Beachgoers are familiar with the experience of spending hours in the sun, going home, and noticing only hours later that their skin has changed color.
Molecular & Computational biology
Aug 2, 2023
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31
Scientists have found a way to use nanotechnology to create a 3D "scaffold" to grow cells from the retina—paving the way for potential new ways of treating a common cause of blindness.
Bio & Medicine
Jul 27, 2023
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128
When you look at a painting in a museum, the colors that you see are likely less bright than they were originally, something that had previously been attributed mainly to light exposure. Now, researchers have discovered a ...
Analytical Chemistry
Jul 6, 2023
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63
The process by which aged (senescent) pigment-making cells in the skin cause significant growth of hair inside skin moles, called nevi, has been identified by a research team led by the University of California, Irvine. The ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jun 21, 2023
2
170
The community structure of phytoplankton can reflect changes in marine environment and help us understand driving factors behind ecological evolution. Quantifying pigment concentration in phytoplankton is crucial for comprehensive ...
Ecology
May 30, 2023
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3
The University of Alicante Applied Biochemistry research group—in collaboration with researchers from the Alicante University Hospital Dr. Balmis (HGUDB) and the Alicante Health and Biomedical Research Institute (ISABIAL)—has ...
Biochemistry
May 18, 2023
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694
Researchers at Wageningen University in the Netherlands have successfully developed a method to produce a promising microalga species that grows in an unlikely environment: the world's volcanic hot springs.
Cell & Microbiology
Apr 5, 2023
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5
When early Stone Age farmers first moved into Europe from the Near East about 8,000 years ago, they met and began mixing with the existing hunter-gatherer populations. Now genome-wide studies of hundreds of ancient genomes ...
Evolution
Mar 23, 2023
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37
The pink-throated brilliant hummingbird, Heliodoxa gularis, has, unsurprisingly, a brilliant pink throat. So does its cousin, the rufous-webbed brilliant hummingbird, Heliodoxa branickii. When scientists found a Heliodoxa ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 28, 2023
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60
When scientists develop new optical techniques and instruments for medical diagnosis, surgery, or light-based therapy, those techniques and instruments must be validated and calibrated through extensive testing. The test ...
Optics & Photonics
Feb 21, 2023
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52
A pigment is the material that changes the color of light it reflects as the result of selective color absorption. This physical process differs from fluorescence, phosphorescence, and other forms of luminescence, in which the material itself emits light.
Many materials selectively absorb certain wavelengths of light. Materials that humans have chosen and developed for use as pigments usually have special properties that make them ideal for coloring other materials. A pigment must have a high tinting strength relative to the materials it colors. It must be stable in solid form at ambient temperatures.
For industrial applications, as well as in the arts, permanence and stability are desirable properties. Pigments that are not permanent are called fugitive. Fugitive pigments fade over time, or with exposure to light, while some eventually blacken.
Pigments are used for coloring paint, ink, plastic, fabric, cosmetics, food and other materials. Most pigments used in manufacturing and the visual arts are dry colourants, usually ground into a fine powder. This powder is added to a vehicle (or matrix), a relatively neutral or colorless material that acts as a binder.
The worldwide market for inorganic, organic and special pigments had a total volume of around 7.4 million tons in 2006. Asia has the highest rate on a quantity basis followed by Europe and North America. In 2006, a turnover of 17.6 billion US$ (13 billion Euro) was reached mostly in Europe, followed by North America and Asia.
A distinction is usually made between a pigment, which is insoluble in the vehicle (resulting in a suspension), and a dye, which either is itself a liquid or is soluble in its vehicle (resulting in a solution). The term biological pigment is used for all colored substances independent of their solubility. A colorant can be both a pigment and a dye depending on the vehicle it is used in. In some cases, a pigment can be manufactured from a dye by precipitating a soluble dye with a metallic salt. The resulting pigment is called a lake pigment.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
