Tag Archives: color

What Color is Your Night Light? It May Affect Your Mood

Study Finds Red Light Least Harmful, While Blue Light is Worst

COLUMBUS, Ohio –– When it comes to some of the health hazards of light at night, a new study suggests that the color of the light can make a big difference.

In a study involving hamsters, researchers found that blue light had the worst effects on mood-related measures, followed closely by white light.

But hamsters exposed to red light at night had significantly less evidence of depressive-like symptoms and changes in the brain linked to depression, compared to those that experienced blue or white light. (more…)

Read More

UA Researchers Solve Mystery of Lincoln’s Funeral Train

With the 2015 sesquicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s death approaching, interest is rising, and with new tools, UA researchers have turned their attention to one of the last remaining mysteries about what reportedly was the largest traditional funeral in American history – the train’s color.

A trove of information exists about Abraham Lincoln’s funeral, which drew millions of mourners during a two-week railway procession across the Northern states.

But until now, the precise color of the president’s railcar had been lost to history. (more…)

Read More

Seeing in Color at the Nanoscale

Berkeley Lab scientists develop a new nanotech tool to probe solar-energy conversion

If nanoscience were television, we’d be in the 1950s. Although scientists can make and manipulate nanoscale objects with increasingly awesome control, they are limited to black-and-white imagery for examining those objects. Information about nanoscale chemistry and interactions with light—the atomic-microscopy equivalent to color—is tantalizingly out of reach to all but the most persistent researchers.

But that may all change with the introduction of a new microscopy tool from researchers at the Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) that delivers exquisite chemical details with a resolution once thought impossible. The team developed their tool to investigate solar-to-electric energy conversion at its most fundamental level, but their invention promises to reveal new worlds of data to researchers in all walks of nanoscience. (more…)

Read More

Iridescent, Feathered Dinosaur Offers Fresh Evidence That Feathers Evolved to Attract Mates

AUSTIN, Texas — A team of American and Chinese researchers has revealed the detailed feather pattern and color of Microraptor, a pigeon-sized, four-winged dinosaur that lived about 120 million years ago. A new specimen shows the dinosaur had a glossy iridescent sheen and that its tail was narrow and adorned with a pair of streamer feathers, suggesting the importance of display in the early evolution of feathers, as presented in the March 9 edition of the journal Science.

The research was conducted by scientists at the Beijing Museum of Natural History, Peking University, The University of Texas at Austin, the University of Akron, and the American Museum of Natural History. (more…)

Read More

Ocean’s Color Affects Hurricane Paths

WASHINGTON — A change in the color of ocean waters could have a drastic effect on the prevalence of hurricanes, new research indicates. In a simulation of such a change in one region of the North Pacific, the study finds that hurricane formation decreases by 70 percent. That would be a big drop for a region that accounts for more than half the world’s reported hurricane-force winds.

(more…)

Read More