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The Shark’s Paintbrush
- Biomimicry and How Nature Is Inspiring Innovation
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
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Publisher's summary
Why does the bumblebee have better aerodynamics than a 747? What structural design is shared by a tornado and a blood vessel?
Since the Industrial Revolution, manufacturers have built things by a process known as “heat, beat, and treat.” They use enormous amounts of energy to heat raw material, shape it with heavy machinery, and maintain its design, strength, and durability with toxic chemicals. Now, in a world of depleted natural resources, entrepreneurs and scientists are turning to nature to inspire future products that are more energy and cost efficient. Biomimicry, the science of employing nature to advance sustainable technology, is arguably one of the hottest new business concepts. At the center of this growing movement has been award-winning inventor and biomimetic entrepreneur Jay Harman.
In The Shark’s Paintbrush, Harman introduces us to pioneering engineers in a wide array of businesses who are uncovering and copying nature’s hidden marvels. He shows business leaders and aspiring entrepreneurs how we can reconcile creating more powerful, lucrative technologies with maximizing sustainability. He injects a whole new vocabulary and way of thinking into the business sphere that speaks to both small start-ups and corporate giants.
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Bill Gates shares what he's learned in more than a decade of studying climate change and investing in innovations to address the problems, and sets out a vision for how the world can build the tools it needs to get to zero greenhouse gas emissions. Bill Gates explains why he cares so deeply about climate change and what makes him optimistic that the world can avoid the most dire effects of the climate crisis. Gates says, "We can work on a local, national, and global level to build the technologies, businesses, and industries to avoid the worst impacts of climate change."
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Be curious, not furious
- By Axel Merk on 02-20-21
By: Bill Gates
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Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper
- How Innovation Keeps Proving the Catastrophists Wrong
- By: Robert Bryce
- Narrated by: Steven Menasche
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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In this provocative and optimistic rebuke to the catastrophists, Robert Bryce shows how innovation and the inexorable human desire to make things Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper is providing consumers with Cheaper and more abundant energy, Faster computing, Lighter vehicles, and myriad other goods. That same desire is fostering unprecedented prosperity, greater liberty, and yes, better environmental protection.
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I thought I was getting a book on the future.
- By Grant on 08-02-14
By: Robert Bryce
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Resilience
- Why Things Bounce Back
- By: Andrew Zolli, Ann Marie Healy
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Katrina. Haiti. BP. Fukushima. The Great Recession. Those are just a few of the catastrophic disruptions the world has endured in recent years. As we try to respond to such crises, key questions arise: What causes one system to break under great stress and another to rebound? How much change can a complex system absorb while still retaining its purpose and function? What characteristics make it adaptive to change? Provocative and eye-opening, Resilience sheds light on the nature of change.
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Totally Misleading Title
- By Doug on 07-18-12
By: Andrew Zolli, and others
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Getting Green Done
- Hard Truths From the Frontlines of Sustainability Revolution
- By: Auden Schendler
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Soccer moms drive Priuses. Sport utility vehicles are going hybrid. Families are using hemp shopping bags. More and more companies are developing "green" buildings. What's more, the business consultants say going green is easy and profitable. In reality, though, many green-leaning businesses, families, and governments are still fiddling with the small stuff while the planet burns. Why?
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Green's Dirty Little Secrets
- By Martin on 07-10-09
By: Auden Schendler
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You Belong to the Universe
- Buckminster Fuller and the Future
- By: Jonathon Keats
- Narrated by: Josh Bloomberg
- Length: 5 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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A self-professed "comprehensive anticipatory design scientist", the inventor Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) was undoubtedly a visionary. Fuller's creations often bordered on the realm of science fiction, ranging from the freestanding geodesic dome to the three-wheel Dymaxion car to a bathroom requiring neither plumbing nor sewage. Yet in spite of his brilliant mind and lifelong devotion to serving mankind, Fuller's expansive ideas were often dismissed, and have faded from public memory since his death.
