Miscellaneous Information
Purple Planet Earth
The earliest life on Earth might have been just as purple as it is green today, a scientist claims.
Ancient microbes might have used a molecule other than chlorophyll to harness the Sun’s rays, one that gave the organisms a violet hue.
Chlorophyll, the main photosynthetic pigment of plants, absorbs mainly blue and red wavelengths from the Sun and reflects green ones, and it is this reflected light that gives plants their leafy color. This fact puzzles some biologists because the sun transmits most of its energy in the green part of the visible spectrum.
“Why would chlorophyll have this dip in the area that has the most energy?” said Shil DasSarma, a microbial geneticist at the University of Maryland.
After all, evolution has tweaked the human eye to be most sensitive to green light (which is why images from night-vision goggles are tinted green). So why is photosynthesis not fine-tuned the same way?
Possible answer
DasSarma thinks it is because chlorophyll appeared after another light-sensitive molecule called retinal was already present on early Earth. Retinal, today found in the plum-colored membrane of a photosynthetic microbe called halobacteria, absorbs green light and reflects back red and violet light, the combination of which appears purple.
Primitive microbes that used retinal to harness the sun’s energy might have dominated early Earth, DasSarma said, thus tinting some of the first biological hotspots on the planet a distinctive purple color.
Being latecomers, microbes that used chlorophyll could not compete directly with those utilizing retinal, but they survived by evolving the ability to absorb the very wavelengths retinal did not use, DasSarma said.
“Chlorophyll was forced to make use of the blue and red light, since all the green light was absorbed by the purple membrane-containing organisms,” said William Sparks, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Maryland, who helped DasSarma develop his idea.
Chlorophyll more efficient
The researchers speculate that chlorophyll- and retinal-based organisms coexisted for a time. “You can imagine a situation where photosynthesis is going on just beneath a layer of purple membrane-containing organisms,” DasSarma told LiveScience.
But after a while, the researchers say, the balance tipped in favor of chlorophyll because it is more efficient than retinal.
“Chlorophyll may not sample the peak of the solar spectrum, but it makes better use of the light that it does absorb,” Sparks explained.
DasSarma admits his ideas are currently little more than speculation, but says they fit with other things scientists know about retinal and early Earth.
For example, retinal has a simpler structure than chlorophyll, and would have been easier to produce in the low-oxygen environment of early Earth, DasSarma said.
Also, the process for making retinal is very similar to that of a fatty acid, which many scientists think was one of the key-ingredients for the development of cells.
“Fatty acids were likely needed to form the membranes in the earliest cells,” DasSarma said.
Lastly, halobacteria, a microbe alive today that uses retinal, is not a bacterium at all. It belongs to a group of organisms called archaea, whose lineage stretches back to a time before Earth had an oxygen atmosphere.
Taken together, these different lines of evidence suggest retinal formed earlier than chlorophyll, DasSarma said.
The team presented its so-called “purple Earth” hypothesis earlier this year at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society, and it is also detailed in the latest issue of the magazine American Scientist. The team also plans to submit the work to a peer-reviewed science journal later this year.
Caution needed
David Des Marais, a geochemist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California, calls the purple Earth hypothesis “interesting,” but cautions against making too much of one observation.
“I’m a little cautious about looking at who’s using which wavelengths of light and making conclusions about how things were like 3 or 4 billion years ago,” said Des Marais, who was not involved in the research.
Des Marais said an alternative explanation for why chlorophyll doesn’t absorb green light is that doing so might actually harm plants.
“That energy comes screaming in. It’s a two-edged sword,” Des Marais said in a telephone interview. “Yes, you get energy from it, but it’s like people getting 100 percent oxygen and getting poisoned. You can get too much of a good thing.”
Des Marais points to cyanobacteria, a photosynthesizing microbe with an ancient history, which lives just beneath the ocean surface in order to avoid the full brunt of the Sun.
“We see a lot of evidence of adaptation to get light levels down a bit,” Des Marais said. “I don’t know that there’s necessarily an evolutionary downside to not being at the peak of the solar spectrum.”
