PURPLE STAIN
ABALONE
Abalone shells are gleaming and shiny on the inside, thanks to layers of nacre, the same stuff that pearls are made of. Nacre is 95 per cent calcium carbonate – chalk, essentially – but try dropping an abalone shell and you’ll see it’s virtually shatterproof. This super strength comes down to nacre’s microscopic structure of diamond-shaped crystals stacked like bricks, with layers of chitin in between. Chitin is the same tough protein that makes insect exoskeletons and shrimp shells. If the outside of the shell gets damaged, the inner nacre layer stops cracks from growing bigger. The nacreous crystals slide over one another and the chitin stretches, dampening the energy of a spreading crack and halting it in its tracks.
Scientists from Canada’s McGill University recently mimicked the structure of nacre using glass flakes and acrylic to produce a transparent composite that’s three times stronger than normal glass and five times more resistant to fractures. Easy and cheap to make, this could be the ideal material for the next generation of smartphone screens that won’t smash no matter how hard they’re dropped, all inspired by nature’s nacre.
BUOYANCY AID
CHAMBERED NAUTILUS
This is the view inside the shell of a chambered nautilus that’s been sliced into two halves, left and right. When the nautilus was alive, each of those chambers was filled with gas, which turned the shell into a buoyancy device. The floaty shell helps a nautilus to hover in the water column and therefore save energy.
Bu hikaye BBC Science Focus dergisinin May 2022 sayısından alınmıştır.
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Bu hikaye BBC Science Focus dergisinin May 2022 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
Do We Finally Know How the Egyptian Pyramids Were Built? - A number of breakthrough studies are beginning to paint a picture of how these wonders of the world were built, but much of the story still remains a mystery...
A number of breakthrough studies are beginning to paint a picture of how these wonders of the world were built, but much of the story still remains a mystery...How the Egyptian pyramids were built has long been a mystery. Constructed as tombs for the pharaohs over 4,000 years ago, more than 100 of them remain. The largest one, the Great Pyramid of Giza, was originally 147m tall (482ft). It's made up of about 2.3 million stone blocks, each weighing between 2.5 and 15 tonnes, and would have had to be transported to the building site and lifted into place with techniques available at the time. To put this into context, it's akin to lifting a double-decker London bus to the top of St Pauls Cathedral a few million times.
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