Last year, Japanese scientists found evidence that, in 775 AD, Earth was hit with a sudden blast of high-intensity radiation - a blast carrying about 10,000 times the energy of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

In the latest issue of Soft Matter, a team of biochemists from Kyoto University show off their latest creation: a crab shell that came from a normal crab, but which has been made as clear as glass. The hapless crustacean's chitinous exoskeleton was treated with hydrochloric acid, lye, and ethyl alcohol, which removed all the pigments, proteins, and whatnot while leaving the chitin substrate intact. This "nanofibrous structure" was then impregnated with acrylic resin. Result: transparent crab shell.