I like looking at what organisms do that’s completely different from the way we do the same thing. For instance, take a peacock feather. If we were to make it, we would use chemicals and pigments. But actually, the only pigment is brown. It’s done with structural color and transparent layers. When light reflects back to us through the layers, it creates the color blue or green or gold to your eye.
There’s now an e-reader display screen that uses the same principle. It’s made by Qualcomm. It needs no backlighting, because it uses layers and the ambient light to create the different color pixels to your eye. So it’s an incredible low-energy way to do it.
Here’s another example. Life doesn’t use detergent to clean itself. If you think of things like leaves, that need to stay clean. How do they keep the dust off of them?