PARIS (AFP) — Even as animals and plants face widespread extinction from human-driven causes like climate change, the natural world continues to inspire scientific discovery in unexpected ways.

"Nature has spent hundreds of millions of years optimizing elegant solutions to extremely complicated problems," said Alon Gorodetsky, a biomedical engineer at the University of California, Irvine.

"So if we look to nature, we can shortcut our development process and get to a valuable solution right away," he told AFP.

From squid-skin food warmers to a lubricant made of cow mucus, here is a selection of this year's scientific work inspired by nature.

Okra plasters stop bleeding hearts

Stopping the bleeding hearts and livers of dogs and rabbits without stitches may now be possible with a biodegradable plaster made of sticky okra gel.

Okra is a fuzzy green vegetable with a slimy texture that inspired Malcolm Xing from Canada's University of Manitoba to turn it into a medical adhesive.

"Okra is a fantastic material," Xing said.

In the July study published in Advanced Healthcare Materials, researchers discovered that refining okra in a juicer and then drying it into a powder creates an effective bioadhesive that quickly creates a physical barrier and starts the blood clotting process.