Scientists create fabric that mimics octopus camouflage | South China Morning Post
The international research team included chemistry and mechanics experts at leading Chinese institutions as well as Roger Hanlon, a world expert on the physiology of cephalopod skin.
The octopus's ability to camouflage itself has inspired a new kind of thin, flexible fabric that can automatically match patterns, US researchers said.
Creatures of the ocean known as cephalopods - including cuttlefish, squid and octopuses - are naturally equipped with sensors in their skin that help to mimic the look of their surroundings.
By closely studying how they do it, engineers and biologists taking part in a three-year-long US navy-funded research programme have created a material that acts in a similar way.
The team's initial result, described in this week's edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is far from ready for commercial use.
But architects, interior designers, fashion houses and the military all have their eyes on its eventual capability to provide a first-of-its-kind man-made camouflaging material.
"If you illuminate it with white light and different patterns, it will automatically respond to that and produce a pattern that matches," said lead author John Rogers, a professor in the department of materials science and engineering at the University of Illinois. "Having said that, we are a long way from colour-morphing wallpaper, but it is a step that could lead in that direction."
The flexible material's layers include temperature-sensitive dye and photo sensors that respond in one to two seconds to changing patterns. The dye appears black at low temperatures and clear at temperatures above 47 degrees Celsius.
"These devices are capable of producing black-and-white patterns that spontaneously match those of the surroundings, without user input or external measurement," said the study.
The international research team included chemistry and mechanics experts at leading Chinese institutions as well as Roger Hanlon, a world expert on the physiology of cephalopod skin.
"Adaptive camouflage is extremely important to this animal group," explained Hanlon, senior scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
Cephalopods have evolved the ability to quickly survey their surroundings and turn on the right camouflage pattern, choosing from three to five basic templates in their repertoire.
"Within a second, in general, they are doing this magical process of looking at this complex visual world immediately surrounding them," said Hanlon.
Hanlon said his lab had published research showing that cephalopods seemed to have light sensors distributed throughout the skin which create the appropriate disguises.
The international research team included chemistry and mechanics experts at leading Chinese institutions as well as Roger Hanlon, a world expert on the physiology of cephalopod skin.
The octopus's ability to camouflage itself has inspired a new kind of thin, flexible fabric that can automatically match patterns, US researchers said.
Creatures of the ocean known as cephalopods - including cuttlefish, squid and octopuses - are naturally equipped with sensors in their skin that help to mimic the look of their surroundings.
By closely studying how they do it, engineers and biologists taking part in a three-year-long US navy-funded research programme have created a material that acts in a similar way.
The team's initial result, described in this week's edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is far from ready for commercial use.
But architects, interior designers, fashion houses and the military all have their eyes on its eventual capability to provide a first-of-its-kind man-made camouflaging material.
"If you illuminate it with white light and different patterns, it will automatically respond to that and produce a pattern that matches," said lead author John Rogers, a professor in the department of materials science and engineering at the University of Illinois. "Having said that, we are a long way from colour-morphing wallpaper, but it is a step that could lead in that direction."
The flexible material's layers include temperature-sensitive dye and photo sensors that respond in one to two seconds to changing patterns. The dye appears black at low temperatures and clear at temperatures above 47 degrees Celsius.
"These devices are capable of producing black-and-white patterns that spontaneously match those of the surroundings, without user input or external measurement," said the study.
The international research team included chemistry and mechanics experts at leading Chinese institutions as well as Roger Hanlon, a world expert on the physiology of cephalopod skin.
"Adaptive camouflage is extremely important to this animal group," explained Hanlon, senior scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
Cephalopods have evolved the ability to quickly survey their surroundings and turn on the right camouflage pattern, choosing from three to five basic templates in their repertoire.
"Within a second, in general, they are doing this magical process of looking at this complex visual world immediately surrounding them," said Hanlon.
Hanlon said his lab had published research showing that cephalopods seemed to have light sensors distributed throughout the skin which create the appropriate disguises.
