Nucleating an oyster. The Chinese have also begun to nucleate some of their freshwater mussels ... Will they buy Chinese pearls if the roundest examples are nacre-coated shell beads instead?

freshwater mussels, pen shells, and whelks. More interesting, perhaps, is the biological process that occurs for the pearls ...

The dearth of akoyas has helped open the door for other kinds of pearls, such as Chinese freshwater and South ... which holds the two parts of the oyster shell together, turns a reddish-brown.

Pearls are made by marine oysters and freshwater mussels as a natural defence against an irritant such as a parasite entering their shell or damage to their fragile body. The oyster or mussel slowly ...

Most pearls come from oysters, which thrive in both freshwater and saltwater environments. Oysters are bivalves that means their shell is composed of two valves connected by an elastic ligament.

Before the development of plastic, buttons were made from mussel shells. Freshwater pearls are still cultured by inserting small pieces of native mussel shell into oysters. Mussels are fascinating ...

Lapping green waters fringe the Kujukushima Islands off the coast of Sasebo in Nagasaki. Fields of pearl oysters sleep just beneath their surface. The shell beds are farmed by Tasaki, the Japanese ...

Brewers then worked out that oyster shells naturally clarified a beer ... In fact, Julius Caesar's desire to get his hands on our freshwater pearls is thought to have been his motivation behind ...