A broken piece of diatom frustule, showing the interior of the areolae and sieve membranes. I’m fascinated by the patterning of the pores in the frustule, which in this case appear to have a fractal property with two iterations. The smallest of these pores are 20 nanometers in diameter, as wide as ten strands of DNA placed side by side. How are these pores constructed with such precision, and what purpose do they serve? I would like to be able to answer these questions…
Yet another fine blog…. 😅 