Roland Piquepaille writes "Several articles appeared yesterday about how a small Hawaiian squid is using reflective plates to confuse predators, paving the way for a new generation of optical nanotechnology tools. Here are two short stories from Scientific American, "Squid May Inspire New Nanolights," and from Ananova, "Nature's 'searchlight' could leave inventors squids in." Scientific American says that this small squid has "a built-in flashlight made up of a previously unknown type of protein." The authors of the study called it "reflectin". I'm not sure if this will lead to future nanolight tools, but Ananova reports that "the structure of the reflecting plates could offer inspiration to nanotechnology designers." This overview contains more details and includes a picture of the cute three-inch-long Hawaiian bobtail squid."
This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.