Whales, lizards inspire high-tech bio-mimicry: UN

Whale hearts hold clues to making pacemakers and lizard skins are showing how to cut friction in electrical appliances as companies mimic nature to develop high-tech goods, a UN-backed report said yesterday.

Among other advances that could save hundreds of millions of dollars, the wings of desert beetles could improve water collection and the drought-resistant African "resurrection plant" indicates ways to store vaccines without refrigeration.

"Biomimicry is a field whose time has come," said Achim Steiner, head of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) in a statement issued to coincide with a May 19-30 UN conference on protecting the diversity of animals and plants in Bonn, Germany.