Wild Technology: the amazing natural origins of human inventions

You may not have realised that the word Velcro comes from the French for velvet (VELours) and hook (CROchet). I didn't either, though, like Phil Gates, I did know that its Swiss inventor modelled it on the burrs that he found stuck to his alpensocks. And Gates writes like a burr - hooking his reader early on and riding along happily for the whole journey in his latest 'Nature invents, science applies' book.

He presents a vivid cavalcade of techno-devices which have long had natural precedents. The Channel Tunnel's ventilation system mimics that used by prairie dogs in their underground villages, woodlice had armour before the crusaders, beavers' incisors still outperform the best steel chisels, the zips on birds' feathers never jam and bombardier beetles carry their own CS sprays. I could go on. Gates does at rewarding length, grouping his ingeniously chosen inventions according to scientific principle and clearly demonstrating the link between natural and artificial.

It's been done before, of course, but never with such elan, such fluency, such conviction or such sumptuous artwork. Gates is a natural informer, his enthusiasm is infectious and, like Velcro, this one's a winner.