(calm, suspenseful music)
How you doin?
It's not even six o'clock yet,
but I have to get up early today,
because I'm basically trying to solve a bit
of a murder mystery.
I'm in Philadelphia,
and this is the scene of the crime.
In one day alone, 1500 birds just appeared miraculously
in the city, dead.
But I'm on my way to meet the guy that actually
found all these birds, his name's Stephen.
And he seems to have an idea of what's going on.
[Stephen Maciejewski] And we found hundreds of birds just
around this one building.
Have you ever seen anything like it before?
No.
So what was it about that day that may have led
to this massive event?
We don't know exactly.
There's a peak of bird migration, it was a full moon.
It had been raining, there were really low clouds.
There were bright lights on all the buildings.
So all this kind of conspired together
to bring the birds really low.
And they were hitting this really bright building.
I mean, they're really thousands and thousands of birds
that died that day.
(birds calling)
It was Friday, October 2nd, last fall.
That was a very traumatic day for me.
People would come up to me and say there are more birds,
there are more birds.
And then one guy dropped his dust pan of 75 birds living
and dead in front of me.
Wow. That's so many.
In cities around the world,
birds are dying in staggering numbers.
I just want to figure out what's going on
and how we can help all these birds.
Every living thing plays its part
in the careful balance of the natural world.
Over 3.8 billion years,
evolution has helped life overcome everything
from meteors to ice ages.
But it's next greatest challenge might well be us.
The biggest threat to their survival
is entanglement in fishing gear.
A lot of concrete is getting into the water.
The problem is bio-diversity and the balance is shifting.
This journey is the culmination of my years in the wild.
I've never seen a horseshoe crab before.
Investigating the best hopes that nature has to offer
for restoring our planet.
Could we uncover new pollution-solving materials.
That is so cool!
(laughing)
Or design cities better suited for protecting wildlife.
So beautiful.
And could we finally revitalize our oceans?
Visibility was (bleep).
(both laughing)
My mission starts by solving the case of the fallen birds.
What's that?
Oh, whoa.
This is the first one. It's called an ovenbird.
And it's one of the most common species that we find.
What is making a bird like this end up dead on the ground?
Well, they're migrating, right?
They can't survive in this area in the winter time
with snow and ice.
So they migrate south.
(bird calling)
Ovenbirds are just one
of 4,000 species that migrate.
From their breeding grounds in the north.
To their winter retreats in the south.
(wings flapping)
Covering hundreds of miles a day.
(waves crashing)
These weary travelers need
a stop over en route to rest,
bringing them into the dizzying
and very much unfamiliar world of human infrastructure.
Where they live, there's no glass.
These birds have no concept that glass is hard.
Oh, look. Yeah.
It's kind of nonstop. Isn't it?
It's another ovenbird.
I've been out here for what, about 20 minutes?
already found about four birds.
[Stephen Maciejewski] These angles are really bad
for birds.
Looking at this building here.
It almost looks like that reflection there
is part of that next block building.
The problem that we have to try to figure out how
to resolve is all this reflective glass.
Otherwise it's going to lead to extinction
of so many species.
I needed to get coffee.
Such an early start this morning.
I'm like oh my goodness.
It was great getting to meet Stephen today.
Clearly a really passionate guy, loves his birds.
And gave me an opportunity to really see that this issue
of bird strikes is, it is a real problem.
And I come across these guys,
Powdermill Avian Research Center, and look,
they're working on avian perception of glass.
I've just given them a call and they've invited me to come
and check out some of their experiments.
Right now, 50% of people live in urban areas.
And by 2050, that's going to rise to 70%.
We created these cities and they've served us well
up until now, but we've done it in a way,
which is impacting the environment negatively.
Since 1970, we've lost a staggering 60%
of all the animals on earth, mostly due to habitat loss.
And in the last decade,
1300 species of bird have become critically endangered.
We have to find a way to restore the balance.
My attention is drawn over in that direction.
That is probably the most fancy backyard shed
I've ever seen in my life.
