The Gecko’s Foot

’[Forbes has] An easy style and an innocence of jargon, and he treads softly on his scientists’ dreams. Forbes prefers the term “bio-inspiration” to “biomimetics”. The aim is not slavishly to imitate nature, but to learn from it to develop our own solutions to engineering problems. And he is surely right to pounce now, before inspiration turns to perspiration. He has succeeded splendidly.’ Hugh Aldersey-Williams, Independent ‘The book is a witty blend of anecdote and analysis.’ Rita Carter, Daily Mail ‘[Forbes] provides an illuminating discussion of the evolution of visual systems and the emergence of contemporary understandings of the nature of light.’ Dr Brendan Kelly, Sunday Business Post

Peter Forbes has written a series of articles about Biomimetics for the Guardian and a chapter on the same subject for the Guardian’s book, Frontiers 03 (Atlantic Books). He was the editor of Poetry Review from 1986 to 2002 and his anthology Scanning the Century: the Penguin Book of the Twentieth Century in Verse was widely acclaimed. He translated Primo Levi’s personal anthology, The Search for Roots, (Penguin Press) in 2001 and Bloodaxe published his latest poetry anthology We Have Come Through in 2003.

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