Did you know that when flamingos are born, they are grey and their feathers are naturally white? Then… why do they display that pinkish colour? And hydrangeas, why do they show different colours? What do flamingos and hydrangeas have in common? And about the leaves of a tree…why do they change colour during the year? Did you know that eggshells present fluorescence? And finally, what do all these questions have in common?
Continue reading “Flamingos, hydrangeas, leaves and eggs”Red, blue, green and purple: the colours of…
The colours of…Christmas? After some long (long) time, I’m finally coming back with a (maybe) common topic, but it is worth to talk about.
But while you are reading, you will be wondering what the subject is, probably (if you haven’t done it yet) you will have (had) a quick look below to check a picture or some clues about that. Please, don’t do it. Let’s keep it a mystery. Could you guess the topic of the post? What are these colours referring to? Pigments, nature, planets… I’m afraid any of them, but not that far away. Here it is a clue: it is something related to animals. The colour of the eyes, tongue? What if I tell you that these colours belong to the colour of the blood of different animals? You all know that human blood is red, despite the belief of princes and princesses to have blue blood (let’s see this later). What about the rest? Let’s keep reading.
Continue reading “Red, blue, green and purple: the colours of…”
DNA: much more than the molecule of life (I)
Changing the subject from my last post, it’s time to talk about DNA and the recent discoveries related to it. Let’s start with the most simple question.
What is DNA?
Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is the biomolecule that encodes the genetic information of cellular organisms. It is composed of four molecules called nucleotides, which are represented with a letter: adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C) and thymine (T). Continue reading “DNA: much more than the molecule of life (I)”