Making the Most of It
How nature turns weakness into strength
Marc A. Meyers came up with the idea for his most recent research project on a walk with his father some 40 years ago. They were in the forest near their home in a small town in Brazil, and Meyers stopped to rest. That’s when he noticed a toucan skull lying on the ground. The bird’s previously bright-yellow beak had faded, he recalls, but was otherwise intact. He picked it up. “The beak was so light, yet it was reasonably strong and stiff,” he says.
Another researcher likes to browse through shell shops for some of her study subjects. On one visit a few years ago, Joanna Aizenberg of Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, N.J., came upon a type of deep-sea sponge that she had never seen before. “It was clearly, incredibly beautiful designwise,” she says. After having studied its strength in detail, she adds, “I would now say it’s the most perfect design I have ever seen.”