It is well known that some animal species use camouflage to hide from predators. Individuals that are able to blend in to their surroundings and avoid being eaten are able to survive longer, reproduce, and thus increase their fitness (pass along their genes to the next generation) compared to those who stand out more. This may seem like a good strategy, and fairly common in the animal kingdom, but who ever heard of a plant doing the same thing?
In plants, the use of coloration or pigmentation as a vital component of acquiring food (e.g., photosynthesis) or as a means of attracting pollinators (e.g., flowers) has been well studied. However, variation in pigmentation as a means of escaping predation has received little attention. In the December issue of the American Journal of Botany, Matthew Klooster from Harvard University and colleagues empirically investigated whether the dried bracts on a rare woodland plant, Monotropsis odorata, might serve a similar purpose as the stripes on a tiger or the grey coloration of the wings of the peppered moth, namely to hide.
As a myco-heterotroph, M. odorata obtains carbon resources from associated mycorrhizal fungi and has a highly reduced vegetative morphology consisting of an underground root mass that produces one to many diminutive reproductive stems (3.5–6 cm in height).
Snow, the white stuff, without it there'd be no white christmas, or white blanket, but why do a few clear (translucent) ice crystals bunched together look white at all?
We all know the basics of visual color perception; light frequencies travel around and run into things causing them to be absorbed, scattered, or pass right through. The outcome: the frequencies left over make it back to our eye and are interpreted by the brain which reveals before our eyes those beautiful colors we all love so much. Amazing.
So, why is snow white? When white sun light hits snow there are so many pockets of air and ice crystals that it causes a diffuse reflection of the whole spectrum scattering every wave length right back at us, and the combination of all color frequencies appears white.
As a reminder to "eat your daily recommended dose of color," Tattfoo Tan, an artist whose work "seeks to find an immediate, direct, and effective way of exploring issues related to the individual in society... Through the employment of multiple forms of media," developed the Nature Matching System as a public art project in New York City. The Nature Matching System (NMS) was conceived in an effort to spread awareness and promote the health benefits of eating colorful fruits and vegetables.
NMS —Nature Matching System was developed by Tattfoo as a reminder to consume your daily recommended doses of color. The shades of color displayed at farmers’ markets are more than skin deep, reflecting the inner potential of every fruit and vegetable; intense colors might even be called nature’s nutrition labels. They get many of their colors from phytonutrients, compounds that play key roles in health and reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer. The more colors come together at a meal, the better. Sadly, marketers of junk food apply the same technique used by nature to pollinate seed to their nutrition-deprived product. Color is a device that can do good or be deceptive and ensure the pollination of unhealthy eating habits. The colors on the placemat shown below are all actual food colors, taken from photographs of various fruits and vegetables. Match your meal to the placemat—it is truly a rainbow connection.
Started in 1974, the Nikon Small World Competition has been recognizing excellence in photography through the microscope.
"A photomicrograph is a technical document that can be of great significance to science or industry. But a good photomicrograph is also an image whose structure, color, composition, and content is an object of beauty, open to several levels of comprehension and appreciation."
Today, we're taking a look at a selection of palettes from the top photos in the 2009 competition.
Color is normally thought of as a fundamental attribute of an object: a red Corvette, a blue lake, a pink flamingo. Yet despite this popular notion, new research suggests that our perception of color is malleable, and relies heavily on biological processes of the eye and brain.
The brain's neural mechanisms keep straight which color belongs to what object, so one doesn't mistakenly see a blue flamingo in a pink lake. But what happens when a color loses the object to which it is linked? Research at the University of Chicago has demonstrated, for the first time, that instead of disappearing along with the lost object, the color latches onto a region of some other object in view – a finding that reveals a new basic property of sight.
The research shows that the brain processes the shape of an object and its color in two separate pathways and, though the object's shape and color normally are linked, the neural representation of the color can survive alone. When that happens, the brain establishes a new link that binds the color to another visible shape.
"Color is in the brain. It is constructed, just as the meanings of words are constructed. Without the neural processes of the brain, we wouldn't be able to understand colors of objects any more than we could understand words of a language we hear but don't know," said Steven Shevell, a University of Chicago psychologist who specializes on color and vision.
Shevell's findings are reported in a paper, "Color-Binding Errors During Rivalrous Suppression of Form," in the current issue of Psychological Science. Wook Hong, who received his Ph.D. at UChicago and is now a post-doctoral fellow at Vanderbilt University, joined Shevell in writing the paper and conducting the research.
Their work expands the understanding of how the brain is able to integrate the multiple features of an object, such as shape, color, location and velocity, into a unified whole.
"An aspect of human vision that we normally don't appreciate is that different features of an object, including color and shape, can be represented in different parts of the brain," said Shevell, the Eliakim Hastings Moore Distinguished Service Professor in Psychology and Ophthalmology & Visual Science.
If a person sees a basketball coming, it is perceived as having a particular color, shape and velocity. "The knitting together, or what can be called 'neural gluing,' of all those different features so we see a unified object is a complex function done by the brain. Our research focused on how the brain does that," Shevell explained.
