structure interactions, particularly in animal locomotion like flapping flight and the undulatory swimming of fish and snakes. The group also applies these principles to wind and wave energy conversion technologies. By exploring the interface between physics and biology, they examine how hydrodynamics influences both the evolution of individual organisms and the complex dynamics underlying collective behaviours like fish schooling, providing key insights for robotics and renewable energy systems.
#04 Podcast - Does Form Really Shape Function?
In a Quanta Magazine podcast interview, Harvard scientist L. Mahadevan explores how simple physical principles generate complex biological forms and functions. He examines diverse examples, from the mechanical folding of brain cortices that maximises surface area to the collective construction of termite mounds that act as passive, energy-efficient "lungs" for the colony. Mahadevan emphasises a “triple helix” of organism, body, and environment, arguing that complex structures and behaviours often emerge from this dynamic interplay rather than a rigid genetic blueprint, offering profound insights for morphogenesis and bio-inspired design.
#05 Book - Pattern Breakers
In Pattern Breakers, venture capitalist Mike Maples Jr. and co-author Peter Ziebelman upend conventional wisdom on startup success. They argue that truly transformative companies like Twitter and Twitch succeeded not by following "best practices," but by defying them. The book reveals that breakthroughs rarely come from solving known problems in existing markets. Instead, success is born from harnessing "inflection points", major technological or societal shifts that create new capabilities. It is a playbook for entrepreneurs with the courage to pursue seemingly crazy ideas and capitalise on transformative moments others miss.
#06 Case Study - Colorolicious
Colorolicious is revolutionising candy with naturally vibrant, interactive sweets that are free from artificial dyes and inspired by nature’s colour mechanisms. Developed by Hongning Ren at the University of Manchester, these candies use a sugar-based structural colour technology, similar to the dazzling effects seen in beetle shells and butterfly wings, to create shimmering, colour-changing hues without health risks. Their gummies delight kids with colours that shift when squeezed or stretched, while offering parents a safer, dye-free alternative to traditional snacks. Colorolicious exemplifies how cutting-edge science and playful design can make sweets both healthier and more fun.
#00 Events
8th-9th September, Manchester, UK - Early Careers Conference 2025. UK Metamaterials Network
27th-28th October, Marseille, France - Biomim'expo 2025
23rd-27th September, Vienna, Austria - International Workshop on Bionic Engineering 2025«Running an event, expo, or conference. Let us know!»
#0X Roles
Looking for jobs*?
*We moved our curated list of jobs to alternate weeks. You can find updates here.
If you are looking for freelance in the climate and sustainability space, check out the newsletter from our friends at the IMMA Collective.
Thank you for reading,
Founder + CEO Biomimicry Innovation Lab
“One person with passion is better than forty people merely interested.” - E.M. Forster