“Pearls, the most flawless and highly prized of them, are perhaps the most perfectly spherical macroscopic bodies in the biological world. How are they so round?” So begin Julyan Cartwright at the ...

Mollusks maintain the symmetry of their pearls by adjusting the thickness of each layer of shimmering nacre. If one layer of the pearl’s nacre is thinner, the next layer is thicker and will balance ...

The mystery of how pearls form into the most perfectly spherical large objects in nature may have an unlikely explanation, scientists are proposing in a new study. The mystery of how pearls form into ...

The team gathered their observations by studying Akoya "keshi" pearls, produced by the Pinctada imbricata fucata oyster near the Eastern shoreline of Australia. They selected these particular pearls, ...

Flawless pearls are among the most symmetrical spheres with biological origins. But how do they get so round? Turns out they turn. Pearls form when mollusks such as oysters create so-called pearl sacs ...

Viruses are hurting Japan's pearl oysters. Now scientists are working to figure out how to make the oysters more resilient. By Laura Baisas Published Nov 10, 2022 10:00 AM EST Get the Popular Science ...