Scientists copy pearls and feathers to make new colors

Scientists have made a new material^*1 that shows bright colors. They got the idea from two things in nature: pearls and bird feathers. The study was published online on September 22, 2026, in Advanced Materials, a science journal^*2.

Professor Shu Yin of Tohoku University, a university in Japan, led the team. Scientists from Osaka University in Japan, National Taipei University of Technology in Taiwan, and the University of Science and Technology Beijing in China also worked on the study. A company from Japan, Daito Kasei Kogyo, joined the work too.

The new material makes structural color^*3. A pearl is made of many thin layers. Bird feathers have melanin^*4, and melanin takes in light. The team put these two ideas together inside an inorganic^*5 material. The result is a material that can be made in many different colors.

The new material does not need a very exact pattern that repeats many times. It still shows bright colors, and it is cheap to make. The team says this is a new way to design structural color materials, different from the old way.

Structural color is already important for makeup, coatings^*6, plastics, and screens. The team asked for a patent^*7 on August 21, 2026. Next, they want to use the new material in makeup, inks, and plastics.

1. *1 material: the stuff that a thing is made of
2. *2 journal: a magazine where scientists print their studies
3. *3 structural color: color that comes from very small shapes inside a thing, not from paint
4. *4 melanin: a dark thing in skin, hair, and feathers that makes them dark
5. *5 inorganic: not from living things, like stone or metal
6. *6 coatings: thin covers put on things
7. *7 patent: a paper from the government that says only you may make and sell your new thing