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Beetle Naturally Builds Photonic Crystals
esocid writes "Impeding the dream of ultrafast optical computers, we've been unable to build an ideal 'photonic crystal' to manipulate visible light, until now. University of Utah chemists have discovered that nature already has designed photonic crystals with the ideal, diamond-like structure: They are found in the shimmering, iridescent green scales of a beetle from Brazil. The beetle is an inch-long weevil named Lamprocyphus augustus. Bartl and Galusha now are trying to design a synthetic version of the beetle's photonic crystals, using scale material as a mold to make the crystals from a transparent semiconductor. The scales can't be used in technological devices because they are made of fingernail-like chitin, which is not stable enough for long-term use, is not semiconducting and doesn't bend light adequately. Ideal photonic crystals could be used to amplify light and thus make solar cells more efficient, to capture light that would catalyze chemical reactions, and to generate tiny laser beams that would serve as light sources on optical chips."
Bartl and Galusha now are trying to design a synthetic version of the beetle's photonic crystals, using scale material as a mold to make the crystals from a transparent semiconductor.
Man, I remember when I studied this in school. The crystals weren't lining up right no matter what I tried. Eventually I solved it by continuously rotating them during the growing stage, while simultaneously directing acoustic vibrations into their center. I called this the "Twist and Shout" method.
-- Jon Titor
Decades of computer debugging efforts wiped out by naturalist...
Well it's probably for the best that we can't simply use the scales else the poor little devils would likely be on the fast track of the endangered species list.
Two Parts Swash, One Part Buckle
I know it is sickeningly overused, but where will they get the tiny sharks for these tiny lasers?
We all know the answer...
Seamonkeys!!!!
The summary starts out by saying the beetle has ideal crystals, only to finish by saying they can't be used because they are not ideal.
from 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
to 45 2F 6E 40 3C DF 10 71 4E 41 DF AA 25 7D 31 3F
I vollue and globber floopily to you.
Just because you can't see the advantage in some feature doesn't mean that there isn't one. In addition, it was my understanding that it's possible for new features to appear and get "carried along" so long as they're not too detrimental to the organism's survival and procreation. They may or may not turn out to be useful later on.
[b.belong('us') for b in bases if b.owner() == 'you']
When the big dino-killer hit the planet, it most probably threw tons of biological samples off of the planet. Some of these would have struck the moon. Nature wins again!
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
In furtherance to this point, there's also the fact that the ability to grow photonic crystals on one's back benefits this species of weevil through its ability to enter into a mutualistic relationship with homo sapiens. Thus, through the interest garnered by the crystals, human beings will attempt to keep the species alive at least as long as it takes to see if they're useful.
Good luck with that. They're experiencing a population boom, and need food badly. They use that as the excuse to cut down the trees to sell to lumber mills for their ever-expanding market (China, India) and ever-dwindling supply. Also, keep in mind most of the nutrients from the jungles are all stored up in the trees. The same trees which are shipped off, and what isn't shipped off, is burned and blows away as smoke. Then they let cattle graze the grasses down to nothing and all the soil washes away, and then they obviously need to cut down more forest. This will continue until there is nothing left to cut down, the land is barren, and everyone starves.
The only ways I know of to stop this particular out of control locomotive is to educate the poor farmers in basic soil retention and agricultural techniques the Europeans discovered hundreds of years ago and to convince the lumber mills to stop imports (I.E. Go out of business). Since 1 may well happen (In fact there are efforts to ensure it) but 2 will not, I don't see how anything will change.