Military scientists learning from God

Dr Denis Spitzer from the military oriented Institut Franco-Allemand de Recherches de Saint-Louis calls it bioinspiration rathern than biomimicry!

...That's the vision of scientists who work on electronic noses, and now, thanks to the silkmoth, the world's most sensitive electronic nose for explosives was recently demonstrated in the lab. One thousand times more sensitive than comparable devices, it consists of a tiny, vibrating cantilever coated in a forest of titanium dioxide nanotubes that were inspired by similar structures on the antennae of silkmoths.

"For me, this is bioinspiration, not biomimicry," says Spitzer. The moth detects molecules through a "lock and key" system in which individual molecules are caught by smell sensor receptors, which then activate neurons connected to the animal's brain. Spitzer's system works by a very different mechanism, but this insight from the physical structure of the moth's antennae proved to be a crucial one.
Christopher Mims
Read the entire article in BBC Future - Technology 29.8.2012