Nothing humanity creates with brain, opposable-thumbs and phalanges from plastics, glass, metals, composites, etc. can come close to functional artworks of nature. We try hard to imitate nature's creations, usually doing little more than severely damaging the natural world we are attempting to mimic. Maybe mimicry isn't the best approach. Perhaps bionics, or even better, bio co-operation is the best approach to take to create useful things naturally.
A dream and an old sci-fi story (West of Eden by Harry Harrison) set me to thinking of such non-destructive, bio co-operative creation techniques culminating in something called a Muphin, used to save humanity from annihilation, which I expect will be our fate–very likely by our own hand. Whether or not we do self destruct, there may still some time remaining to learn how to cooperate with nature instead of conquering and spoiling at every opportunity.
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