Yeah!
So hi-tech.
Yeah, especially design.
This 24-foot long tunnel
is one of only three in the world.
And it's custom built to study bird strikes.
We've designed this to try and mimic the situation where
there's glass on a building.
Mounted at the end of the tunnel
are two windows.
One is normal glass and the other is new experimental glass
designed to deter birds.
You're trying to work out whether or not the birds can
see whatever pattern you're putting into the glass
and which patterns they respond to best.
Yeah, exactly.
Glass designers from all over the world
test their windows right here.
Today, the team are trying out some glass
that exploits one of nature's best kept secrets
in the hope it might help birds avoid glass in the future.
This is a pattern from Arnold it's their ORNILUX pattern.
Oh look!
Yeah, so you can see.
Hang on a second, okay so from this angle,
I couldn't see anything.
That's really cool. That's really interesting.
There, it's clear.
In this, you can just about make out parts of.
So it's going into the visible spectrum just a little bit.
And some areas are reflecting more
in the ultraviolet spectrum.
And so this would be even more visible for birds.
We have three cones in our eyes that give us color sight.
They have a fourth one that ends up allowing them
to see more in the ultraviolet spectrum.
Yeah.
And so if we can create something that they can see
in the ultraviolet spectrum.
Like this.
Like this, that would be ideal
because we obviously want to see out our windows
and bring natural light in.
And at the same time,
we don't always want to obstruct our view.
That's where the UV patterns can come in.
We can only see in blue, green and red,
which combine to give us color vision,
while birds have that extra color cone in our eyes,
giving them the ability to see UV light.
Providing them with far superior eyesight to our own.
Which partly inspired the designers of this glass
to mimic the creature that wields UV light
for its own survival.
Meet the orb weaver.
This female is from a long line of spiders
that have been making webs since the time of the dinosaurs.
She's putting the finishing touches on her design,
using a method honed over millennia.
You'd think she'd have no problem catching a quick meal,
but she hasn't eaten in over a week.
Most spiders would just hang around,
waiting for an unsuspecting insect to fly in,
but not our orb weaver.
She adds a little something extra to her web.
This added decoration is called a stabilimentum.
It's believed to help lure in prey.
(fly buzzing)
We still don't fully understand
quite what these strange silky patterns are designed to do,
aside from being excellent at reflecting UV light.
It's possible our orb weaver is also doing a bit
of mimicking herself.
Flowers use similar UV patterns to attract insects
with a promise of nectar in exchange
for the flower's pollination.
By weaving in these stabilimentum,
our spider may be copying this trick,
but what she offers is no treasure trove.
(insect buzzing)
It's a honey trap.
However, some creatures like birds
can unwittingly destroy her silken snare.
And so scientists think the spider's UV reflecting design
may also act as a bird deterrent,
preventing them from destroying her web
and increasing her odds of catching her next meal.
I reckon we should try and test this out.
Can we get the birds in there?
Yeah, yeah, let's get some.
So we don't want any birds to hit the glass.
So this net is called a mis-net
that we use to catch the birds.
Sweet.
So we're going to fly these birds.
Yeah, we're going to start with this one over here.
Wow.
This is beautiful one.
So beautiful
Yeah. This is an American redstart.
Wow!
This bird is interesting because only the males,
or at least more than one year old,
are going to be this black and orange.
Could I, could I let it go?
Yes.
And so we have a simple video camera
that we are recording each flight.
Yeah, there we go.
Nice.
If they're seeing the pattern,
they should fly towards what we call the control pane,
that clear pane.
Which in this case is on the right.
Yeah.
So the clear glass, the birds can see right through it
and they see the cloud pattern thinking they're flying
towards the sky.
You ready to hold it?
Yes.
So beautiful.
And then we're going to start this up.
This is American redstart 09865.
And here we go. 3 2 1.
There we go.
Yeah.
It's gone into the right side
because it's seen the pattern.
You're gonna go get that bird, right?
Okay. Here we go then.
There he goes!
