Colour shifting, underwater glue, and physics strategies (for AI)

Your new Strategy Toolkit newsletter (August 20, 2025)

(1) Squid game

Material scientists are always on the look out for new ways to camouflage and hide objects (buildings, clothing, vehicles, etc.), as well as manipulate surfaces. A team from UC Irvine used inspiration from cephalopod skin structure to mimic dramatic shifts in colouration, even to the point of semi-transparency.

“Squids are well known for their camouflaging abilities. Specialized cells in their skin enable them to change color or become transparent at a moment’s notice. Now researchers led by Alon Gorodetsky at the University of California, Irvine, have made a synthetic material that uses the same tricks as squid skin to iridesce, change color, and become transparent when stretched or chemically altered. The researchers collected detailed cellular-scale observations of squid skin with a method known as holotomography—3D laser measurement of a material’s refractive index. What they found provided the key to replicating the effect.”**

* Georgii Bogdanov et al., Gradient refractive indices enable squid structural color and inspire multispectral materials. Science388,1389-1395(2025). DOI:10.1126/science.adn15

** Fattaruso, L., “A color-changing material inspired by squid skin“, Physics Today (July 24 2025); https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/online/44473