It's natural for us humans, being naturally born as creatures without traces of dirt save for our mothers' (I don't want to go that far), to be attached to the idea of being pure and clean. So it's not surprising that most of us prefer things to be as white as possible, in terms of cleanliness of course, as the said color is the symbol of purity.

With a recent discovery made by some scientists in Exeter University in England, achieving the color "sparkling white" may not be as hard as it used to. And the possible solution can be extracted from...beetles.

Apparently, a certain specie of beetle - Cyphochilus - carries a particular structure that can produce whitening elements. This structure, which was traced back to the bug's scales, can provide us with the best whitening products - if manufacturers could uncover the process to harness its effects.

According to optical physicist Pete Vukusic, what's really amazing about it is how thin it is. Normally, we can make things go this luminous only if we create more layers, which will make it scatter the light from the Sun, thus making it bright. But with the Cyphochilus, such brightness-to-mass ratio has never been manufactured before. Even in nature, white coloring is considered as unusual because it requires a surface to reflect all wavelengths of light strongly.

So are we that close to reaching purity? Who knows? For now, let's get back to using toothbrush and detergents. Unless you want to scrub beetles to your teeth and clothes...