There he goes, nice.
Yeah.
Brilliant.
Yeah.
That was good.
Nice. That's awesome.
Oh, that's cool.
Let's go do another one.
And we're ready for the next one.
We'll test as many birds as we get,
and we're looking for 80 useful flights.
80 is enough to get us statistically significant,
yes, this works or no, it doesn't.
So we would hope that they would be flying
towards the right side.
Brilliant
Just give a little wave.
Yep.
Nice. Another bird, small data.
One building fitted with this spider web glass
saw a 100% reduction in bird strikes,
meaning millions of birds can now be saved.
Do you think that the work that you're doing here
is gonna make a really big difference?
Absolutely. We've lost 30% of our birds in like 50 years.
And so anything we can do to save them,
would be beneficial.
As cities grow and expand.
We'll need to strike a balance with nature.
Our metropolises must fulfill our needs,
but also become friendlier to wildlife.
What if our future cities weren't just safe spaces
for birds, but a whole variety of animals?
Green highways inspired by migration routes,
providing safe passage for herds of animals
and urban waterways inspired by rivers and estuaries
attracting aquatic life back to the city.
Spiders are just one of nature's master builders
that we can mimic.
And as our civilization spreads further across the world,
we're going to to need to discover more
of these win-win solutions.
Okay, on to the next leg of the journey.
But before I make it anywhere, I've got to get through this
little bit of LA traffic.
The cool thing is I suppose, is that many of these cars,
if not all of them,
come fitted with these devices called catalytic converters.
And they do go some way to reducing the pollutants
that are being pumped out into the air.
Traditional catalytic converters
neutralize 90% of an engine's dangerous pollutants
like carbon monoxide.
The interior of these devices is coated
with a catalyst made from expensive, rare metals.
The catalyst reacts with the exhaust fumes,
changing them into less harmful gases,
but these converters fail to maximize on the surface area
and some of the toxic fumes escape.
The same technique is pretty tricky to use
when we think about the gases being released
by industrial complexes, power plants, and factories.
We still have to figure out a way to solve this problem.
So how are we going to overcome such an overwhelming threat?
Mother Nature might have the answer.
Butterflies.
Evolution's epitome of grace and beauty.
18,000 species, each as wondrous as the last.
But they didn't start out life this way.
To get here, they had to undergo
one of life's most astonishing transformations.
Inside their cocoon bulk becomes beauty.
Bursting into the world anew,
its wings take flight for the first time.
But these gentle butterflies are surprisingly tough.
(thunder sounding)
You might think the rainfall
of the tropics would be disastrous
for such a delicate creature.
But the water droplets bouncing off these wings,
hint at a secret that could revolutionize
how we tackle air pollution.
(phone ring sounding)
Hello.
Sissi Liu is part of a team at Metalmark,
that's been developing this tech.
It's great to be able to speak to you today,
thinking about the modern world that we live in,
your company is doing something really interesting.
Yes, we are essentially making a futuristic
catalytic converter.
The structure of the material in butterfly wings lead
to not only the lightness and strength that give them
the ability to fly,
but also iridescent colors to allow them
to communicate and camouflage.
This was the initial inspiration for the team
at Harvard that invented this technology.
The scales of butterfly wings
are made from honeycomb structures.
These strengthen and protect the wing while scattering
light to give them color.
But Sissi's team have found a way to use this structure
to make catalytic converters more efficient.
The honeycomb design has a massive surface area,
which means they need less of the expensive catalyst
while still being able to carry out more
of the beneficial catalytic reactions.
We can make the material very stable
so we can have advantages from a cost, longevity
and energy perspective.
In the future, we can certainly go
into more industrial plants
and address even more air quality challenges
using our technology.
Air pollution kills
an estimated 7 million people worldwide every year.
So Sissi's tech could have a profound impact
on people around the world.
It's hard to believe that something so delicate
could be associated with reducing smog,
but thinking of a butterfly's wing beats,
I'm reminded that it doesn't take much
to upset the balance of an ecosystem.
