04 August 2017
"Structural color" in butterfly wings
Scientists study the process in vitro in order to document the development of nanostructures that give the appearance of color without having pigment themselves. Interesting.
Addendum: A tip of the butterfly-chasing hat to reader Drabkikker, who offered a link to an article at Atmospheric Optics in his comment. Everyone who enjoys the video should also read that link.
Reposted from a couple months ago because the information in the link mentioned above has now been incorporated into a video:
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Utterly fascinating! Some more info on how these structures produce color can be found at Atmospheric Optics.
ReplyDeleteExcellent link (which I've moved up to the body of the post). It staggers my mind to imagine how this structural complexity evolved over the millennia.
DeleteSame here! I'm not creationally inclined, but it's stuff like this that almost makes me doubt.
ReplyDeleteTo clarify - structures like this don't in the least cause me to doubt evolutionary processes. These wings are no more complex than a reptilian eye. What it does for me is to leave me in awe over deep time - the uncountable number of trial-and-error modifications of simple structures that are necessary to generate this degree of complexity. "Billions and billions"... in this case of flashes of light from ancient wings attracting billions and billions of mates and/or predators. Deep time - like deep space - is a concept that's hard for my human mind to grasp.
DeleteOh, I fully agree - hence the "almost". :)
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