Hyde, ST and Meldrum, FC orcid.org/0000-0001-9243-8517 (2022) Starfish grow extraordinary crystals. Science, 375 (6581). pp. 615-616. ISSN 0036-8075
Abstract
The growth and form of crystals in vivo—biomineralization—challenge many ideas about crystalline materials. One typically pictures a crystal as a sterile object with a regular geometric form, but nature frequently challenges this preconception. This is beautifully illustrated by the calcite plates (stereom) of echinoderms, which exhibit complex, sponge-like morphologies and curved surfaces and yet behave as single crystals. Extraordinarily, the stereom of certain species is highly ordered. Observations of the sea urchin Cidaris rugosa more than six decades ago (1) identified a stereom reminiscent of one of the three simplest triply periodic minimal surfaces (TPMS), the so-called P surface, with a lattice parameter four orders of magnitude larger than that of calcite. On page 647 of this issue, Yang et al. (2) provide a new example of a TPMS at this extreme length scale. Detected in the knobbly starfish Protoreaster nodosus, the stereom resembles another simple TPMS, the D surface.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2022 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. This is an author produced version of an article published in Science. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Chemistry (Leeds) > Inorganic Chemistry (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 18 Feb 2022 11:05 |
Last Modified: | 25 Jun 2023 22:54 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | American Association for the Advancement of Science |
Identification Number: | 10.1126/science.abn2717 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:183620 |