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Feral by Design
Feral by Design is a podcast that uses biomimicry to steal nature’s smartest strategies for human chaos.
Each episode starts with a messy real-world problem, turns to a creature that’s already solved something similar, looks at their strategies and follows the thread you didn’t see coming. Sometimes it lands on one idea, sometimes a few - but it always lands somewhere useful.
Grounded in real science, told through self-deprecating stories, and always surprisingly practical.
Biomimicry made accessible, useful, and genuinely fun.
Nature owns the patent. We get to copy it.
Feral by Design
Deadly Reflections: The Hidden Danger In Every Window
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Nature has notes. Apparently, sometimes she delivers them in person.
This one arrived as a stunned kingfisher on Pia's porch tiles, moments after flying full-tilt into her window. Literally as she was writing this episode!
How do we speak a language birds can actually read?
From the “system reboot” behaviour of concussed birds to a 100-million-year-old secret hanging in your garden, this episode dives into the origins of ORNILUX. It’s the story of how a German manufacturer looked at the UV-reflective patterns in spider webs, an ancient defence mechanism, and engineered a modern solution to the 100-million-bird-strike problem.
It’s a story about communication design, locally attuned signals, and what happens when we finally ask what the receiver can actually see.
Biology: Orb-weaver spiders use UV-reflective silk patterns to make webs visible to birds and prevent collision.
Principle: Signals must be designed for the receiver’s sensory system, not the sender’s intent.
Application: ORNILUX glass uses UV patterns to make otherwise invisible surfaces detectable to birds.
Follow Feral for new episodes every fortnight.
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feralbydesign.com
Created and hosted by Pia Williams
Clever by Nature. Feral by Design.