Washington, Oct 13 (PTI) Scientists have developed astretchable and programmable camouflaging material inspiredby the instantaneously changing skin of octopus andcuttlefish.
For the octopus and cuttlefish, changing their skincolour and pattern to disappear into the environment is justpart of their camouflage prowess, said researchers fromCornell University in the US.
These animals can also swiftly and reversibly morph theirskin into a textured, three dimensional (3D) surface, givingthe animal a ragged outline that mimics seaweed, coral, orother objects it detects and uses for camouflage.
The pneumatically-activated material developed byresearchers takes a cue from the 3D bumps, or papillae, thatcephalopods can express in one-fifth of a second for dynamiccamouflage, and then retract to swim away without thepapillae imposing hydrodynamic drag.
"Lots of animals have papillae, but they cannot extendand retract them instantaneously as octopus and cuttlefishdo," said Roger Hanlon, from the Marine Biological Laboratory(MBL) in the US.
"These are soft-bodied molluscs without a shell; theirprimary defence is their morphing skin," said Hanlon.
The breakthrough by the team was to develop synthetictissue groupings that allow programmable, 2D stretchablematerials to both extend and retract a range of target 3Dshapes.
"Engineers have developed a lot of sophisticated ways tocontrol the shape of soft, stretchable materials, but wewanted to do it in a simple way that was fast, strong, andeasy to control," said James Pikul, assistant professor atthe University of Pennsylvania in the US.
"We were drawn by how successful cephalopods are atchanging their skin texture, so we studied and drewinspiration from the muscles that allow cephalopods tocontrol their texture, and implemented these ideas into amethod for controlling the shape of soft, stretchablematerials," said Pikul.
"This is a classic example of bio-inspired engineeringwith a range of potential applications. For example, thematerial could be controllably morphed to reflect light inits 2D spaces and absorb light in its 3D shapes," Hanlonadded. PTI SARSAR.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.