>>reporter: at the newly opened darwin centre in london's natural history museum, 17 million insect and 3 million plant specimens are providing a rich platform for research, into everything from malaria treatments to transport - even credit card security. >>parker: we're finding new structures and we're interested in the way they do interact with water or air or light for example. butterflies have wings with about 100,000 scales. and if we look you'll find nanostructures there that interact with light waves to produce iridescent colours, in the same way as holograms on credit cards for example. by replacing air with acetone you will see how the blue turns to green and as the acetone evaporates, air comes back and the blue colour returns. >>reporter: it may be an obvious model for sustainability and efficiency but until now the natural world has largely been ignored by the commercial one. but that's changing. bmt defence services, which specializes in naval design and engineering, has formed a symbiotic relationship with its neighbour, the university of bath and together they are coming

>>reporter: at the newly opened darwin centre in london's natural history museum, 17 million insect and 3 million plant specimens are providing a rich platform for research, into everything from malaria treatments to transport - even credit card security. >>parker: we're finding new structures and we're interested in the way they do interact with water or air or light for example. butterflies have wings with about 100,000 scales. and if we look you'll find nanostructures there that interact with light waves to produce iridescent colours, in the same way as holograms on credit cards for example. by replacing air with acetone you will see how the blue turns to green and as the acetone evaporates, air comes back and the blue colour returns. >>reporter: it may be an obvious model for sustainability and efficiency but until now the natural world has largely been ignored by the commercial one. but that's changing. bmt defence services, which specializes in naval design and engineering, has formed a symbiotic relationship with its neighbour, the university of bath and together they are coming