WINONA LAKE - Don DeYoung, Ph.D., professor of physics at Grace College, explains how nature has inspired some of the greatest inventions and medical breakthroughs on his Web site, www.discoveryofdesign.comThis Web site features a different design every month, with all of the previous designs easily accessible. For example, DeYoung featured the kingfisher in January. This bird, native to Canada and northern regions of the United States, inspired Japanese engineers with their design of engines for bullet trains. Previously, the trains had caused sonic booms as they exited tunnels, which disturbed people living within several miles of the tracks.
The Japanese studied the design of the kingfisher's beak and redesigned their bullet train engines to have long, tapered noses. This design creates less noise and increases energy efficiency.
Other cases where nature has solved technological problems, or provided for needs, can be found on the Discovery of Design Web site.
"God has embedded countless design ideas in nature, and He's just waiting for us to discover them," DeYoung once said during a recent chapel service at Grace.
In addition to this Web site, DeYoung currently is putting together research for a book titled "Discovery if Design". He, along with co-author Derrik Hobbs, an alumnus of Grace, will include hundreds of examples demonstrating how inventors and designers have taken inspiration from creation. The authors expect the book to be published in the fall.
