Chapter One

Biology & technology

Learning from nature

What is nature?

 Is the physical, natural &materials world life that exists without human intervention

Eg, landscape sceneries, water, forest ecosystem, weather, organism, geology, celestial bodies &
inanimate object.

 Scientist & engineers learn from nature through imitation of physical, structural, shapes,
materials, & function mechanism of natural facts.
 Using imitation of nature, they can sketch the biological structure, design functional mechanism
& tune in to more efficient technologies at macro & Nano scales through imitation.

What are the technologies imitated from nature?

 the house building design was imitated from Swallows nests

 Weaving technology was imitated from spider webs
 Building house was imitated from the mound architecture of termite
 Aircraft technology was imitated from the birds & bat
 Photograph camera technique was imitated from human eye
 Movement of bio-robot was imitated from the kangaroo locomotion.
 Injection needle technology was imitated from Mosquito proboscis.
 Sensors of electrical devices were imitated from the neuron.
 Cutting Saws were imitated from sharp teeth of animals.
 Synthetic bulletproof vests were imitated from the spin silks of spiders.
 Ceramics are copied from crack –resistant shellfish.
 Robotic arms were imitated from elephant trunk

What does the blending of biology & technology form?

 Biology:-is the study of life, the structure, function, growth, origin, evolutions &
distribution of living organisms.
 It depends on technology in terms of device.
 Technology is the sum of technique, skills, Methods & process used in the production of
goods (service) to accomplish with objectives.
 It depends on biology in terms of identifying scientific information & imitating bio-
technological device from nature
 The blending of biology & technology forms biotechnology which is technology that
utilizes biological system to develop useful processes & improved human health &
society

The benefit of biology to technology

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  Medicinal plants, plants can be produced medicine then scientist imitated nature to
develop artificial version of medicine.
 Gene engineering & biosynthetic materials, scientist have been imitated the nature of
human , animal, plant genes and cure regenerative disease & creation of repair damage of
tissue
 The use of imitation genes includes gene engineering to cure genetic information & the
creation of biosynthetic materials to repair damage body tissue.
 Building design; engineers have imitated the mound architecture of termite in the design
of building with chimneys which have a constant temperature & humidity.
 Bullet train design;- the nose or front of bullet train have been designed by engineers
imitating the shape of beaks of kingfishers when they dive into water.

The use of technology to biology

 Biological studies are helpful to investigate information on carbohydrate , protein , lipid

& nucleic acid
 Biomedical studies deal with providing detained of information on the chemical
components of medicinal plants
 Biophysical studies are the science of using physical device together biological
information at all scales of organization/ molecular, orgasmic, & population/
 Environmental studies are multidisciplinary system dealing with the interaction of human
with environment
 Bioinformatics is a science of discipline involving computer technology to collect. store,
analyze,& dissimilate biological data and information / DNA, aa sequence/
 Bio-geographical information;-is the studies of the distribution of species alone with
geographic ecosystem through geological period

Some common technological devices

 Digital thermometer is an instrument used for measuring body temperature.

 Pregnancy blood type test kit is used for checking whether a woman is pregnancy or not
by detecting the amount of hormone human chorionic Gonadotrophin /HCG/produced in
the placenta around 6-10 day after fertilization in either urine or blood
 The test result in one line is a control line showing no pregnancy(-ve) and other two line
confirm the existence pregnancy
 Diabetic blood test (glucometer) kit is used to check the level of blood
sugar(85-125/mm3
 An HIV test kit is a doctor to identify infection with the virus or not
 Test result;-one line on control group & no line in test line is showing negative but one
line in control line & one line test line shows positive HIV
 Microscope for magnifying & resolution an object
 Computer information technology scanning(CITS) probes is device are used to
inspect(investigate)disease such as cancerous area in the human body
 Computed tomography scan (CT scan) is an x- ray technology used to take an x- ray of
the body to detect & screen a variety of disease & abnormal condition.
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  Positron emission tomography (PET- scan) is an imaging technological device used to
check for disease or information in suspected cancerous area in the human body using a
special dye containing radioactive traces swallowed, inhaled& injected to arm.
 Geographical position system (GPS) is a device used to collect bio-geographical
information / biological data/ on landscape mapping, plants, animals & human
movements

A/Impact of biology on society & natural world

I/ positive impact on society & the natural world

 Ensure food security because of an increase in productivity

 Better health & long life because of medicine & treatment of disease
 Better supply energy & clean water
 Increased industrial production due to microbial action
 Creating antibiotics to treat bacterial infection

II/ negative impact on society & the natural world

 Emerging antibiotic resistance bacteria

 Abortion has a moral status & significance on the unborn child
 Facing extinction of organism
 Predomination to have only boy (X-Y) and avoid(X-X) female child hence sex
chromosome s affect the society & the natural world by affecting the number of female
offspring
 Biological weapons

B/ impact of technology on society & natural world

 Technological product & their application in various fields of studies to solve societal
problems.
 Industrial emission & effluence pollute clean air & drinking water
 Biological weapon destroy the society & the natural world
 Biochemical agents, pesticides & fertilizer cause toxicity &biohazards
 Technologies have damaged our world in two main ways through pollution & the
depletion of natural world.

Ethical issue in biology

 Ethical issues in biology are disciplines determining the rightness or wrongness of using
biological discoveries to the healthy & life of humans.
 It deal with the use of biotechnological information, genetic engineering technologies,
gene therapy, tissue culture, stem cells& human organ that cause unethical manner or
violate the right of human & values.
 It concerns with respecting the values for all life forms.

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  In biology deal with questions related to unethically, immorality, illegality, inequality,
injustice, & commercialization & commodification of human organ assisted reproduction
techniques& manipulation of basic biological organ system.

I/Ethical treatment of plants

 Plants are living organisms that properly function in decentralized forms(without

centralized organ)
 Ethical treatment of plants during studies is valuing plants endangered species requiring
conservation
 Subjecting plant species to rigorous testing through engineering & physical manipulation
needs fairness, recovery & conservation
 Care for plants is an ethical treatments & important for saving the Jeopardized(exposed)
species & conserve for our common future.
 It is ethical to plant trees & it is a national responsibility.

Some unethical treatment of plants

 Testing seeds through destructive ways

 Cutting tree terminal for experiment
 Consumption of all seeds & fruits without conservation
 Un proper cutting of trees ( deforestation)
 Burning forests & seedlings for farmland
 Restructuring the shape of trees for esthetic appeal

II/Ethical treatment of animals in experiments

 The ethical treatment of animal is a moral question of whether it is acceptable to harm

animal for scientific research.
 Animals are sentient creature that have a nervous system, feel painful feelings emotional
stress, & have interests & values.
 Unethical treatment is animals in research including approaches which expose animal to
rigorous (hard) experiment that may injure or cause pain to animals.
 Researchers must reduce impact of unethical treatment of animal through 3Rs principle
such as

i/Reduction aims to minimize the number of animals used in experiment by improving

experimental techniques & sharing information with other.

ii/Refinement is cleansing experiment in a way that enables to reduce suffering of

animals using less invasive techniques , better medical care & better living condition.

iii/Replacement is substituting experiments on animals with alternative techniques using cell

culture instead of whole animals , biosynthesizes& computer stimulate models