From Nature to Community

Without us realizing it, invention or innovation, particularly in the areas of develop­ment and construction in everyday life, is indirectly inspired by natures, which in this context are the network, structure and arrangement of biomass fibres or ligno — cellulosic raw materials. The architecture and fibre network which in fact may look nothing to normal eyes actually have a huge influence in terms of dimensional sta­bility and strength for various material structures in the real world. Thus, by doing research, development and commercialization, researchers/scientists are inspired to apply the ideas in inventing some kinds of bio-inspired material structures for our daily use. For example, the structure of optical fibre cable is inspired by fibre net­work in bamboo structure. Other examples are bees nest, banana stem, spider web as well as bird’s nest, where their fibre design and network give ideas to scientist for their new inventions (Fig. 5.8) (Amirul Hakim 2014 ; Baincardin 2014; Cahaya Purnama 2014; Cooper 2014; Pugh 2014a, 2014b).