#structural color

[entomologize]

Fun fact: common buckeye butterflies (Junonia coenia) can be selectively bred to be blue fairly easily!

It turns out the only thing needed to go from brown to blue is a slightly thicker lamina, which is a flat layer at the bottom of the wing scale:

The lamina's iridescence is caused by the same phenomena as soap bubbles: thin-film interference. When light hits the transparent film of the lamina, it reflects off both the top and bottom of the layer.

Depending on the thickness and refractive properties of the material, the two reflected light waves can be in sync (image below) or cancel each other out. At the perfect thickness, the blue waves of light are enhanced and the butterfly becomes iridescent!

Because the difference in thickness needed to cause iridescence is so slight, it took less than a year to shift a population from just a few blue scales to full-on fabulous blue.

Photos & figures by Rachel Thayer, Nipam Patel, and Edith Smith.

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Repurposing pencil lead as an optical material using plasma

Optical materials are essential in many modern applications, but controlling the way a material reflects light on its surface is costly and difficult. Now, in a recent study, researchers from Japan found a simple and low-cost way of tuning the reflectance spectra of pencil lead samples using plasma. Their technique enabled them to produce pencil lead with various structural colors and even print invisible characters that can only be seen using an infrared camera. By interacting with light in predictable ways, optical materials have paved the way for all sorts of modern technologies, from industrial sensing, Organic Light-Emitting Diode or OLED displays, and telecommunications to even cancer treatment. In many of these applications, controlling the frequencies of light absorbed and reflected by these materials is essential. However, one pressing problem with optical materials is their relatively high cost. To ensure their proper functioning, optical materials often require complex manufacturing steps and a stringent quality control process.

Read more.

[greenwhitegold]

The probability of an insect of this perfection coming into existence on its own through a chain of coincidences is zero. All scientists know this fact. However, this situation is never mentioned because it would mean accepting creation. Societies would be incredibly happy if scientists were freed in their thoughts. Because God creates science so that we can love Him and be happy.

[slimefox]

Hi! No real credentials I just love bugs and colors.

Blues like this in nature are usually structural coloration! The way the surface of the exoskeleton/wing/feather/etc has tiny little bits that are all aligned in a way that reflects light back as blue, and often irridecent! As opposed to a blue pigment on a flat surface that just absorbs most colors but blue and reflects it back (mostly a plant thing). Although it's usually just animals, the most brilliant blue living organism is actually a plant using structural coloration!

I always wonder what color structural colorations on different creatures would be if you flatten them out, like what colors are underneath. They can occur at the same time as pigments so you can have a green surface with blue structural coloration and irridescence! Different animals use different types of structural coloration to get different colors and effects, and there's tons of different microscopic shapes.

my favorite part of structural coloration is that it's the reason that some cuts of meat are iridescent when cut the right way, the muscle fibers just happen to line up in the same way as would reflect or refract just exactly those colors. thank god for gay meat

How are these colors possible in nature?

Caenochrysis sp., a member of the cuckoo wasps

June 27, 2023

John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge, Tinicum, Pennsylvania

[famousfredisntdead]

Most animals that are blue or green aren't actually blue or green. The only animal that is truly blue is the Obrina Olivewing butterfly. All other animals we observe as blue seem as such due to what's called structural colour.

Most things (including animals) appear a certain colour because they absorb all colours except the one we observe. When something appears a certain colour because of structural colouring, it means there are tiny structures that only allow a certain wavelength to pass through. If the wavelength is too long, it will not pass through this structure.

When white light containing all wavelengths hits this structure, only blue light (or whichever colour is visible) can pass through these structures, thus appearing blue. This is also why these appear iridescent, changing colour as we move our heads. Because the gap allows a certain range to escape, but from different angles we get both extremes of what it allowed through.

It is for similar reasons the sky is blue, though we call this Rayleigh scattering. The particles in the sky Slattery most light making the sky appear blue. But when the sun sets, the angle makes it so the light has to pass through more of the atmosphere, making the sky appear a different range of colours.

