Mother-of-pearl, also known as nacre, is not just an iridescent substance whose optical characteristics impress the observer and which is often used for jewellery. It is also an excellent material for working with. Nacre ...
The ocean is a perilous environment for a soft-bodied creature like a sea snail, so nature gives it an advanced nanostructured armor system that is stiff and strong yet lightweight. It's called a shell. Now MIT scientists ...
It's possible to grow thin films of mother of pearl in the laboratory that are even stronger than the super-strong material that naturally lines the inside of abalone shells. The trick is to add compounds normally found in ...
Engineering researchers at the University of California, San Diego are using the shell of a seaweed-eating snail as a guide in the development of a new generation of bullet-stopping armor. The colorful oval shell of the ...