Implications for astrobiology
If future research validates the purple Earth hypothesis, it would have implications for scientists searching for life on distant worlds, the researchers say.
“We should make sure we don’t lock into ideas that are entirely centered on what we see on Earth,” said DasSarma’s colleague, Neil Reid, also of the STScI.
For example, one biomarker of special interest in astrobiology is the “red edge” produced by plants on Earth. Terrestrial vegetation absorbs most, but not all, of the red light in the visible spectrum. Many scientists have proposed using the small portion of reflected red light as an indicator of life on other planets.
“I think when most people think about remote sensing, they’re focused on chlorophyll-based life,” DasSarma said. “It may be that is the more prominent one, but if you happen to see a planet that is at this early stage of evolution, and you’re looking for chlorophyll, you might miss it because you’re looking at the wrong wavelength.”
The Psychology of Color
“Color has got me. I no longer need to chase after it. It has got me for ever. I know it. That is the meaning of this happy hour” ~Paul Klee
Color is a form of non-verbal communication. It is not a static energy and its meaning can change from one day to the next with any individual.
For example:
- A person may choose to wear red one day and this may indicate they are ready to take action, or they may be passionate about what they are going to be doing that day, or again it may mean that they are feeling angry that day, on either a conscious or subconscious level.
- Orange is the color of social communication and optimism. From a negative color meaning it is also a sign of pessimism and superficiality.
- Yellow is the color of the mind and the intellect. It is optimistic and cheerful. However it can also suggest impatience, criticism and cowardice.
- Green is the color of balance and growth. It can mean both self-reliance as a positive and possessiveness as a negative, among many other meanings.
- Blue is the color of trust and peace. It can suggest loyalty and integrity as well as conservatism and frigidity.
- Indigo is the color of intuition. In the meanings of colors it can mean idealism and structure as well as ritualistic and addictive.
- Purple is the color of the imagination. It can be creative and individual or immature and impractical.
- Turquoise is communication and clarity of mind. It can also be impractical and idealistic.
- Pink is the color of unconditional love and nurturing. Pink can also be immature, silly and girlish.
- Magenta is a color of universal harmony and emotional balance. It is spiritual yet practical, encouraging common sense and a balanced outlook on life.
- Gray is the color of compromise – being neither black nor white; it is the transition between two non-colors.
- The color silver, however, has a feminine energy; it is related to the moon and the ebb and flow of the tides – it is fluid, emotional, sensitive and mysterious.
- Gold is the color of success, achievement and triumph. Associated with abundance and prosperity, luxury and quality, prestige and sophistication, value and elegance, the color psychology of gold implies affluence, material wealth and extravagance.
- White is color at its most complete and pure, the color of perfection. The color meaning of white is purity, innocence, wholeness and completion.
- Black is the color of the hidden, the secretive and the unknown, creating an air of mystery. It keeps things bottled up inside, hidden from the world.
Green In Media And Design
Some of the ways the color green is used in the media and for design purposes:
- Green has strong emotional correspondence with safety.
- Dark green is also commonly associated with money.
- Green suggests stability and endurance.
- Green, as opposed to red, means safety; it is the color of free passage in road traffic.
- Use green to indicate safety when advertising drugs and medical products.
- Green is directly related to nature, so you can use it to promote ‘green’ products.
- Dull, darker green is commonly associated with money, financial world, banking, and Wall Street.
Submitted by Raetta Parker
Yellow In Media And Design
Some of the ways the color yellow is used in the media and for design purposes:
- Yellow is often associated with food.
- Bright, pure yellow is an attention grabber that’s why taxicabs are painted this color.
- Yellow is seen before other colors when placed against black; this combination is often used to issue a warning.
- Use yellow to evoke pleasant, cheerful feelings.
- Yellow is very effective for attracting attention, so use it to highlight the most important elements of your design.
- Men usually perceive yellow as a very lighthearted, ‘kiddish’ color, so it is not recommended to use yellow when selling prestigious, expensive products to men – nobody will buy a yellow business suit or a yellow Mercedes.
- Yellow is an unstable and spontaneous color, so avoid using yellow if you want to suggest stability and safety.
