For elegance and efficiency in design, Mother Nature takes gold. Compared with our technology, Nature’s solutions are often less wasteful, longer lived, self-maintaining and typically stronger, faster and lighter.

Engineers looking for new ideas have found inspiration in nature's designs. Biomimicry, or "life imitating,” is a time-honored route to innovation, stretching back at least to the 15th century, when Leonardo DaVinci studied birds to create plans for flying machines.

In celebration of Nature’s clever creativity we’ve collected a sampling of the coolest biomimetic applications and areas of research.

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Engineers building an upgrade to Japan’s Shinkansen, or bullet trains, succeeded in making them travel 200 miles per hour, but their noise exceeded environmental standards. As a train traveled into a narrow tunnel it would create a sonic boom upon exiting.

Part of the problem was a blunt, bullet-shaped nose which pushed air in front of it rather than slicing through. To solve the problem, engineers took inspiration from the bills of kingfishers, which can dive into water with scarcely a splash.

Kingfishers wedge themselves into water with a streamlined beak that gradually increases in diameter from tip to head, letting water flow past. By modeling bullet train noses on kingfisher beaks, West Japan Railway Company engineers created the 500 series, which entered service in 1997. The trains are quieter, 10 percent faster and use 15 percent less electricity.

Images: 1) AskNature.org. 2) twicepix/Flickr.