This is another great example of learning from nature. The shark, renowned for its stealth and speed was used as a model for the Fastskin™ swimsuit that Michael Phelps wore to dominate the last two Olympics collecting an astounding 15 gold medals! Most certainly it wasn’t the swimsuit that made him fast, but it did make him faster, even if only by a small margin. Remember… one of his gold medals came after beating the Serbian by a margin of only 1/100th of a second. That’s the time it takes lightning to reach the ground!

What allows the shark unfettered speed are the V-shaped ridges on its skin which minimize drag and turbulence around its body allowing it to pass through water more effectively. Fastskin™ fabric is constructed in a way that emulates the ridges on the sharkskin so that it reduces drag and muscle vibration and increasing productivity. Fastskin™ is just one of a growing number of examples of what has become known as biomimicry a new discipline that studies nature’s best ideas and then imitates these designs and processes to solve human problems.

While we can all benefit from biomimicry, there is much more to learn from the principles by which nature thrives. Join us next time as we continue to pull real life examples of success in business and life that mimic or are modeled from nature.