Even one as vast as this.
80% of all the life on this planet lives in the ocean.
99% of the habitable space on this planet is in the ocean
and we've only managed to explore a fraction of it.
When you look out at the ocean,
it looks so beautiful, serene, peaceful,
but underneath the waves and naturally within the waves,
there is this almost unseen threat out there.
One that's impacting all marine life,
but one animal in particular.
I'm here to give you a hand this morning.
All right! We need all the hands we can get.
Yeah, right.
That's a beautiful, beautiful scene right here.
It's going to be nice to get in the ocean.
We're gonna go out and see what we can find.
All right, let's do it.
On a daily basis,
our awesome drill team goes out
and primarily we're focused on research,
mostly the hawksbill sea turtle.
We wanna document those 'cause they're really rare.
And it's not long before we're greeted
by our first research subject.
(wondrous music)
So Cheryl,
we just spotted the most beautiful turtle,
what species was it
and what kind of health condition was in in?
Yeah, that was a very cute little adorable
juvenile green sea turtle.
She was eating on the algae that was growing
inside of the coral.
It might not be as elusive
as the hawksbill, but this young green sea turtle,
comes from the same endangered family.
These waters are his old stomping ground.
Having hatched just on the other side of the island.
He spends his days using his large paddle-like flippers
to drift around the shallows,
grazing on the sea grass meadows close to the shore.
But his feeding grounds bring him into close contact
with all things human.
Everybody's got scissors
to safely free dive and cut the fishing line off
of the reef.
How much trash we found today?
We, counting how many hooks we have,
how many plastic pieces, how much line we have.
Just everything.
You know, I'm going to do a quick count right now.
(laughing)
There's lot. One, two, three.
I'm going to call that five, six.
ten, twenty, thirty, fifty, eighty, ninety.
I got 70? What did I, what did I change?
70, let's go from 70.
Keep counting. I'll be back.
Okay. Bring food, water and help.
Yeah, over a hundred pieces of plastic, metal and trash.
Out there for an hour max, two hours
with Cheryl and her team.
Of all the trash we found, one of the biggest threats
to our turtles are plastics.
With a staggering 8 million tons finding its way
into our oceans each year.
The biggest pieces can be deadly, especially to the adults
who confuse them for food,
But they're not the only ones at risk.
As the ocean breaks down these plastics
into smaller and smaller pieces,
these microplastics together act as an insulator.
Super heating turtle eggs,
resulting in less males hatching each year.
It's kind of shocking really,
to see how much trash and plastic
and rubbish is coming out of the ocean.
The turtle research team's work is commendable,
but collecting plastic from the reef by hand
can only go so far.
To fix the plastic problem,
we're going to need a bigger boat.
Good morning, everybody.
We are definitely not in Hawaii anymore.
My journey, when we think about how we're going to deal
with microplastics in the ocean
has brought me here in search of,
probably not the first animal that would come to mind.
Really excited.
We're going to be hunting for,
I don't know if I should really tell you.
Should I tell you?
Okay, I will.
We are on the hunt for squid,
squid, squid, squid, beautiful squid.
Here we go. Nice.
Everything about this animal group is goofy and strange.
They live fast. They die young.
They can jet a meter in an eye blink.
Okay, we're about half an hour away from the spot
that we're going to drop the nets to start trying
to catch these squid.
So we're going to be unrolling these wires,
and they're gonna be going out, it's a long net.
I hope that somewhere beneath us are the smaller cousins
of the legendary squid that inspired tales of sea monsters.
Creatures that dragged ships to the bottom of the ocean
with gripping suckers.
Thankfully though,
these squid are only around 12 inches long.
Yet those suckers are formidable, given their size.
When they're not fighting for prey,
they're often fighting for a mate.
Males use their tentacles to grip onto a female
and insert their sperm sac.
Once the mating frenzy is over,
these females release long white egg sacks
that hold around 200 eggs each.
These are gathered into fields of egg beds.
