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General Non-Fiction

Il futuro raccontato dalle piante

(The Future as Told by Plants)

Casa Editrice Longanesi&C., June 2021, pp.224

Without plants there is no oxygen or water. Without plants no life is possible. Without plants there can be no future for Planet Earth.

The visionary scientist of biorobotics takes us across the border between biology and robotics and tells us all we are learning and how much we can still learn from the ingenuity of Nature.

English sample available

Partial Translation cost supported by SEPS https://www.seps.it/en

Over millions of years, plants have “engineered” the Earth, turning it into a paradise. Without plants, our blue planet would be an inhospitable, fiery-red rock like Mars. Then where is the sense in the battle against vegetation man has been waging for years? We must open our eyes and see the extraordinary wealth Nature represents for our survival and our development as a species. And we can only do so by studying it and learning from it, for example, in the field of energy, from the way it adapts to the most extreme conditions, by monitoring the environment and exploring new planets.

Casa Editrice Longanesi&C., June 2021, pp.224

  • “As you listen to Barbara Mazzolai, branches, flowers and roots come to life and you realise you’ve never looked at them the way her words show them to you: as living creatures from which we can learn many things.”

    Il Corriere della Sera

  • “The genius of nature described by Barbara Mazzolai in the book of the same title is what we can imitate in order to translate it into technology as green as plants. A book steeped in optimism and confidence in research.”

    Telmo Pievani, La Lettura

  • “Mazzolai transports us into one of the most fascinating fields of robotics research of the past few years: that of the imitation of nature.” 

    Le Scienze

  • “Her words are those of a visionary. Barbara Mazzolai actually lives cheek-by-jowl with challenges and always looks a step ahead.” 

    La Stampa

  • “A book that helps us discover the incredible things plants do, and that robots also now do, but also tells us about the more recent discoveries of scientific research in the field. Reading it triggers many interesting ideas.” 

    Panorama

  • “Plants possess a sensitivity to us humans that is totally unknown, and which has led them to become a model of inspiration for a futuristic sector such as robotics. After ‘humanoids’ and ‘animaloids’, we now have Barbara Mazzoli’s ‘plantoids’.”

    Donna Moderna

  • “A successful Italian biologist at the head of cutting-edge research. An adventure Barbara Mazzolai describes in a short book crammed with information, curiosities and discoveries.” 

    Il Giornale

Barbara Mazzolai

Barbara Mazzolai is a biologist with a PhD in Micro-Engineering and the Director of the Bioinspired Soft Robotics and Associate Director for Robotics at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, in Genoa. As part of the prestigious European FET (Future and Emerging Technologies) programme, which sponsors the most visionary research ideas, she has coordinated the project that has led to the realisation of the Plantoid, the world’s first robot inspired by the roots of plants, with uses ranging from space exploration to micro-surgery, to environment monitoring. In 2015, Robohub, the largest international scientific community of robotics experts, ranked her as one of the 25 most brilliant women in the international field of robotics. Her first book, La natura geniale (The Genius of Nature) was published by Longanesi in 2019 and sold to Japan/Hakuyo-sha.

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