Increasing numbers of innovative researchers borrow from biology when they examine and incorporate living systems into man-made designs. We know how man-made designs originate— people design them. But what about living designs? Two recent biomimicry research programs let slip major logic errors when accounting for the origin of the creatures they copy: the seahorse and kangaroo.

It has been 28 years since Chernobyl's nuclear power plant suffered a catastrophic meltdown in Ukraine. People are still not permitted to live near it because radiation levels remain dangerous, but plants and animals long ago pioneered the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. A new study revealed surprising hints that certain birds' internal biological tactics cope well with the harmful radiation.

by Brian Thomas, M.S., and Jason Lisle, Ph.D. *

Zookeepers in Reynosa, Mexico, recently witnessed a female zebra give birth to a "zonkey." So far, this rare hybrid animal appears to be in good health.¹ Meanwhile, an Irish farmer's sheep chases its baby "geep," sired by a goat.² What do zonkeys and geeps have to do with Noah's Ark?