Pyrite is often dismissed as “fool’s gold” but this mineral creates some of the most stunning crystals in nature. Walk into ...

Livermore Scientists Shape Crystals With Biomolecules Date: November 19, 2004 Source: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Summary: Using biominerals as an inspiration, Livermore physicist Jim ...

Especially showy mineral crystals are also valuable as gemstones for jewelry once they are cut into new shapes and polished. The highest price ever paid for a gemstone was .2 million for the CTF Pink ...

As the foremost source of iron ores on the planet, hematite has shaped civilizations for thousands of years. The mineral was first used as the main pigment in cave paintings often having a reddish ...

Taking a cue from a starfishlike creature, scientists at Bell Labs create intricately patterned crystals they say could one day improve communications networks and nano-devices.

Many elements were also too dispersed in the original dust clouds to be able to solidify into mineral crystals. As the solar system took shape through “gravitational clumping” of small ...

When it comes to hard stares and stony gazes, no animal can match the chiton, a small mollusk with eyes made of rock crystal. Now a new study shows just what these strange eyes are capable of.

China has become the third country to discover a new mineral on the moon. It found a phosphate in crystal form, which it named Changesite-(Y), in lunar samples it collected in 2020.

Like gloves, many individual mineral crystals or organic molecules exist in two mirror-image forms–a phenomenon known as chirality. A month ago in the Proceedings of the National Academy of ...