Engineers in the US have built a flexible material that changes color to match its surroundings. The material was based on the camouflage abilities of octopuses and cuttlefish, according to BBC News.
The team of researchers were able to develop flexible sheets of light sensors, containing a temperature-sensitive dye. It is capable of automatically sensing and adapting to the color of their surroundings.
The technology could be sold to consumers, industries, and used by the military, according to the study, published on Aug. 18 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"These devices are capable of producing black-and-white patterns that spontaneously match those of the surroundings, without user input or external measurement," the researchers wrote, according to the journal.
Octopuses and squid are cephalopods, marine animals that have bilaterally symmetric bodies, arms or tentacles derived from the soft foot of a mollusk, large heads.
These creatures also developed forms of camouflage to hide themselves, hunt, reproduce, and to communicate, according to the study.
Scientists recently figured out how these animals are able to hide themselves on an organ and cellular level.
For the study, researchers from the University of Houston and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign fashioned cephalopod-inspired materials capable of sending and moving in order to blend in with their surroundings.
Then they created flexible sheets which consisted of color-changing elements on top of a white reflective surface with moving devices and light sensors, according to the study. The color-changing parts contain dyes that change from opaque to colorless in temperatures above 117 degrees Fahrenheit.
"Our goal as researchers is not to develop a color-changing wallpaper," said senior author Professor John Rogers, from the University of Illinois, according to BBC News. "That's a vision that somebody had, for an application, and indeed, it's kind of cool. But our emphasis is more on the basics, around biologically inspired engineering."
The camouflage material was tested, showing that it was able to adapt to changing patterns of light in its surroundings in 1 to 2 seconds. Researchers also programmed the material to produce a number of black-and-white patterns, like one that spelled the letters "U o I" (for University of Illinois), according to the release.
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