For centuries, researchers have puzzled over how oysters grow stunningly symmetrical; perfectly round pearls around irregularly shaped grains of sand or bits of debris. Now a team has shown that oysters, mussels, and other mollusks use a complex process to grow the gems that follow mathematical rules seen throughout nature.
Pearls are formed when an irritant gets trapped inside a mollusk, and the animal protects itself by building smooth layers of mineral and protein — together called nacre — around it.
A pearl’s symmetrical growth lays down layers of nacre that rely on the mollusk balancing two basic capabilities. It corrects growth aberrations that appear as the pearl forms, preventing those variations from propagating over the pearl’s many layers. Otherwise, the resulting gem would be lopsided.
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