It’s alive.

The new Apple iPad ad, titled “Alive,” debuted last night and features a gorgeous glimpse of the recently updated TED mobile app. The spot also highlights TED speaker Mathieu Lehanneur, a designer who looks to science and nature for inspiration for problem-solving objects. Lehanneur is the man behind the living air purifier Andrea– a space age terrarium that uses plants to metabolize toxins in the air — and Local River, a mash-up of an aquarium and herb garden for locavores. His designs marry the living and the synthetic in order to tackle environmental problems.

Mathieu Lehanneur demos science-inspired design

In his talk from TEDGlobal 2009, Lehanneur demoed a handful of his most fascinating creations — like a rolling ball that neutralizes noise pollution and a week-long antibiotic course all in one layered pill. But what has Lehanneur been working on since? According to his website, his latest invention is Isaac & Graham (named to honor Sir Isaac Newton and Alexander Graham Bell), an emergency phone for hikers that generates power by the dropping of a weight. In addition to a solo show at the Grand Hornu Museum in Belgium, Lehanneur has also designed a WikiBar for The Lab Store in Paris and Take Time!, a creation that is halfway between a pocket watch and a pendulum.

Mathieu Lehanneur is a designer who is fascinated with science, and it shows. He explains that his fascination is quite unique in his field, as rules of marketing say he should simplify but science embraces complexity. He’s impressed by science’s ability to investigate the human being; after all, he designs for the human being.

Then, Lehanneur begins showing us images of his designs. He’s created a product called dB, a white ball that emits white noise and interacts with us to improve our concentration, without alienating us from the people around us. Then he delves into his medical designs — an antibiotic course that comes in peel-and-eat layers, encouraging patients to finish it successfully; a living plant system to filter air called ANDREA; and LOCAL RIVER, an indoor system for growing plants and farming fish (for the ultimate locavore). His designs are fascinating, sleek and useful, a rather unusual combination.

Mathieu Lehanneur: Peel-and-eat antibiotic that encourages patients to complete treatment. Cool. — joeltalks

Mathieu Lehanneur: Therapeuitic Objects: The 3rd Lung: Asthmatic kids learn to trust/need the object which in turn needs him — kokoe2

Lehanneur follows the theme of invisible design, as if an object’s function exists implicitly and invisibly around it – brainpicker

Mathieu Lehanneur: LOCAL RIVER, an indoor mini-system, to filter water. (permaculture in the livng room!) — kokoe2

Fantastic ball from mathieu lehanneur: it positions itself in the center of noise and annihilates it by emitting the opposite soundwave — ostinelli