Just three weeks later, the hatchlings emerge.
Armed with tiny, highly evolved tentacles
that will help them succeed as the next generation.
Any squids?
Yep, lots.
Wow. Yes.
Ah, brilliant.
Here's the squid right here.
We don't keep him out on the water more than a minute or so.
Okay, if you can hold this for me, Patrick,
and don't squeeze very hard.
See the suckers right in there.
Yeah.
Each sucker can be controlled individually
and there are many neurons in every sucker.
So it's a sensory organ.
It's like your tongue and your smell all in one.
(Patrick laughing)
I love that.
And the suckers suck of course.
Wow.
(laughing)
Yeah, it just latches right on.
It's so strange.
And if you look very closely,
you could see the tiny little teeth in there
and the teeth dig into the scale of the fish
or in this case, my finger.
And so you're not only have suction on the wiggling fish.
You have little teeth cutting in.
Like physical bricks.
Exactly. Yes.
Let's put this animal back so it stays in good shape for us.
Just incredible.
Ah, so.
(both laughing)
That was good.
Great, great day.
We managed to come back with a decent catch, check them out.
They're so beautiful.
And we're going to get these squid back to the lab.
I want to see these squid ring teeth in more detail.
I want to understand what makes them so invaluable
as a tool to these squid.
This is the squid home right here.
Nice. Okay.
Oh, wow. Check this out.
Oh look!
Yeah, we've got squids everywhere,
on the right, on the left.
Oh wow!
So I can gently move in and take this squid.
Aw, here's this beauty right here
and very gently by the hand, we'll put it in,
get the water out of the mantle, and swims away.
Aw perfect. That's a good job.
Brilliant.
I want to see them feeding, in action.
You got some fish in here.
Okay, we're all ready.
Fish is in.
The squid's lightning strike is 30 times quicker
than a speeding bullet.
(dramatic music)
Now hundreds of smaller suckers
and tiny teeth hold firm.
The squids ring teeth are the only thing keeping the prey
from escaping.
But the fish's thrashing can take a toll
on these gripping suckers.
Cracks and stress fractures can occur
within these tiny teeth.
If they're weakened, the squid's next meal
will have a better chance of escaping.
Luckily for the squid, evolution's found a way
for these serrated suckers to heal themselves.
Unlike typical teeth and bone, squid ring teeth
don't use mineral to give them strength.
They use pure protein.
At the molecular level these proteins are essentially soft
enough to stick back together.
They self heal after each struggle,
making them strong enough to grip onto the squid's prey
the next time around.
Boom. Yes.
(Patrick laughing)
That was exactly what I came here to see.
Yeah.
Where does your mind go?
When you think about those squid ring teeth,
it's ability to withstand these shearing torsional forces.
How can we use them?
So the fact that these proteins can self-heal,
that's really interesting to human enterprise
because when things get damaged,
if you get some self-healing capability,
it saves a lot of trouble against disease
or remaking things or whatever.
Roger's put me onto another scientist
called Dr. Melik Demirel.
Hopefully he can shed some light on exactly how squid
are going to help us solve this problem
of microplastic pollution.
Dr Melik.
We're both very interested in squid ring teeth
and the proteins that they're comprised of.
So let's start with that.
Why or what is it about squid ring teeth
that caught your interest?
The beauty is this proteins can help us
to make new plastics that are biodegradable,
that can replace existing plastics.
And maybe can help us to solve some
of this major microplastic, plastic pollution problems.
Step one, the team uses this machine
to synthesize the protein in squid ring teeth.
So there's no need to harm any real squid.
We genetically put the squid genes into the bacteria
and then now we can grow them at a very large scale.
So the bacteria grows very fast.
This guy is replicating itself every 20 minutes.
As the bacteria multiply,
they churn out more and more
of the squid ring teeth protein,
all that's left to do is extract it.
And then finally you will have this powder
out of the bacteria.
Is this the protein you are after?
This is the protein.
This is it. Wow.
This is evolution in a bottle.
