Biology is not my strong suit--something I found out after taking AP Bio in high school. However, I love studying nature and looking at the beautiful patterns it can create. After watching the Ted Talk by Neri Oxman, it brought back memories of when I first learned that the Fibonacci sequence could be found everywhere in nature. I remember discovering this and being blown away on how math and nature connected so seamlessly. The same thing happened when I watched this video; I was blown away that technology and nature could be connected in such a way.
I don't think I had ever seen technology being utilized to emulate nature to that degree. It was certainly a different way to approach not only design but thinking about the whole world. I do think that it steps into the unknown territory of "playing God" as the idea of manufacturing nature is a bit unsettling to me. If nature can be synthesized in such a way, what will be the ramifications? Will there be a point where we won't be able to tell the difference between nature and synthetic? Would this impact the environment in an adverse way with unintended consequences? While the ethical questions still remain, I believe that this is a breakthrough in research and what humans are capable of.
Every day, there are so many breakthroughs being made in science that we are oftentimes unaware of. There's plenty of science taking place without people knowing, such as AI algorithms being trained on data collected from millions of people. As we discover more and more of what we're capable of technology wise, I think we also discover more and more ethical problems about using those capabilities. It's hard to wrap my mind around each advancement we make, and how much progress we've made in a relatively short amount of time.
I would not want to impede these new advancements if it helps make the world a better place. Although I would say that we should tread cautiously into these new sciences. Personally, I'll just stick to being amazed by Fibonacci numbers as I don't feel the need to unravel all the secrets of nature.
Here were some cool videos about Fibonacci numbers: