Sunday, January 09, 2022

How an oyster builds a perfectly round pearl

These are some head spinning news or do not cast pearls before swine! (just kidding)
You never look again at a beautiful pearl the same way next time!

"The analysis revealed that fluctuations in the thicknesses of the pearls’ layers of nacre exhibit a phenomenon called 1/f noise, or pink noise ... the formation of nacre layers of different thicknesses may appear random, but is actually dependent on the thickness of previous layers. ...  These phenomena “belong to a universal class of behavior and physics,” ..."

From the abstract:
"... We find that mollusks strike a balance between preserving translational symmetry and minimizing thickness variation of layers by creating a paracrystal with medium-range order. Self-correcting growth processes allow pearls to quickly attenuate disorder, accommodate topological defects in tablet structure, and maintain order throughout a fluctuating external environment. ...
Self-correcting growth mechanisms actively remedy disorder and topological defects of the tablets and act as a countervailing process to long-range disorder. ..."

How an oyster builds a perfectly round pearl | Science News



This cross section of a keshi pearl shows that the round gem grows around a misshapen lump of debris.


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