This ability evolved several times independently in reptiles, neon tetra fish, butterflies, and in cephalopods like octopus and squid. Long before Harry Potter donned his invisibility cloak, animals from all walks of life have been manipulating their own color for a variety of reasons. The material could be used to make everything from camouflage clothing and coatings to chemical and environmental sensors.īiochemist Leila Deravi of Northeastern University, who wasn’t involved in the study, says that this new smart skin has overcome a “major problem for engineers” by figuring out how to elicit a color change without altering the volume of a polymer. “And we can trigger color change using direct sunlight.”
“This is something nature does all the time,” says Khalid Salaita, a bioengineer at Emory University and senior author of the new paper published September 11 in ACS Nano. Scientists have spent decades unraveling the chameleon’s color-changing secrets in the lab, and their years of work have yielded a new smart skin that changes color when exposed to the sun. In just a few moments, these lizards can shift the hue of their skin to intimidate predators, camouflage themselves, or find mates. Chameleons make changing color look easy.
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