The Road to World War 3

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Fluorescence.

©Paul o’Dowd 2013 Fluorescence You’ve heard the reactions of people who witness the Reef for the first time. “The colours are amazing!”, “The fish are so bright!”... The question is; how do many marine creatures manage to appear brighter than the ambient light would seem to permit. Pigments are chemicals which absorb some wavelengths of light and reflect others. Many of the colours we see around us are the result of pigments reflecting selected wavelengths and absorbing others. The energy associated with the absorbed light might then be used for other things. Plants appear green because the green part of the spectrum is not absorbed by the pigments that harvest the energy of sunlight. Instead, the wavelengths that make up the green part of the spectrum are reflected and that’s what we see. Some pigments though, absorb certain wavelengths only to instantly release that energy as an emission of light of a different colour. This is called, ...
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Thoughts on Logging

We now understand without question that our forests are vital components of an unbelievably complex, global life support system. Therefore, arguments for their destruction should be offensive to any thinking person. When those arguments are based on nothing but corporate concerns they are nothing short of obscene. The only position that has been put forth by the proponents of old growth logging that deserves any attention is that protecting forests will impact timber communities. The commercial power behind the logging process fuels a popular image of the proponents of forest protection as be- dreadlocked , dole- bludging ' greenies ' out to bankrupt honest battlers. With that in mind, surely it would be better to tackle what must be the actual major cause of job loss in timber communities and certainly the greatest threat to the future of those communities themselves; the industrialization of forestry? When a couple of hi-tech machines can strip in hours, a hill...
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Iridescence

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Iridescence   Colour can be generated in a couple of ways. We are very familiar with colours produced by pigments or dies.  Some insects and birds, compact disks, oil slicks and other things however, produce their bright, pure colour through the process of iridescence.   A pigment absorbs light in most parts of the spectrum and reflects a small range of wavelengths to give the impression of the pigmented surface being ‘coloured’.   Clothing, hair, paint, plant tissue and skin colours are all pigment based effects. It is a chemical effect, in fact the colour of something can tell you a lot about its chemical make-up. Hemoglobin makes blood red, carotene, from carrots is yellow-orange, and melanin gives you your tan and hair colour. The effect relies on electrons in the pigment molecules behaving in certain ways to achieve the result of absorbing particular wavelengths of light and reflecting others.   Iridescence is a very different process. It relies on ...
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