The Beetle That Thought It Was A Precious Stone

circletimessquare writes "Queensland, Australia is well-known as one of the most important sources for opal in the world. Apparently Queensland has another untapped source of opal recently discovered in its backyard, except this source is not the providence of geology, but biology. A native weevil of Queensland grows opal on it's back shell! Implications for research into nanotechnology, biotechnology, and photonic computing are implied in the article. The journal Nature is publishing the more rigorous scientific write-up of the findings."

Comments

opal composition

[morcheeba]

Opals are actually just a mixture of tiny silica spheres and 3-10% water... "nanospeheres" are a defining characteristic of an opal; it's not a single crystal like many other types of gems. interesting reference

Re:Plus it is patentable

[drinkypoo]

You can patent a process for producing things, but you can't patent a plant

I'm sorry, but you in fact can patent a plant. In fact, they have "plant patents" here in the US specifically for such a purpose. In creating them, the quote was something to the effect of "I am sure that this will give us many more burbanks" - As in Luther Burbank, creator of the descendants of most popular current-day freestone peaches (I believe his peach is plant patent number fifteen.)