San Diego Zoo Creates Biomimicry Incubator 76
waderoush writes "The San Diego Zoo has built a world famous reputation as a tourist destination, for helping to rescue the California Condor, and maybe (if you're old enough) for Joan Embery's appearances with Johnny Carson. Now the zoo is using its expertise to drive innovation by establishing a new 'Centre for Bioinspiration.' While the Anglicized spelling of 'center' might seem pretentious, the zoo has a down-to-earth goal of innovating through the emerging field of biomimicry, which is exemplified by Qualcomm's Mirasol display technology (the displays generate colors using the same type of interference between light waves that causes iridescence in butterfly wings). The center includes an incubator for developing new bio-inspired products and technologies, where ideas would be advanced to a proof of concept or working model, and then licensed. The incubator also intends to help develop bio-inspired ideas from outside the zoo."
only pretentious thing is the article summary (Score:5, Informative)
1. Too, many, commas;
2. "(if you're old enough)" is redundant - we can work out our own ages and guess why we may not have heard of something;
3. Never use the phrase "drive innovation" unless you're writing a management speak generator;
4. British English is still spoken by far more people than American;
5. What is the purpose of biomimicry? Don't give me an example - give me some idea of why it's useful so I want to read more;
6. The display "generate colors" - submitter was clearly so proud of being able to insert a non-pretentious Americanised spelling that he forgot his gramma;
7. (don't explain things in brackets like this);
8. For "products and technologies, where ideas would be advanced to a proof of concept or working model...", see 3. Too much babble. How about "An incubator will develop proofs of concept or working models for licensing";
9. What is "bioinspiration"?
Why, yes, I did get out on the wrong side of the bed this morning, but that doesn't excuse this summary.
Re:wtf... (Score:5, Informative)
The interesting thing is that "center" is actually the anglicised version of "Centre" which is a french word used in it's original form by the UK/Australia/NZ and others.