What is a natural pearl, and how are they formed? Natural pearls form when some kind of irritant, usually a small organism, makes its way into the shell of a mollusk like an oyster or a mussel.

A great irony of pearl history is that the least expensive ... To reduce irritation, the mollusk coats the intruder with the same secretion it uses for shell-building, nacre.

The Alabama pearlshell mussel, a small, endangered mollusk found in a just a few creeks in south Alabama, which can outlive ...

The oyster or mussel slowly secretes layers of aragonite and conchiolin, materials that also make up its shell. This creates a material called nacre, also known as mother-of-pearl, which encases the ...

What is a natural pearl, and how are they formed? Natural pearls form when some kind of irritant, usually a small organism, makes its way into the shell of a mollusk like an oyster or a mussel.

While the photograph is authentic and does show an item kept under a fisherman's bed for 10 years, no official sources have confirmed the object is a genuine pearl. Moreover, as the item's ...

And not every pearl comes out the same. The size of the pearl largely depends on the size of the mollusk. For example, akoya pearls can only grow about 9 or 10 millimeters in diameter, but South ...

Pearl barley does not need to be soaked before use.

An ancient group of marine mollusks evolved two different ways to see — and the visual trajectory a species took may depend on a seemingly unrelated body feature, a new study suggests.

Sailors man the rails aboard the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Chung-Hoon as the ship pulls into Naval Station Pearl Harbor after a six-month deployment in the Western Pacific ...

Add 25g/1oz of the butter to the onion and squash and, once melted, add the pearl barley. Turn up the heat and cook for 2-3 minutes. Turn down the heat to medium and add a ladleful of warm stock.

As the site of the surprise attack that spurred America's entrance into World War II, Pearl Harbor is one of the most significant places in U.S. history and today, one of the most visited.