News tagged with butterfly wings

Butterfly wings' 'art of blackness' could boost production of green fuels

Butterfly wings may rank among the most delicate structures in nature, but they have given researchers powerful inspiration for new technology that doubles production of hydrogen gas — a green fuel of the future — ...

Chemistry / Materials Science

created Mar 26, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Researchers make better heat sensor based on butterfly wings

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have long known that butterfly wings produce their iridescent colors by bouncing light around and between tiny ridges in structures made of chitin. More recently they’ve discovered ...

Physics / Optics & Photonics

created Feb 13, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast report

MSU geneticist helps find butterfly gene, clue to age-old question

(PhysOrg.com) -- Years after sleeping in hammocks in the wilds of Peru and Panama, collecting hundreds of thousands of samples of colorful insects, Mississippi State assistant professor Brian Counterman now ...

Biology / Biotechnology

created Jan 30, 2012 | popularity 4 / 5 (1) | comments 0

How far can they go? Traveling is key for survival and conservation

Nowadays, more and more animal habitats are being fragmented, or lost. Many species need assistance and conservation of their environments to survive, and it is important to know the best way this can be achieved. ...

Biology / Ecology

created Nov 15, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

'Supergene' is key to copycat butterflies

Since Charles Darwin, biologists have pondered the mystery of "mimicry butterflies", which survive by copying the wing patterns of other butterflies that taste horrible to their predators, birds.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Aug 12, 2011 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (7) | comments 0

An eye gene colors butterfly wings red

Red may mean STOP or I LOVE YOU! A red splash on a toxic butterfly's wing screams DON'T EAT ME! In nature, one toxic butterfly species may mimic the wing pattern of another toxic species in the area. By ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Jul 21, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Copper butterfly folds wings to avoid unwanted male advances

(PhysOrg.com) -- In a move that females of any species would likely recognize, the small copper female butterfly has evolved a strategy of dissuading amorous males that is both effective and energy conserving; ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Jun 02, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 1 | with audio podcast report

Flight Artists film smallest insect in flight

The Flight Artists team from Wageningen University, the Netherlands, has been the first to make high-speed camera footage of parasitic wasps of about 1 mm wingspan.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created May 25, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Rainbows without pigments offer new defense against fraud

Scientists from the University of Sheffield have developed pigment-free, intensely coloured polymer materials, which could provide new, anti-counterfeit devices on passports or banknotes due to their difficulty ...

Physics / Soft Matter

created May 18, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (6) | comments 6 | with audio podcast

Colors of Butterfly Wing Yield Clues to Light-Altering Structures

(PhysOrg.com) -- At the very heart of some of the most brilliant colors on the wings of butterflies lie bizarre structures, a multidisciplinary team of Yale researchers has found. These structures are intriguing ...

Nanotechnology / Nanophysics

created Jun 14, 2010 | popularity 3.6 / 5 (5) | comments 4 | with audio podcast

It's a small world (for small people) after all

(PhysOrg.com) -- Lab-coated and goggled, Troy Dassler's 15 third graders are itching to power up their digital optical microscopes.

Other Sciences / Other

created May 10, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Butterfly vision, wing colors linked: Ability to identify own species aided by ultraviolet pigment

(PhysOrg.com) -- Butterfly experts have suspected for more than 150 years that vision plays a key role in explaining wing color diversity. Now, for the first time, research led by UC Irvine biologists proves ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Feb 16, 2010 | popularity 2.5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

How the butterflies got their spots

(PhysOrg.com) -- How two butterfly species have evolved exactly the same striking wing colour and pattern has intrigued biologists since Darwin's day. Now, scientists at Cambridge have found 'hotspots' in ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Feb 05, 2010 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Sparkly Spiders and Photonic Fish

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists in Israel and the UK have uncovered the details of how certain fish and spiders create their iridescent scales and silvery skins.

Physics / Optics & Photonics

created Dec 09, 2009 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

Nanometric butterfly wings created

A team of researchers from the State University of Pennsylvania (USA) and the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM) have developed a technique to replicate biological structures, such as butterfly wings, ...

Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials

created Oct 08, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (7) | comments 3