The secret of millions of years of adaptation
distilled into a self-healing organic powder.
It's a far cry from the crude oil
and toxic chemicals needed in most plastics.
And from here, Melik dissolves the powder in a solvent
creating a solution that can work wonders.
What's that?
This is a wet spinner.
So basically we will use that solution
and pump it through the system to make fibers
for eventually making clothes.
What's wrong with the traditional fibers
that we're using today.
So, polyester, nylon has been used in large quantities.
We are talking about 50 million ton every year.
I think this is something which a lot of people
don't necessarily appreciate or know at home
that just your clothes, polyester is made.
Is it made from plastic?
Correct.
So it's made from plastic.
You put it into the washing machine,
your clothes come out looking fresh, brand new,
but there's lots of tiny fibers
which are being torn off.
After every wash, plastic fibers shed from our clothes
into waterways and then into the ocean.
A replacement for plastic that's organic,
breaks down naturally and doesn't impact wildlife,
well, that's the ultimate dream.
Oh, nice look.
Look at it. Look at it.
It's coming out.
Wow.
See the formation of the fibers?
That is incredible. Oh my God.
That is so cool.
(laughing)
I love that.
(inspiring music)
If we can coat fibers like polyester
with the protein material,
we can minimize the shedding of the plastic.
We can also enhance the lifetime of any fabric
by making them self-healing.
So you can reuse them and so on.
Regular clothes may one day be coated
in these bio-proteins and its potential uses go on and on.
Including as an organic glue.
We're currently using adhesives that are plastic based.
When we have these different types of packaging,
we think, okay, you can just recycle them,
but there are some elements that aren't recyclable.
Correct, because there's tiny layers stick together
with glues that's blocks these materials to be recycled
because there are no methods to take them apart.
(steam sounding)
(hair dryer running)
(Patrick laughing)
Right. Let's give it a go.
Come on, come on.
Pull. Pull.
Okay. Let's go.
Let's get Sam a pull.
Go on, pull, pull.
Almost there.
Okay. One of you guys?
One of you guys? Come on, come on, pull.
Two people, two people on that end.
Hold that, hold the end.
(laughing)
I don't think it's going to happen.
That's good. That's pretty impressive.
The same proteins that give squid ring teeth strength
have proved stronger than all of us.
But there's a simple secret to pulling them apart.
Here you go.
So this is basically vinegar that you'd put
on your fish and chips.
Yeah.
How long does it need?
Very quick, actually.
Two separate pieces, just like that.
That's right, folks. Squid glue.
100% biodegradable and 100% reusable.
(laughing)
This is Melik's crowning achievement.
So I should put this on.
There we go, I feel great.
You know, I didn't think I'd end up
with some lovely tentacle locks when I walked in here.
(laughing)
Well, we all know that microplastics are a big problem
and we need to find a cure.
And from what I've seen today, this genuinely could be it.
It's such a beautifully simple idea.
We could soon be restoring our impact on these ecosystems
thanks to a creature that evolved within them.
The graceful squid has inspired a technology
that could transform entire food chains.
And by reducing microplastics shed from our clothes,
we can safeguard the smallest ocean critters,
all the way up to the turtles that I started this leg
of the journey with.
If we can eliminate harmful plastics,
who knows what else we could learn
from the other 700,000 species living in our oceans.
Okay. Back on the road.
So of course, no self-respecting road trip
would be complete without some snacks.
I've got some naughty ones.
(laughing)
But, you can have that Matt.
There you go.
I've also got some healthy ones, some nuts here.
We've got some fruit, actually these are my favorite.
Cashew nuts, absolutely love them.
But a lot of the fruit and veg that we know and love
is largely thanks to one of the most humble creatures
of the natural world.
Bees.
They pollinate a third of the food that we farm.
In fact, they are responsible for a whopping $168 billion
to the agricultural sector.
Bees have been our planet's super pollinators
since before we were even a twinkle in evolution's eye.
Let me take you back,
over 300 million years.
Okay.
And round about there.
