Comment Cool Natural Materials... (Score 3, Insightful) 144
Lots of natural materials exhibit really interesting properties, sometimes at odds with the way we'd expect such materials to react. For example crustacean shells are ceramic but quite tough because of the layering of the ceramic with small amounts of organic binder material which causes any fractures to be diverted before they spread though the bulk of the material.
Many natural materials exhibit high levels of hierarchy like this and it's one of the many reasons why natural structures and materials are way cooler than most of the things that we make, with the possible exception of aerogel. One of the most interesting hierarchical structures is Euplectella Aspergillum (Venus' flower basket), its structure is really complex. I can easily see this being an aerospace material in 10 years...