Why does a ceramic coffee cup break much more easily than a seashell? That might seem like a question to ponder during a long, lazy afternoon at the beach. But General Electric, a company known in recent years for aiming its bottom line research at specific business issues, is looking for the answer and using a rather unusual strategy: it is reverse-engineering seashells. Researchers in the company's 25-person nanotechnology group want to understand what nature has done right, as well as how nature's approach might someday be used to build better ceramic materials for jet engines and power turbines.

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