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Bucky, Bucky, Bucky
- By Amazon Customer on 08-25-18
By: Jonathon Keats
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Harmony
- A New Way of Looking at Our World
- By: Charles HRH The Prince of Wales
- Narrated by: Charles HRH The Prince of Wales
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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For the first time, HRH The Prince of Wales shares his views on how our most pressing modern challenges - from climate change to poverty - are rooted in mankind's disharmony with nature, presenting a compelling case that the solution lies in our ability to regain a balance with the world around us. With its holistic approach, this provocative and well-reasoned book takes the discussion of sustainability and climate change in a new direction.
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An Excellent Exploration
- By Sara on 03-31-16
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Let There Be Water
- Israel's Solution for a Water-Starved World
- By: Seth M. Siegel
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Let There Be Water illustrates how Israel can serve as a model for the United States and countries everywhere by showing how to blunt the worst of the coming water calamities. Even with 60 percent of its country made of desert, Israel has not only solved its water problem; it also has an abundance of water. Israel even supplies water to its neighbors - the Palestinians and the Kingdom of Jordan - every day.
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More water politics story than water technology
- By normal person on 04-12-21
By: Seth M. Siegel
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The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: Revised and Updated
- The Fate of the World and What We Can Do Before It's Too Late
- By: Thom Hartmann, Neale Donald Walsch - associate editor
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 18 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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While everything appears to be collapsing around us - ecodamage, genetic engineering, virulent diseases, water shortages, global famine, wars - we can still do something about it and create a world that will work for us and for our children's children. The inspiration for Leonardo DiCaprio's feature documentary movie The 11th Hour, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight details what is happening to our planet, the reasons for our culture's blind behavior, and how we can fix the problem.
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One of the Most Important Books of our Time
- By Jana on 04-24-20
By: Thom Hartmann, and others
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Apocalypse Never
- Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All
- By: Michael Shellenberger
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Michael Shellenberger has been fighting for a greener planet for decades. He helped save the world’s last unprotected redwoods. He co-created the predecessor to today’s Green New Deal. And he led a successful effort by climate scientists and activists to keep nuclear plants operating, preventing a spike of emissions. But in 2019, as some claimed "billions of people are going to die", contributing to rising anxiety, including among adolescents, Shellenberger decided that he needed to speak out to separate science from fiction.
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Environmentalist with integrity!
- By Wayne on 07-01-20
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The Vanishing Face of Gaia
- A Final Warning
- By: James Lovelock
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 6 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Vanishing Face of Gaia, British scientist James Lovelock predicts global warming will lead to a Hot Epoch. Lovelock is best known for formulating the controversial Gaia theory in the 1970s, with Ruth Margulis of the University of Massachusetts, which states that organisms interact with and regulate Earth's surface and atmosphere. We ignore this interaction at our peril.
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A New Perspective - A Must Listen - Very Moving
- By Thomas on 01-29-12
By: James Lovelock
What listeners say about The Shark’s Paintbrush
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Tcraig Connolly
- 06-15-18
Filter the Ego
Many compelling insights into a discipline that is sure to redefine the way we adapt and navigate a rapidly evolving world.
Told in the first person coupled with the often irritating, almost condescending tone of the narration makes the book difficult to listen to for long periods.
While Hartman’s contributions are many any laudable, he never misses an opportunity to remind the reader (listener) of his impact.
More often than not, the author comes off as too self important to validate a position of magnanimity.
That’s just me though. Others may be able to filter the ego and extract the essence with little or no effort.
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4 people found this helpful
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- David M. Jones
- 10-06-21
Entertaining
This was recommended to me by a friend. I listened to it even though some of the reviews commented on the authors point of view. I thought it was really entertaining. And it captured a lot of information about the biomimicry industry. When I got to the end of the book it made more sense why the author chose to write this book.
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- Amazon Customer
- 05-28-22
Overall an excellent book on this topic.
Generally it was an excellent book. The author gave many specific names examples of products that exist in the biomassy space that you can find online.
Probably the most valuable with respect to business was there clearing honest description of how product innovation really works. This book would also be very valuable for anybody in the product development and licensing space.
He tells the truth about the product development industry. And how licensing is rarely a practical option given that most companies don't want to license unless you already have proven the product. He suggests that the most realistic and practical option is to go after small concrete markets with finished products from their extensive experience being the most practical approach to commercializing new innovations.
he says that licensing and DC financing and other things can work but they have to be extremely careful because they are far far too often extremely self-interested and not necessarily ethical in the way they behave.