- Light yellow tends to disappear into white, so it usually needs a dark color to highlight it.
- Shades of yellow are visually unappealing because they loose cheerfulness and become dingy.
Submitted by Raetta Parker
Red In Media And Design
Some of the ways the color red is used in the media and for design purposes:
- Red brings text and images to the foreground.
- Use it as an accent color to stimulate people to make quick decisions; it is a perfect color for ‘Buy Now’ or ‘Click Here’ buttons on Internet banners and websites.
- This color is also commonly associated with energy, so you can use it when promoting energy drinks, games, cars, items related to sports and high physical activity.
Submitted by Raetta Parker
Red Is A Green Issue
Red keeps us rooted in the red energy of our planet. People who become detached or divorced from the planet tend to be those who abuse it. These people often display some of the negative qualities that are associated with red – selfishness and an interest only in personal, rather than global, survival and short-term security.
To be healthy in a long term sense, we need the color red to reconnect ourselves to the planet and support it as it supports us. For our personal development, the role involves taking responsibility for our own well being and survival as part of humanity as a whole, not being separate from it. Although often seen as a “green” issue, global and local conservation is also about survival, which is a red issue. Red and green issues are intrinsically linked as they are complementary colors.
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Astronauts Wear Orange
NASA wasn’t trying to make a fashion statement when it picked bright orange for the spacesuits astronauts wear when they launch and land on the space shuttle.
In fact, that bright hue called International Orange was chosen for safety, because it stands out so well against a landscape.
“It’s highly visible for search and rescue,” said Brian Daniel, shuttle crew escape subsystem manager at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “It’s one of the most visible colors, especially for sea rescue.”
The same shade of orange coats San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge and Japan’s 1,090-foot (333-meter) tall Tokyo Tower.
The shuttle ascent and entry suit, called the Advanced Crew Escape Suit (ACES), is a pressurized shell designed to help an astronaut survive if an accident occurred during liftoff or landing. The suit contains a supply of air and water, along with a parachute and survival gear such as radios, flares and medicine.
The current version of the suit was adopted in 1994, though the previous version, called the Launch Entry Suit (LES), was the same color. [Graphic: Cosmic Apparel Over the Years]
Before the space shuttle, U.S. astronauts wore white or silver suits.
And today’s NASA astronauts wear a completely different suit for spacewalks, or extravehicular activities (EVAs). These suits are designed for a different purpose survival in the near-vacuum of space, rather than survival on Earth.
Thus EVA suits are white, which reflects the strong heat of the sun and stands out against the black expanse of space. These suits are called Extravehicular Mobility Units (EMUs), and are even bulkier than the ACES. They include temperature control, breathable air and drinkable water, and a tough shell to prevent small pieces of space junk, called micrometeoroids, from harming the astronauts.
Russia has its own spacesuits the Sokol suit for launch and landing, and the Orlan suit for spacewalks for those flying aboard Soyuz spacecraft. Both of these suits are white, and function similarly to their U.S. counterparts, with some differences.
China the third nation to independently launch humans into space has its own custom-designed spacesuits for spacewalking called Feitian suits, modeled on Orlan suits. Chinese astronauts have worn suits that closely resemble Sokol suits for launch and landing.
Why Red Is Such A Potent Color
Why is the color red so impressive? The answer lies in our tree-living past.
In the back of the vertebrate eyeball are two kinds of cells called rods and cones that respond to light. Cones take in a wide range of light, which means they recognize colors, and they are stimulated best during daylight. Rods respond to a narrower range of light (meaning only white light) but notice that light from far away and at night.
Isaac Newton was the first person to hold up a prism and refract white light into a rainbow of colors and realize that their might be variation in what the eye can see. Color comes at us in electromagnetic waves. When the wavelength of light is short we perceive purple or blue. Medium wavelengths of lights tickle the cones in an other way and we think green. Short light wavelengths make those cones stand up and dance as bright spots of yellow, orange and red.
