Resident Chiphead

Interesting story from Wired this morning…

For now, though, optical computing remains a dream. The chips require crystals that channel photons as nimbly as silicon channels electrons — and though engineers have been able to imagine the ideal photonic crystal, they’ve been unable to build it.

Enter a beetle known as Lamprocyphus augustus. In a study published this week in Physical Review E, Purdue University researchers describe how the inch-long Brazilian beetle’s iridescent green scales are composed of chitin arranged by evolution in precisely the molecular configuration that has confounded the would-be fabricators of optical computers.