The Hubble telescope is back online after undergoing a billion dollar repair mission earlier this year. After installing two new cameras, other science instruments and replacing broken parts, Hubble is returning the sharpest and most colorful images the Earth has ever seen.
To create your own Hubble inspired palettes using PHOTOCOPA simply click on the image. To see palettes other users have created based on the image click on the palette.
These two images of a huge pillar of star birth demonstrate how observations taken in visible and in infrared light by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope reveal dramatically different and complementary views of an object.
The pictures demonstrate one example of the broad wavelength range of the new Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) aboard the Hubble telescope, extending from ultraviolet to visible to infrared light.
Composed of gas and dust, the pillar resides in a tempestuous stellar nursery called the Carina Nebula, located 7,500 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina. The pair of images shows that astronomers are given a much more complete view of the pillar and its contents when distinct details not seen at visible wavelengths are uncovered in near-infrared light.
A clash among members of a famous galaxy quintet reveals an assortment of stars across a wide color range, from young, blue stars to aging, red stars.
Unfortunately, it 's not directly related to the amount of wisdom one holds but rather the amount of hydrogen peroxide built up in your hair follicles.
"Not only blondes change their hair color with hydrogen peroxide," said Gerald Weissmann, MD, Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal. "All of our hair cells make a tiny bit of hydrogen peroxide, but as we get older, this little bit becomes a lot. We bleach our hair pigment from within, and our hair turns gray and then white. This research, however, is an important first step to get at the root of the problem, so to speak."
The team of Eurpoean scientists, including Gerald Weissmann, made this discovery by examining cell cultures of human hair follicles. They found that the build up of hydrogen peroxide was caused by a reduction of an enzyme that breaks up hydrogen peroxide into water and oxygen (catalase). They also discovered that hair follicles could not repair the damage caused by the hydrogen peroxide because of low levels of enzymes that normally serve this function (MSR A and B). Further complicating matters, the high levels of hydrogen peroxide and low levels of MSR A and B, disrupt the formation of an enzyme (tyrosinase) that leads to the production of melanin in hair follicles. Melanin is the pigment responsible for hair color, skin color, and eye color. The researchers speculate that a similar breakdown in the skin could be the root cause of vitiligo.
Akiyoshi Kitaoka, a professor of Pyschology at Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan, and the famed creator of the Rotating snakes illusion, has been updating his site since 2002 and it is full of intriguing color illusion. He is also responsible for inspiring the artwork on Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion album.
Four Tanks
There are two pairs, each of which consists of two squares of the same color. Which are the two pairs?
Answer of "Four tanks": the pair of the leftmost square and the neighboring one, and the pair of the rightmost square and the neighboring one
Squares of four colors
Copyright Akiyoshi Kitaoka 2007 (February 15)
It appears that there were squares of four colors, though there are two colors (red and green) for squares.
These fascinating images, tagged 'radiology art', were created using a CT scanner by artist turned doctor Satre Stuelke.
About the Project
In the summer of 2007, artist and medical student Satre Stuelke started the Radiology Art project. Dedicated to the deeper visualization of various objects that hold unique cultural importance in modern society, this project intends to plant a seed of scientific creativity in the minds of all those inclined to participate. limited edition prints are available of some images. Please email prints@radiologyart.com for information.
Barbie Doll & Squeaking Rubber Ducky
METHODS
Stuelke acquires the images on an older four-slice CT scanner that is used for research. Most scan parameters include a 120kV tube voltage, 100mA current, 0.625mm slice thickness and interval, 1:1 pitch, 1.25mm beam collimation, and a speed of 1.25mm/rotation. The resulting DICOM images are then processed in Osirix software on a Macintosh iMac computer. Colors are assigned based on the varying densities of materials present throughout the object. Depending on the spread of densities within a particular subject, black or white backgrounds are chosen. Images are further processed in Adobe Photoshop for proper contrast and balance.
This content was reposted from the Shopping Journal. You can see the original post here.
If you are a smart shopper, it is not that easy to persuade you to actually buy something. There is the science behind how the products are organized, labels are written and sections are ordered to guide you through to making a purchase. That’s a wealth of tricks based on psychological theories and practices that in the end “convert” you from a regular visitor into the buyer.
One of the most powerful methods to appeal to a potential buyer is applying color theory to (e)commerce. Has it ever occurred to you why you feel safer in one store and more energetic in another one? Have you ever noticed that landing on some web page you feel like clicking some button/link and keep browsing the site? While other pages prompt you to stay and keep reading? To some extent, this might be the choice of colors for the page elements.
Color is believed to be one of the most powerful elements of design for web sites, direct mail, ads, and other marketing materials. It carries meaning through associations and/or your body physical response. Color associates can vary from country to country but in Western culture they are basically the same.
So don’t let (online) sellers affect your decision by showing you what you want to see. Let’s see how color choice may affect your shopping behavior and habits - for you to be able to buy with a cool head.
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