Biomimicry Leads to Computer Technology Breakthrough

An interesting advance has been made towards the next generation of supercomputers.  But it wasn't in an electronics laboratory or a shadowy Redmond bunker - it was in a beetle crawling around Brazil, and can guarantee that this story is the only time you'll read the words "weevil" and "optoelectronics" in the same sentence.

We've already worked out how to transmit data as light along fibre optics, offering significant speed advantages over regular electron-transporting wires.  To make the same upgrade to the rest of the hardware, however, we need to make major advances in the field of photonic crystals - materials which can be designed to transmit or block selected frequencies.  Scientists at the University of Utah have discovered that the unassuming L. Augustus weevil has beaten us to the punch, using scales of diamond-like crystals for the highly scientific purpose of "sparkling green".

Not that you have to worry about a new line of "Insect Inside" computers (as if some people weren't scared enough of technology) - the chitin that the scales are composed of is utterly unsuitable for optical applications.  Likewise you can't just bite the bullet and pay for diamonds themselves, as their structure is too densely packed.  The important aspect is the isometric-hexoctohedral (try saying that ten times fast) lattice structure both possess.  We know we can't use the diamond formation method with more suitable materials, so the researchers are working to discover how an itty bitty bug nanostructures such perfectly machined material.

The final irony is the use the two species put these crystals to. Since sparkling bright green isn't exactly camouflage, researchers suspect the blinged-out bug scales help the beetle attract a mate - while if computers get much better, many humans will forget how to mate at all.

Posted by Luke McKinney.

The Photonic Beetle http://www.physorg.com/news130481875.html