Latest Iridescence Stories

Alan McStravick for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Can technology benefit by going green? I’m not talking about retro-fitting buildings for solar power or setting up grey water collection systems. In the recent issue of the journal Soft Matter, a research team out of the Ohio State University is looking at organic materials to aid in the resurfacing of existing technologies and possibly for the manufacture of new products and materials. The team, comprised primarily of...

Yale University scientists say they have discovered evidence of vivid iridescent colors existing in feather fossils more than 40 million years old. The researchers said their finding represents the first evidence of a preserved color-producing nanostructure in a fossilized feather. Iridescence is the quality of changing color depending on the angle of observation, such as the rainbow of colors seen in an oil slick, the scientists said. These feathers produced a black background with a...

By Milius, Susan Iridescence could be pretty meaningful-or maybe just pretty Believe it or not, science has barely begun to fathom the peacock's tail. Subtle as a pink tuxedo, one mightthink. Bigflashything. Peahens love it. What's not to understand. Roslyn Dakin, though, has plenty of questions. There's the matter of choreography. Already this year she has left Queen's University in Kingston, Canada, to visit peacocks (the birds) in Los Angeles and New York. She has spent weeks collecting...