Sea Creatures to Provide Basis for New Electronics?

hakaii writes to tell us that the shells of tiny sea creatures may help to lay the foundation for new electronic devices including an improved pollution detector. "Using a chemical process that converts the shells' original silica (silicon dioxide, SiO2) into the semiconductor material silicon, researchers have created a new class of gas sensors based on the unique and intricate three-dimensional (3-D) shells produced by microscopic creatures known as diatoms. The converted shells, which retain the 3-D shape and nanoscale detail of the originals, could also be useful as battery electrodes, chemical purifiers - and in other applications requiring complex shapes that nature can produce better than humans."

Comments

Obligatory Futurama

[Loadmaster]

Zoidberg: Hooray, I'm useful! I'm having a wonderful time.

Swi

Re:so, who will patent this

[thrawn_aj]

We are mostly discoverers, much less inventors. Every now and then we come up (in large numbers) with stuff that nature has not yet thought of, but for the most part our 'inventions' are already part of nature. The article itself is an excellent counter-example to your claim. Or are you suggesting that sea-shells were designed to be electronic circuits? :P Engineering genius consists of tailoring Nature to suit our needs. To a clam, a shell is simply a shell, a means of protection, a dead hulk that surrounds it. To the engineer who thought up this application, it was much more than that. It was a ready template to design micro circuitry. It is incomprehensible to me how this translates to "simply appropriating what already exists in nature". There are levels of understanding and levels of control. Sure, we can't engineer devices from scratch (i.e. from the level of subatomic particles :P), but that is hardly an issue is it? One might as well say that a factory produces paint and canvas, so the artist does nothing. While this may be true for some so-called artists *roll*, surely that's fallacious in general?