Sapphirina, or sea sapphire, has been called "the most beautiful animal you've never seen," and it could be one of the most magical. Some of the tiny, little-known copepods appear to flash in and out of brilliantly colored ...
Materials Science
Jul 15, 2015
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(Phys.org)—A team of researchers with members from New Zealand, Czech Republic and the U.S. has documented for the first time an example of an aviary egg that has iridescence. In their paper published in Journal of the ...
Color in living organisms can be formed two ways: pigmentation or anatomical structure. Structural colors arise from the physical interaction of light with biological nanostructures. A wide range of organisms possess this ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 25, 2013
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Iridescence, or sheen that shifts color depending on your viewing angle, is pretty in peacock feathers. But it's been a nuisance for engineers trying to mimic the birds' unique color mechanism to make high-resolution, reflective, ...
Optics & Photonics
Feb 5, 2013
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(Phys.org)—Nature's ability to create iridescent flowers has been recreated by mathematicians at The University of Nottingham. The team of researchers have collaborated with experimentalists at the University of Cambridge ...
Mathematics
Jan 10, 2013
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A South American butterfly flapped its wings, and caused a flurry of nanotechnology research to happen in Ohio. Researchers here have taken a new look at butterfly wings and rice leaves, and learned things about their microscopic ...
Nanomaterials
Nov 7, 2012
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Squid's colorful, changeable skin enables the animal—and their close relatives, cuttlefish and octopus—to display extraordinary camouflage, the speed and diversity of which is unmatched in the animal kingdom.
Plants & Animals
Aug 27, 2012
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Nacre -- or mother of pearl, scientists and artisans know, is one of nature's amazing utilitarian materials.
Condensed Matter
Feb 16, 2012
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(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 that the ...
(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have combined two properties on a single piece of graphene oxide that don’t usually go together: iridescence (resulting in a rainbow-hued appearance) and superhydrophobicity (causing low-contact ...
