ecosystem

Build a Backyard Bee Hotel

Build a Backyard Bee Hotel

By Gareth Branwyn

Gareth Branwyn

Gareth Branwyn is a freelance writer and the former Editorial Director of Maker Media. He is the author or editor of over a dozen books on technology, DIY, and geek culture. He is currently a contributor to Boing Boing, Wink Books, and Wink Fun. His free weekly-ish maker tips newsletter can be found at garstipsandtools.com.

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Ideas and instructions for building a 5-star bee hotel for solitary bees

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Emulating Ecosystems: A Story About Beer

Emulating Ecosystems: A Story About Beer

Sherry Ritter

By Sherry Ritter

Sherry Ritter

Sherry Ritter is a biologist, writer, and educator living in Montana. Before getting involved with biomimicry, she was a wildlife ecologist with state wildlife agencies in Wyoming and Idaho, and worked for the U.S. Forest Service. Biomimicry fits her life-long interest in organisms’ adaptations to survive.

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Businesses interested in meeting environmental sustainability goals can learn a lot from ecosystems. Functioning ecosystems are closed-loop systems, where one organism’s waste is another organism’s food or building material. An example of such industrial ecology is the ZERI beer brewing system that replaces the “make, take, and waste” linear resource stream with a circular system in which waste is treated as a resource rather than as garbage. This is biomimicry at the system scale.

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