[agentravensong]

thinking about how the extra area added on to a pacifist run of undertale, the true lab, is about alphys's past mistakes. how it ends with the story reaffirming that, despite the pain she's caused, the thing that matters is that she has now made the choice to do the right thing. she's still worthy of her friends' love.

thinking about how undertale doesn't expect the player to get a pacifist ending for the first time. how it's more likely than not that the player will kill toriel the first time they battle her, how lots of players don't initially figure out how to end undyne's fight without killing her, etc. what it expects — not even expects, really, but hopes — is that the player, if they care enough, will use their canonically acknowledged power over time to make up for those mistakes.

no matter how many neutral runs a player has done before committing to the pacifist run, the thing that matters to the characters, to the story, is that you've chosen, now, to do the right thing.

compared to alphys, the player honestly gets off lightly, in that you're the only one (other than flowey) who really remembers any harm you might have caused. and any direct guilting the game could have done about it is long past at this point. instead, as undertale often does, it makes its point via parallels: alphys caused harm, and she knows it. she has committed to being better. in doing so, she has unlocked for herself a better ending to her story. and she deserves it. she's forgiven.

those structural narrative parallels are all over undertale, if you know where to look. and that's one of the things that makes it so fuckin' good.

[cataclysmictide]

Pain's Like Cold Water Your Brain Just Gets Used To It

No Complaints - Noah Kahan/That Funny Feeling - Bo Burnham/Ask Polly: Help I'm The Loneliest Person In The World - Heather Havrilesky/Ladybird (2017)/Tennessee Williams/unknown/No Complaints - Noah Kahan/Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)/Ask Polly: Help I'm The Loneliest Person In The World - Heather Havrilesky/That Funny Feeling - Bo Burnham/No Complaints - Noah Kahan/That Funny Feeling - Bo Burnham/Unknown/Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)/'Ectesy' - Georges Bataille/Warsan Shire/Ladybird (2017)/How to Cure a Ghost - Fariha Róisín/That Funny Feeling - Bo Burnham/No Complaints - Noah Kahan

[kyannnite]

murderous tendencies be damned my boy can work a violin

[xiaq]

This house is going to be unrecognizable when I’m through with it.

[apuff]

frankie and dainix shaking hands because they are both orange eyepatch bros

by the way all aurora people should read castoff and all castoff people should read aurora they have a lot in common

[simandy]

Being Normal about Henri Chang

[entomologize]

Fun fact: Green forester moths (Adscita statices) aren't always green— on cool nights they become a rusty orange, then change back to blue-green in the morning.

This color change is possible due to the unique structure of some specialized wing scales:

The layers of tiny air pockets in these scales absorb water vapor from dewy night air, changing the way the light refracts:

Their color change reverses as the wing scales dry out in the sun:

Top photos: Joachim Wimmer and Linda Kjær-Thomsen. Everything else from Wilts BD, Mothander K, Kelber A. 2019 Humidity-dependent colour change in the green forester moth, Adscita statices. (Photos cropped/relabeled for clarity)

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Nano-optical sensors enable structural safety monitoring of buildings with color variations

As buildings age, the demand for effective monitoring of their structural integrity has grown significantly. A breakthrough in nano-optical sensor technology now enables precise, real-time measurement of structural deformation and stability. This innovation promises to reshape the field of structural diagnostics, offering a cost-effective, time-efficient solution that reduces the need for specialized expertise traditionally required in this area. Led by Dr. Jae Sung Yoon, Principal Researcher at the Nano-lithography & Manufacturing Research Center within the Nano-convergence Manufacturing Research Division at the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM), affiliated with the Ministry of Science and ICT, and Ph.D. candidate Nguyen Hoang Minh from the UST-KIMM School, the research team drew inspiration from the structural coloration observed in natural phenomena such as peacock feathers and morpho butterflies.

Read more.

[kibbits]

Background for a scene in my part of the animation project 👀

(Done in,, , two days)

[alwaysbewoke]

there was NOTHING (ABSOLUTELY NOTHING) kamala could have done to win this election. NOTHING.

[ahahnopenope]

behold, the rizzard wonder !