In your point of view as a senior high school stem student, do you think making artificial bones is helpful to society? why? what are the possible benefits of adapting this biomimicry in the field of medicine?
Answers
Answer:
Artificial bone refers to bone-like material created in a laboratory that can be used in bone grafts, to replace human bone that was lost due to severe fractures, disease, etc.
Bone regeneration is made possible by the interaction between two kinds of cells: osteoblast and osteoclast. Osteoclast is a giant cell with a diameter of about 50 μm, and it independently absorbs (destroys) old bones. Osteoblast, on the other hand, is a small cell with a diameter of about 10 μm, and it forms new bones by working with many other cells. Bones are always regenerating through a perpetual cycle of bone resorption and bone formation.
However, if a bone is lost or damaged due to a disease or an injury, it is difficult for the body to regenerate it. Demand for artificial bone has increased in Japan in recent years as a solution to this problem. Professor Junzo Tanaka is a leading researcher who has been devoting himself to the development of artificial bone materials for more than twenty years.
BENEFITS OF BIOMIMICRY
Biomimicry thinking helps create products and processes that:
· Are sustainable: Biomimicry follows Life’s Principles. Life’s Principles instruct us to build from the bottom up, self-assemble, optimize rather than maximize, use free energy, cross-pollinate, embrace diversity, adapt and evolve, and use life-friendly materials and processes, engage in symbiotic relationships, and enhance the bio-sphere. By following the principles life uses, you can create products and processes that are well adapted to life on earth.
· Perform well: In nature, if a design strategy is not effective, its carrier dies. Nature has been vetting strategies for 3.8 billion years. Biomimicry helps you study the successful strategies of the survivors, so you can thrive in your marketplace, just as these strategies have thrived in their habitat.
· Save energy: Energy in the natural world is even more expensive than in the human world. Plants have to trap and convert it from sunlight and predators have to hunt and catch it. As a result of the scarcity of energy, life tends to organize extremely energy efficient designs and systems, optimizing energy use at every turn. Emulating these efficiency strategies can dramatically reduce the energy use of your company. Greater efficiency translates to energy cost savings and greater profitability.
· Cut material costs: Nature builds to shape, because shape is cheap and material is expensive. By studying the structures of nature’s strategies and how they are built, biomimicry can help you minimize the amount your company spends on materials while maximizing the effectiveness of your products patterns and forms to achieve their desired functions.
· Redefine and eliminate “waste”: By mimicking how nature transitions materials and nutrients within a habitat, your company can set up its various units and systems to optimally use resources and eliminate unnecessary “waste”. Organizing your company’s habitat flows more similarly to nature’s, will drive profitability through cost savings and/or the creation of new profit centers focused on turning your “waste” into a feedstock.
· Heighten existing product categories: Biomimicry helps you see stale product categories in a radically different light. This new sight creates an opportunity for innovation.
· Define new product categories and industries: Biomimicry can help you create disruptive technologies, that transform your industry or help you build entirely new industries.
· Drive revenue: Biomimicry can help you create whole new growth areas, reignite stale product categories and attract both customers who care about innovation and sustainability.
· Build your brand: Creating biomimetic products and processes will help your company become known as both innovative and proactive about the environment.
Yes, making artificial bones is helpful to society. Reasons for this are as follows:
- There are many prevalent cases of severe disease and innumerable accidents occurring nowadays.
- Diseases like osteoporosis can be very fatal for anyone's life and can make an individual completely dependent on any kind of medications and life support.
- For overcoming such mishaps, adaptation to these biomimicry techniques, reconstruction can be done successfully and a patient can be relieved from many extreme indications.