Stop.
Up until this point, life hadn't perfected flight.
It was the insects that first took that leap of faith.
(wings flapping)
(insects buzzing)
Since then, millions of insect species
have evolved and taken to the skies in all manner of ways.
But not all of them managed it with such grace.
Take the humble bumblebee.
With their plump bodies and tiny wings,
they shouldn't by rights be able to take to the air.
(buzzing)
Yet somehow they worked out
how to get their bodies airborne.
(insect buzzing)
It's all in the movement of those tiny wings.
Not only do they flap faster than most insects their size,
moving in a figure of eight,
they create lift on the forwards
as well as on the backward stroke,
producing a big, hairy transporting machine
that can carry almost its entire body weight in pollen.
Without bees, much of the plant kingdom
would simply collapse.
More and more reports are emerging of something
called Colony Collapse Disorder.
Basically all the bees are dying
and some scientists think that it comes down to the use
of pesticides, parasites and disease.
And no bees means no pollination
and that means less food for us.
But a research team believes they've found,
if not a solution, then a possible stop gap
for our food production,
until we can find a way to save the bees.
Meet the robo-bee,
the result of several decades of joint research
between MIT and Harvard Universities.
It mimics the unique muscle movement that real bees evolved.
It's tiny artificial muscles can flap
up to 120 times a second,
yet they use less power than the LED light bulb
on your Christmas tree.
It's still very much early days,
but this tech could have several future applications.
Including for pollination.
Until scientists can reverse Colony Collapse Disorder,
farmers may need to lean on the efforts
of our stand-in pollinators, the robo-bee.
Nature's balance is delicate.
Lose the humble bee and everything shifts on its axis.
And this is true on land as it is under the waves.
Tiny marine life, like plankton,
contribute towards two-thirds of the air we breathe
and keep the ocean stocked with food.
Another essential building block of life down here
are the coral reefs.
Coral reefs are like the rainforest of the ocean
in that they harbor masses of biodiversity.
And so losing them just isn't an option.
We really can't have that.
But reefs worldwide are under threat
and that's partly due to the impact we're having
on our coastal ecosystems.
You excited?
I'm excited.
Yeah, gonna be good.
I've arranged to meet a scientist who's found a way to get
ecology and engineering to work together.
We should get suited up and head out.
Yeah, it's a good idea.
Part of Ido's work
is understanding why human-made structures
are so damaging to marine life.
70% of coastal infrastructure
are concrete based,
50% of world population reside along coastline.
It's a lot of infrastructure in the water.
A lot of concrete is getting into the water
and the problem is what biology
is developing on concrete structure.
Ido, this is Patrick. Can you read me?
Hi Patrick, good to hear you underwater.
The oysters and tunicates are organisms that
are usually dominating infrastructure
and less dominating in natural environments.
(suspenseful music)
Whoo ho ho.
Visibility was (bleep).
(both laughing)
There was one point where, like, semi panic,
it was more just like, I can't see where the sea floor is,
where the bed is.
I can't keep my buoyancy.
You're drifting, trying to keep an eye on my buddy,
but then lost you.
So I just kept an eye out for the lights of the camera.
You were trying to show me
all the different species picking stuff out.
So the biodiversity is low
and there's a lot of invasive species associated
with infrastructure.
All right.
The key really is to create a habitable zone that will
increase the level of biodiversity within the coastline here
specifically along man-made structures.
Exactly.
Invasive species arrive
and settle on artificial structures.
Sometimes coming from distant continents
by hitchhiking on passing ships.
Clearly concrete isn't working as well for marine life
as it is for us.
So what do natural habitats offer animals
that our human infrastructure doesn't.
Yeah. Got a love a rock pool there.
We've got a couple of fish in there.
Oh no. There's loads.
Yeah.
Activity is, everything is alive here.
This is where a portion of the water is disconnected
from the water column for a certain time,
allowing different species and juvenile fish and larvaes
to forage without the risk of predation.
As we go down, we're gonna see
a different species composition.
