Sea Sponge Teaches Scientists a Lesson

Fibre optic cables, with their ability to carry digital information over long distances have been viewed as an amazing human invention, but now it seems that nature not only did it first but also did it better.

A deep-sea sponge, commonly known as Venus’ flower basket, might teach humans a thing or two about how to transmit light in fibre optic cables.

A team of researchers at Bell Laboratories/Lucent Technologies in New Jersey are studying naturally formed needle-like structures called spicules that cover the sea sponge.

The spicules are able to bend light and therefore transmit information in a similar way to man-made glass fibre optic cables.

Like fibre optic cables, the spicules are about the diameter of a human hair, but they do not break and crack as easily as their glass cable counterparts.

Modern technology cannot yet compete with some of the sophisticated optical systems possessed by biological organisms, Joanna Aizenberg and colleagues wrote in their report.

By studying the sponge more closely, scientists hope to find ways to improve fibre optic cables used in telecommunications.