Antarctic Sponge Found to Have Natural Optical Fiber Properties
From Times staff and wire reports
Optical fibers, the invention at the heart of late 20th century telecommunications, occur naturally in the chilly waters of the Antarctic, Italian scientists report in Nature. The creature they identified as having stolen a march of several millenniums on the world’s telecom giants is the humble Antarctic hexactinellid, or sponge.
The scientists examined spicules which protrude four inches from the creature’s body. Bending the spicules at a 90 degree angle, they shone a laser beam down them and discovered that the spicules showed light-carrying properties similar to those of optical fibers.