Various animals distinguish only parts of that rainbow because their cones respond in different ways. Butterflies, for example, see into the ultraviolet end of the rainbow which allows them to see their own complex markings better than we can. Foxes and owls are basically color blind and it doesn’t matter because they are awake at night when the light spectrum is limited anyway.
Humans are lucky enough to be primates, animals with decent color vision, and we can thank monkeys for this special ability.
Long ago, primitive primates that resemble today’s lemurs and lorises saw only green and blue, the longer wavelengths of color. But when moneys evolved, around 34 million years ago, their cones became sensitive to even shorter wavelengths of color and they saw red.
And what a difference. With red, the forest comes alive. Instead of a blanket of bluish-green leaves, the world is suddenly accented with ripe red, yellow, and orange fruits, and even the leaves look different.
For a monkey leaping through the forest canopy, color vision would be an essential advantage. Unripe fruit doesn’t have enough carbs to sustain a hungry primate and they taste really sour. Unripe leaves not only taste bad, they are toxic and indigestible.
For the first humans foraging about the forest and savannah around 5 million years ago, it would have been be much more efficient to spot a ripe fruit or tuber than bite into a zillion just to get the right one. And so humans ended up with color vision even though we no longer live in trees.
But color is more than wavelengths, more than an indicator of ripeness, to us. Color has become symbolic, meaning it has meaning, and that meaning is highly cultural.
Chinese athletes and Chinese brides wear red because red is considered lucky. The U.S. athletes also wear red because that bright color is in the U.S. flag, and because designers of athletic wear, as well as scientists, know that red gets you noticed.
Living Red
Instinctively, the occurrence of red makes us wary, as we connect it with heat and the potential danger of burning. Red lights are built into artificial fires to help simulate the coziness of a real fire. Too much heat and red burns, but at the right level it supports our lives and gives us comfort.
Being the color of blood, red has symbolic links with living and life. Spilling or losing blood brings illness and death. Wearing red, eating red foods and surrounding yourself with red increases the body’s ability to absorb iron, the metal that is responsible for the color of hemoglobin in the blood. The presence of hemoglobin allows the blood to absorb oxygen in the lungs and to transport that life-giving oxygen to the cells of the body.
Physical activity and the energy that that supports it also has a red vibration. If speed, danger, daring or courage are involved, the red quality of the activity increases. Mountaineers, racing car drivers, and stuntmen all have “red” careers.
Source unknown
Red – What is it?
Red is any of a number of similar colors evoked by light consisting predominantly of the longest wavelengths of light discernible by the human eye, in the wavelength range of roughly 625-740 nm. Longer wavelengths than this are called infrared, or below red and cannot be seen by the naked human eye. Red is used as one of the additive primary colors of light, complementary to cyan, in RGB color systems. Red is also one of the subtractive primary colors of RYB color space but not CMYK color space.
Red’s wavelength has been an important factor in laser technologies as red lasers, used in early compact disc technologies, are being replaced by blue lasers, as red’s longer wavelength causes the laser’s recordings to take up more space on the disc than blue lasers.[10] Red light is also used to preserve night vision in low-light or night-time situations, as the rod cells in the human eye aren’t sensitive to red. Red is used as one of the additive primary colors of light, complementary to cyan, in RGB color systems. Red is also one of the subtractive primary colors of RYB color space but not CMYK color space.
One common use of red as an additive primary color is in the RGB color model. Because “red” is not by itself standardized, color mixtures based on red are not exact specifications of color either. In order to produce exact colors the color red needs to be defined in terms of an absolute color space such as sRGB. As used in computer monitors and television screens, red is very variable, but some systems may apply color correction (so that a standardized “red” is produced that is not in fact full intensity of only the red colorant).
A red filter used in black and white photography increases contrast in most scenes. For example, combined with a polarizer, it can turn the sky black. Films simulating the effects of infrared film (such as Ilford’s SFX 200) do so by being much more sensitive to red than to other colors. Red illumination was (and sometimes still is) used as a “safelight” while working in a darkroom, as it does not expose most photographic paper and some films. Though many more modern darkrooms use an amber safelight, red illumination is closely associated with the darkroom in the public mind.
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