Cuttlefish are masters of disguise, able to change their skin color in less than a second to hide from predators or draw in prey for the kill. Now, scientists from MIT and elsewhere are developing cuttlefish-inspired electronic ink and screens that use less than one-hundredth the power of traditional television screens. "Cuttlefish change their color by secreting different chemicals to change the spacing between membranes," said Edwin Thomas, a professor at MIT who recently co-authored a paper describing his team's new screen in the journal Advanced Materials. "We have created an artificial electrical system to control the spacing between layers," he said, thereby changing the colors on the screen. The current screen prototype is several square inches across but only one micron thick. Crammed into that narrow space are 20 to 30 layers of alternating "dirt cheap polystyrene that doesn't do anything," said Thomas, and "responsive" poly-2 vinyl.
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