structural color
21. Body surfaces reflect light to create colors: jewel beetles
"The Buprestid beetles…as well as many ground-beetles (Carabidae), are different again in that the body surface producing the colour is hardened and quite permanent and sculptured into subtly varying shapes that reflect light at different w...
Bookmark
Email22. Color change mechanisms indicate state change.
Fruits and berries are masters of focus-grouped advertising---they are specifically colored to attract the birds, mammals, and even fi sh that will best spread their seed. The ripening process is highly orchestrated as well, with berries staying a...
23. Scales enhance wing color: swordtail butterfly
"The wings of the swordtail butterfly Graphium sarpedon nipponum contain the bile pigment sarpedobilin, which causes blue/green colored wing patches. Locally the bile pigment is combined with the strongly blue-absorbing carotenoid lutein, re...
24. Features enhance cooling effect: shade trees
"Now, a research team from the Department of Horticulture at National Taiwan University has published a comprehensive study in HortScience that offers recommendations for landscape designers and urban planners in subtropical regions…T...
25. Skin protects from water loss: humans
"The vertebrate integument represents an evolutionary compromise between the needs for mechanical protection and those of sensing the environment and regulating the exchange of materials and energy. Fibrous keratins evolved as a means of strengthe...
26. Investing resources increases competitive success: trees
"The development of the 'tree' habit in many different plant families must reflect a high degree of competitive success for this life form. The expenditure of materials in short supply in the production of long-lived, mechanically robust forms mus...
27. Optical metamaterials
Opsins allow the cephalopod skin to perceive incoming light across its skin. Some sort of signal processing occurs, and then the chromatophores and iridophores produce a colored pattern in response. Mimicking this complex system could have far rea...
28. Trenches gather water: flying saucer trench beetle
"A third method involves uptake of free water directly from fog-moistened sand. The most elaborate procedure is used by the genus Lepidochora (Seely and Hamilton, 1976) (Fig. 3 c). These flat, circular, short-legged beetles construct a shallow tre...
29. Scales create brilliant white: Cyphochilus beetles
"We report the identification of whiteness resulting from a three-dimensional (3D) photonic solid in the scales of Cyphochilus spp. beetles. Their scales are characterized by their exceptional whiteness, their perceived brightness, and their optic...
30. Butterfly wing scale photonics
Until recently, mimicking the complex surfaces of beetles and butterflies has been technologically unfeasible. The structures responsible for producing intense color are precise to the nanoscale, with repeating patterns of cuticle and air space. T...
search tools
- If you would like to save this search, please login.
