Pearls are an ancient aristocratic ornament, looking at the portrait paintings of the European past, women of various wealthy classes are often covered with pearls. Even if you don't wear gorgeous gemstones in your daily attire, you can always inadvertently reveal a string of pearl bracelets to prove your family wealth.
Mainland pearl ornaments also have a long history, in ancient times, pearls have become a luxury for officials and nobles in the imperial court, the emperor also began to accept pearl offerings, the Eastern Han Guiyang Taishou Wenlong to the Han Shun Emperor "offering pearls to woo", the imperial princes of the Western Han Dynasty also widely used pearls, pearls are a symbol of dignity.
But, you know what? Pearl is actually a foreign body in the body, specifically the body foreign body of the mussel shell. So, how exactly are pearls formed?
It is formed in two ways:
1. External factors
The mantle of the mussel is stimulated by the invasion of foreign substances (sand grains, parasites), and the epidermal cells at the stimulated place are nucleated by foreign substances and fall into the connective tissue of the mantle, and part of the mantle epidermal cells that fall into it divide on their own to form a pearl sac, and the pearl capsule cells secrete nacre, layer after layer to coat the nucleus to become pearls. A foreign substance as the nucleus is called a "nucleated pearl".
Simply put, after a foreign body enters the pearl, it is wrapped in nacre, and the number of layers increases, forming a pearl. And now cultured pearls also take advantage of this, artificially implanting foreign bodies into pearls. Cut off the live epithelial cell pieces (referred to as cell pieces) from the mantle membrane of the bead mussel, and implant the artificial nucleus prepared with the mussel shell into the connective tissue of the mantle membrane of the mussel, and the implanted cell small piece, relying on the nutrients provided by the connective tissue, rapidly proliferates around the artificial nucleus, forms a pearl sac, secretes nacre, and thus generates artificial nucleated pearls.
Second, internal factors
After the outer epidermis of the mantle is pathologically stimulated, part of the cell division and then separation, then coated with its own secreted organic substances, and gradually into the connective tissue of the mantle, forming a pearl sac and then forming pearls. Since there is no foreign substance as a nucleus, it is called "seedless pearl".
Artificial seedless pearls are implanted with only small pieces of cells during mantle surgery, which are proliferated by cells to form pearl sacs, and nacre is secreted into the sac, thereby generating artificial seedless pearls.
In addition, the main components of pearl are calcium carbonate and magnesium carbonate, accounting for more than 91%, followed by silicon oxide, calcium phosphate, Al2O3 and Fe2O3. The organic matter in the pearl contains 17 amino acids such as aspartic acid, threonine, serine, glutamic acid, glycine, alanine, cystine, valine, methionine, isoleucine, leucine, tyrosine, phenylalanine, histidine, arginine, proline, etc. In addition, it also contains more than 30 kinds of trace elements, taurine, rich vitamins, peptides. Wearing pearls is equivalent to a very slow pace of continuous application of pearl powder to the body, especially the necklace of the full pearl style, which has a whitening effect on the skin. In addition, there have been rumors that wearing a pearl necklace can relieve sore throat and protect the throat, and this saying is circulating in professions that use more voices (such as teachers, tour guides, etc.). But there is no scientific basis.
In fact, pearls are very similar to the mussel shell composition of the mollusks that give birth to pearls, the difference is that the pearl is in the body, and the inside of the mussel shell has a rich vignetting, which is similar to the surface of the pearl. Pearls are originally formed by foreign substances entering the mussel body and being wrapped in calcium carbonate tissue secreted by the mussel. Objectively speaking, pearls and mussel shells are the same substance. When the pearl grows larger and larger in the mussel's body, it will stick to the mussel shell, regardless of each other. The outside of the mussel shell is affected by the environment in the water, and it is not good-looking. In fact, the mussel shell is deeply processed and can be made into various accessories, daily necessities, and even feed.
In fact, in the wild environment, there are very few mussels with pearls, with the continuous yearning of human beings for beautiful things, pearl culture technology continues to appear new breakthroughs, there are more and more artificial pearls, pearls of different shapes, colors are not the same, but the market is basically the shape of the regular good-looking pearls, the price is also very expensive, in fact, that is carefully selected and processed, under normal circumstances, in fact, there will be a lot of special-shaped pearls, its price is more difficult to measure, But the unique shape of the shaped pearl gives designers more room to play.
The luster of pearls is naturally produced, and the delicate luster of the epidermis will be better, which is also the main factor affecting the price. So, why do pearls vary in color?
In fact, the variety and color of pearls are similar to our human race and skin color (including hair and eyes). Humans originated in the East African savanna, when they were uniformly dark-skinned, dark-haired, black-eyed. Our ancestors walked out of Africa 70,000 years ago and spread throughout the world over the next tens of thousands of years. In different living environments, human genes undergo subtle variations every few generations. These subtle variations accumulate and manifest themselves in body appearance, creating significant differences – different skin tones, different hair, different eyes, different facial contours, different heights and body types – which form different races.
The species evolution of pearl-producing mollusks is the same as that of humans. The difference in appearance and color of pearls is an outward manifestation of the evolution of mollusk species. Therefore, the color of pearls is determined by genes and environment.
In fact, the appearance of every beautiful pearl is the process of the mussel enduring great pain, and the appearance of the pearl is the result of the mussel "resisting" the foreign body to save itself.