Abalone shell

I watched a TED talk about learning from abalone shells to build batteries. It was a very interesting talk, by Angela Belcher of MIT. As she talked, she held an abalone shell, and all I could think about was that my grandmother used one as an ashtray.

My mother now has my grandmother's abalone shell, and she painted an oil painting of it, which she sent to my aunt, who framed it and hung it in her house.