It was an interesting and entertaining read that taught me a lot about real world products that already exist.
He often mistakenly believes that nature is perfect and in perfect balance. in fact nature has reached such exceptional designs by elimination, failure, death and Extinction. lt's called evolution.
all that said nature's had a 3.7 billion year head start on humanity and there is a great deal we can learn from the many successful systems that have arrived through this evolutionary process.
if you are a product developer innovator inventor or just generally curious person I would recommend reading this book to open your mind up to this possibility.
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- Nobody's business
- 08-11-13
Wonderfully entertaining and educational
Where does The Shark’s Paintbrush rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
This is one of my favorites. I will probably listen to it for a long time. It's one that I would want to hear again and again.
What was one of the most memorable moments of The Shark’s Paintbrush?
The story of cutting down the tree was really entertaining. I don't know that I will ever attempt that, but if I do, I will remember to park my vehicle far away.
What about Steven Crossley’s performance did you like?
His voice is rich, deep, calming, and just emotional enough to be interesting.
If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?
Mimicking God's design for a smarter, better world.
Any additional comments?
While this was not a religious work, I found myself marveling at God's creation and how we could use His designs in improving our world through technology and general design. This book is funny, intelligent, and very well written and performed. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in nature, technology, ecology, or mechanical or technological engineering.
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8 people found this helpful
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- M. W. King
- 06-16-17
To much business
In a world where a business book is a dime a dozen, and biomimicry books are few and far between, the author spends too much time talking about business ideas and financial advice which at times comes across as "my excuse why my personal company didn't sell fans".
However, when discussing biomimicry it was fantastic. Applications and ideas were great and the history behind some current applications.
I just wish it was less biomimicy company stuff, and more application related.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Cheryl Abram, author of Firing God
- 07-07-17
Very Relevant
Loved it! Highly recommend. My book The Last Evaluation will certainly include references to biomimicry.
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- Amazon Customer
- 03-06-22
definitely eye opening
initially started when they know about a new subject and sustainably for materials but gave me way more than I asked for great book definitely recommend good info here
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- Rachel J.
- 09-08-21
Often Unrealistic, Heavily Biased
This book feels great - until you realize he never discusses the downside to any of these suggestions. You'll quickly find yourself questioning the assessments he makes regarding possible biomimicry tech. Possibly the most glaring one is the suggestion to use energy from hydrogen gas because the only byproduct is water. That's a lovely thought until you remember that it's a highly combustible and extremely unsafe gas. There's a number of Healthcare suggestions that generate goosebumps on physician skin. At some point there was the suggestion to consume parasitic eggs as a treatment. Centuries ago, patients with parasites were treated with mercury. It killed the parasite, but often the patient as well. Just because something MIGHT work as a treatment does not mean it is safe, and there are often much safer alternatives.
Narrator choice was odd and lent to some confusion. Author is Australian and works a lot in US under those laws. For some reason they chose an English narrator so I had to keep reminding myself where a lot of these inventions were being trialed and the legal barriers to implementing them. I'm not sure why they made that choice for narration.
The final straw is the winding story-telling. Some stories are cute, but they were so often unrelated to anything else other than "One time I encountered this animal" that they quickly felt tedious and annoying.
Some great ideas in here, but the overwhelming bias and refusal to acknowledge risks of biomimicry inventions or benefits to using current tech makes it hard to stomach. I got about 80% of the way through before I finally gave up. I would suggest you not even start.
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- sligamarole
- 08-23-21
More business less biomimicry
Started off good then descended into a study on business strategy. Author did not stick to the subject.
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- Anonymous User
- 05-28-22
~10% through and have to skip passages
seems like the author tries his hardest to sell the movement instead of elaborating on its underpinnings and most engaging arguments (as was promised in the description) - he is dropping names and numbers, and as of yet little facts on the subject of biomimicry, though the only one he has presented so far that has to do with the whirling shape (instead of straight lines) in which fluids and gasses move, depicted in golden ratio, has appeared so novel and so groundbreaking from engineering perspective that I'm willing to give the book a shot. overall wouldn't recommend to spend money on it specifically, but for a plus catalog listen it's okay
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