Oct 10
2019-2020 Verbrugge Lecture
Life Crystals
Pupa Gilbert, University of Wisconsin – Madison
Department of Physics
Crystalline biominerals cost energy but provide the diverse organisms making them with useful functions, including scaffolding, shielding, locomotion, mastication, gravity, and magnetic field sensing. How these crystals are formed reveals how living organisms harness the laws of physics and chemistry for their evolutionary advantage, but it can also teach us new synthesis strategies for materials with targeted properties. Recent synchrotron spectromicroscopy methods reveal one formation mechanism and one toughening mechanism:
1. Crystallization by particle attachment in diverse marine organisms, and its implications for changing ocean chemistry.
2. Slight mis-orientation of nanocrystals in human enamel makes our teeth endure decades of mastication without breaking.
