Scientists have been looking to nature for inspiration for materials with useful properties. Insect exoskeletons and shark skin are examples of materials that exhibit strength, durability, and less ...

LONDON -- After Royal Dutch/Shell Group agreed last week to finalized settlements with U.S. and U.K. regulators, which will cost the oil giant $150.7 million over its mis-statement of proven oil ...

Long before dinosaurs roamed the earth, the oceans were full of creatures known as ammonites. Scientists have now created a number of robotic ammonites, to see how the different shell shapes they ...

Northern Map Turtles, Graptemys geographica, are a long-lived riverine species of conservation concern. We examined carapace morphology of Northern Map Turtles at Mount Union, a major turtle nesting ...

Robotic ammonites, evaluated in a university pool, allow researchers to explore questions about how shell shapes affected swimming ability. They found trade-offs between stability in the water and ...

You can see it in the logarithmic whorl of a nautilus. The milky iridescence of an abalone. The spiked turret of a queen conch. Precision, elegance, strength. The seashell is a consonance of form and ...

For years, scientists have tried to crack a mathematical mystery: Is there an equation that can perfectly describe each and every bird egg? Variable shell shapes complicated things. But it turns out ...

In a university swimming pool, scientists and their underwater cameras watch carefully as a coiled shell is released from a pair of metal tongs. The shell begins to move under its own power, giving ...