Cut-paste

Is Pink Panther Pink?

Red, green and blue light, in various combinations, can result in any number of colours, each represented by a different wavelength of light. But one colour whose wavelength cannot exist, is pink, or so says a recent claim by some scientists.

If you look at a rainbow, you’ll notice that red and violet (the two colours that combine to form pink) are at opposite ends. So these colours can never meet, as infrared light lies beyond red and beyond violet is ultraviolet, both of which lie out of the visible spectrum. So, pink can’t really exist anywhere except in our imagination! Of course, plenty of other scientists disagree, saying that all colours lie in the perception made by our brains and are all equally real. youtube/minutephysics

Seaweed Power

Seaweed has always been a viable option for biofuel, given that it produces ethanol when its cells break down.

The only drawback has been the lack of an effective way to break down the cells. But now, scientists from Bio Architecture Lab in Berkeley, USA, have created a bacterium that feeds on seaweed. With this problem out of the way, seaweed could be the next big environment-friendly energy source.

Itsy Bitsy Violin

Violin strings are made from nylon, steel or gut. But a Japanese research team has crafted violins strings from spider silk. Long strands of spider silk are woven into cords of varied thickness to make each string of the violin. And because of a strange property of the silk, its structure is modified when woven. This gives the strings a wonderful new tone and quality when the violin is played. Given that the thickest string needs 15,000 strands, though, this violin won’t be something most people can afford. Listen to the violin at: http://bcove.me/n9ttxi42. via NewScientist

Light on other Planets

Sunlight passing through the earth’s atmosphere reflects off the moon and is seen by us as Earthshine.

Observing this light can tell us a lot about our planet, like cloud cover, vegetation and what gases are present in the atmosphere. The cool thing about this technique is that light from other planets can similarly be studied to get information about foreign worlds. via Nature

Clicking the King

Photographer William Burrard-Lucas shot rare, close-up photographs of lions in Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya. But how did he take beautiful pictures from such close quarters without risking his life? He had help from the BeetleCam. William and his brother Matthew built this remote-controlled, ground-level camera, mounted on wheels, in 2010, and it performed brilliantly until it was destroyed by a lioness. In 2011, they constructed the BeetleCam 2, this time with an armour made of aluminium and fibreglass to protect it, and sent it forth into the wild. To read about the adventures of the BeetleCam and view the BeetleCam galleries, log on to http://www.burrard-lucas.com/beetlecam. via burrard-lucas.com

Snakes and Glades

As the population of Burmese pythons is expanding in the Everglades (Florida, USA), researchers have noticed a curious trend in the population of large and medium mammals in the area.

Not only has the mammal population – including rabbits, foxes, raccoons and deer – been drastically reducing, this decrease also follows a pattern similar to that of the pythons’ increasing habitat. via pnas.org