Barnacles, some small anemones there.
Limpets, chitons,
Chitons, are these ones here.
Yeah.
Lots of this grass. Well, it looks like grass.
It's not grass.
It's not grass but it's a carpet of algae.
So you can see as we go up the shoreline,
upsloping the shoreline, the habitat are changing.
So it's a completely different environment,
although it's just a few feet away.
Yeah.
(water running)
And these tide pools are just
an extension of what's happening in the off-shore reef.
All life is connected, from the great white
to it's prey, like seals.
On a reef like this, buzzing with activity,
every creature plays their part in the food chain.
Here, bigger hunters like this potato bass
search for smaller prey,
who seek shelter on the reef itself.
Food chains like this are everywhere we find life
and they all share one simple rule.
If the little ones at the bottom aren't able to thrive,
then the entire system breaks down.
But these all-important reefs look very different
from the structures seen on our coastal developments.
So this is a standard reventment
designed to support an artificial shoreline.
And basically withstand the forces of the water
that is impacting them.
Take the impact of all those waves.
Take the impact and release the water as fast
as they can,
which is completely opposite what we want.
So we want to retain water.
We want to create those moist habitats
along the intertidal area.
So that's where your technology comes into play,
which I can see here right now.
This looks awesome.
Tell me about all these different blocks.
They look like they've got holes in them.
They look like concrete buckets.
Exactly.
So we're mimicking the features that we saw
on the natural environment on an artificial waterfront
without compromising the structural performance.
This test site was installed just two months ago.
It needs close monitoring to see what creatures
are getting settled in.
What evidence is there that
this is actually working?
We've been basically installing this system
in more than 30 sites around the world
from a tropical environment to a temporary environment.
So if we look inside the unit,
you see that we incorporate a lot of edges,
different levels.
Yes, there's texture, there's topography.
There's places for these animals to hide in
and find their own little micro niches.
Exactly.
It also reminds me of the intertidal zone.
You can see lots of algae
and also some of that larvae and mussels are starting
to colonize this area.
How long will it take before this area will really represent
what you hope?
My guess is within a year, year and a half,
it's going to be completely covered.
Build it, they will come.
The species are out there. The larvaes are out there.
The problem is that they didn't have, for a very long time,
a place to settle and thrive in an urbanized area.
So once this reaches the super creatures
that will find a place to settle will have it.
Can you explain some of the benefits
of having this system?
We need to balance between sustainability and development.
We need to make sure that we have a strong waterfront
that can support our infrastructure,
support the human activity,
but we now can do it in a way that can promote biology,
promote biodiversity and increase ecology of the area.
And I think this is the win-win solution.
It's amazing really because it mimics perfectly
what's going on, not only in the intertidal zone,
but also in the sub tidal zone, in the coral reefs.
It's the perfect example of how biomimicry
is the key to sustainability and a planet that protects us.
And in order to keep that going,
we need to support and protect as many species
on this earth as possible.
Right now, roughly 40% of us,
that's a staggering 3 billion people,
live near the coast.
It's clear that we're not going to stop building
on coastlines anytime soon, but we can change our impact.
Every marine ecosystem is unique
and caters to the needs of the specific creatures in it.
Which is why Ido's technology is so groundbreaking.
If we can better mimic the ecosystems around us
when we build, we can finally restore,
rather than disrupt nature's balance.
(thoughtful music)
Thinking back across this epic journey,
I've come face-to-face with some truly spectacular tech
(laughing)
Wow, look at that.
(laughing)
Inspired by the natural world.
There's such beauty
and engineering brilliance in nature.
You can't ignore it.
My mission has been to discover how our future could lie
within their natural history.
Kinda like water collecting robots.
I've seen how we can take the evolutionary lessons.
Doesn't wanna let go.
Taught by one creature, mimic them.
(laughing)
That's pretty impressive.
And uncover solutions way beyond
anything we could have imagined alone.
Nice.
Because nature herself
holds the key to our planet's restoration.
(suspenseful music)
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