Benny Bar-On

1 Introduction The vast majority of highly mineralized biological materials have evolved to provide mechanical functions to organisms.[1-5] Mineralized walls of single-celled algae such as coccolithophores, diatoms, radiolarians, and others afford protection and regulate interactions with the environment.[6, 7] In multicellular algae, corals, and sponges, biominerals contribute structural stiffness.[8-10] The shells of mollusks, the endoskeletons of sea urchins, and avian eggshells support...

1 Introduction The majority of biological materials evolved to provide a mechanical function to organisms.[1-4] These include, for example, the highly mineralized shells of mollusks, corals, endoskeletons, and teeth of numerous organisms, the cell walls of a number of unicellular algae species, as well as purely organic architectures, such as cuticles in arthropods, plant and wood materials, and many more.