WEBVTT

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 This is the Sonoran desert Arizona State University Associate professor

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Prasad Baraka is taking us on a nature
walk at South Mountain in phoenix,

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a location that is not only a hot spot
for people who like to walk and

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hike, It's a place where all kinds of
plants and reptiles call home.

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What's interesting about the Sonoran
desert Is that it also has a

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significant amount of biodiversity.
For instance, it has more than 2000

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species of plants. There are some
incredible adaptations that the Saguaro

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has done to deal with this sort of
arid climate. There are these pleats,

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accordion type pleats into in the
Saguaro that serves two key functions.

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One is that the pleating opens up when
it rains to allow the water to soak

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up more water. The pleats also, if you
look at, it also provides some

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shade from the spines, protecting the
Saguaro against predators to be in a

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home for owls. Some students in the
Innovation space Program at S. You are

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coming up with product ideas just by
understanding how plants and animals

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survive In their environment. Baraka
is the director. We think that nature

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has been solving problems that has
been dealing with environmental issues

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for 3.8 billion years through
evolution. And so we think that if we look

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at the way nature has been solving
problems, there's a lot we can learn

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the students are learning by using bio
mimicry or biomimicry is

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essentially emulating nature's problem
solving processes to apply to human

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problems. What we do in this program
is we bring together students from

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Design business and engineering and
have them work in teams over the

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period of one year to develop new
products. Adele hide fisher is one of

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many faculty members working with the
students. We try to ask them to um

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look at what it is they're doing and
look at what a waste that they are

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creating and how that waste can be
treated as a resource rather than a

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liability curtain. Products include
improving urban life to designing a

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new cushion for those in wheelchairs.
Termites are known for creating

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their mounds and in those mounds
they're able to maintain a flow of air.

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So we're trying to learn from their
ventilation systems and apply to the

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cushion so that we can create a
cushion that normally release pressure

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sores, but also allows some
breathability ideas that not only come out of

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researching desert organisms but also
by studying the behavior of human

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beings and much more. So we are
teaching students to think of this form of

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multi functional design. So can you
have something in your design that

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doesn't just solve one function but
solves tofunction