I Found a Penny Today, So Here's a Thought

In this diagram of human development, the pictures of the fetus at four and six weeks (top left and middle) bear a striking resemblance to Mayan hieroglyphics.  The top right picture, of the fetus at two months, bears an uncanny resemblance to an Olmec head statue.

Artist Jaime Pitarch discovered the secret of focusing one's Third Eye:

by mybloodyself

Inventing New Colors

Is it humanly possible to invent a new color? Rochester Institute of Technology Professor Mark Fairchild says "yes"! In fact, he suggests that all observant people invent new colors at various times of their lives. Dr. Fairchild explains: "As a color scientist, I think of colors as perceptions, that is things that we see. Of course those perceptions are not just caused by our brain (except when we are dreaming); they are caused by how our eyes and brain respond to the world around us. For color it is the light and objects that we are responding to. Most people would take this question to mean 'has anyone invented a light or object of a new color?' Personally, I have not, but I have invented new ways to understand and describe how we perceive and produce colors in places like the movies. Other people certainly have invented new materials that produce colors that people couldn't make before. Things like new paints, new inks, new kinds of televisions. That has happened often through the history of science. But, if we come back to color being a perception, then it is even easier to say that we invent new colors. I think we all do it quite often if we pay attention to the world around us. Have you ever had a time when you looked at something and it seemed like a totally new experience? Maybe a special rainbow, or a peculiar bird, or a strange way the light bounces around your room? If you have noticed a new experience like that, then I think you could say you have invented a new color. That is because color is truly a perception that is unique to you and any new color experiences could be considered 'inventions.' I like to just think of them as interesting parts of our world that make it fun to study science; in my case color science."

You can explore Dr. Fairchild's research on color perception and imaging at his website.

[Read the entire article in my guest blog at ColourLovers.com.]

by InfectedProject

Heterochromia: Eyes of Different Colors

Heterochromia is an eye condition in which each iris is a different color. It occurs when an iris has either excess or deficient pigmentation. The condition is hereditary, but it can also manifest after an injury or disease. Because the effect is rather striking, some people without the condition use differently colored contact lenses to simulate heterochromia. Famous people with the condition include English singer/songwriter David Bowie, American actor Christopher Walken, English actress Jane Seymour, American baseball pitcher Max Scherzer, Israeli basketball coach Oded Kattash, American actress Kate Bosworth, American singer Tim McIlrath, American actor Dan Aykroyd, and the Greek king Alexander the Great.

[Read the entire article in my guest blog at ColourLovers.com.]

by Jon Hanson

Parrotfish: Colorful and Helpful

The key to saving the Caribbean's coral reefs could be the vividly colored parrotfish, according to the journal Nature. Reef ecosystems are increasingly strangled by encroaching seaweed, fertilized by agricultural runoff. However, parrotfish graze on seaweed, using parrot-like beaks. Since sea urchin numbers have dwindled in the Caribbean, parrotfish are the primary grazers. Scientists now believe that protecting the fish could help strangled reefs to recover. Parrotfish need protection because they are a sought-after delicacy in Caribbean culture and are easily caught in fish traps.

Parrotfish are as colorful as macaws. In fact, they are so variably colored that they are often mistaken for different species. Male and female parrotfish sport different colors. Females tend to feature browns, greens, silvers, and grays, while males have more vibrant colors such as pink, aqua, orange, yellow, red, and electric blue. However, in the Mediterranean, the coloration is reversed, with females sporting vivid hues and males drab ones.

To learn more about the role of parrotfish in coral reef ecosystems, see the BBC News report.

 

by richard ling.

 

by Sam and Ian.

[Read the entire article in my guest blog at ColourLovers.com.]

A-OK

Every day, more people are making more things "okay." Consider the following examples:

The television character Adrian Monk made it okay to have obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)

The film Bonnie and Clyde made it okay to sympathize with murderers

The Cold War and space race made it "okay to be smart" in America

The actress and glamor model Pamela Anderson made it okay for a chick to be "wild, adventurous, reckless, kittenish"

The film Deliverance made it okay to make fun of rednecks, backwoodsmen, and simpletons. However, comedian Jeff Foxworthy made it "okay to be a redneck" (source is in PDF format)

"In his humble, brilliant simplicity, Dave [Thomas, the founder of the Wendy's restaurant chain] made it okay to be, well, just okay"

Arquitectonica's Atlantis, a "tropical modernist" condominium in Miami, made it okay to "color outside of the box"

The HBO show "Six Feet Under" made it "okay to laugh at, think about and talk about death and your dysfunctional family"

The film Superman (1978) made it okay for Hollywood to adapt comic books

The character Tracy Turnblad from John Waters' Hairspray (1988) "made it okay to be fat"

Children's television icon Mister Rogers made it okay to be curious

The famous collie Lassie "made it as much as many of us have always loved dogs”

Prozac "made it okay to take a psychotropic drug"

The HBO series Sex and the City "made the world safe for sluts, and Paris Hilton made it okay to hate them again"

Balloon delivery man Don F. Cheeseman made it okay for a guy to drive a pink van (and don lingerie after a night of drinking)

New York City "is so hip to walking, they've made it okay to eat en route"

J. Mascis, of the band Dinosaur Jr., is the man who made it okay to rip a guitar solo in underground rock

This is a post that I am "co-blogging" with Hanan Levin of Grow-a-Brain. Thank you, Hanan!

These delightful "Characters for an Epic Tale" were created by Tom Gauld for Cabanon Press.  The piece is available as a postcard within Tom's book Robots, Monsters, Etc.

by Dimrill

Heavy and Weightless Colors

To paraphrase a classic riddle, which weighs more: a pound of yellow feathers or a pound of red lead? Color may be a weighty subject, but the spectrum can't be gauged in terms of tonnage. The Swiss painter Paul Klee observed that color can be "neither weighed nor measured. Neither with scales nor with ruler can any difference be detected between two surfaces, one a pure yellow and the other a pure red, of similar area and similar brilliance. And yet, an essential difference remains, which we, in words, label yellow and red" (On Modern Art, 1948). Klee was right—even though colors don't technically have weight, they can appear quite heavy and substantial or extraordinarily light and vaporous.

[Read the entire article in my guest blog at ColourLovers.com.]

The original American Idol:

by atomicshark

Multicolored, Multilingual

When we talk of colors, we can't help but be multilingual. Our pictorial world tour of exotic color names continues on through Italy, France, and Greece.

 

by Starfires.

Amethyst. The opposite of "chartreuse" (the name of a pale green liqueur), "amethyst" means "not drunken" in its original Greek. The violet/purple quartz stone was so-named because it was popularly believed to prevent inebriation.

 

by hartlandmartin.

Verdigris. The name of this bright blue-green color is derived from an Old French phrase meaning "green of Greece." It refers to the patina on copper, bronze and brass. In the musical "Wicked," verdigris is the color of the Wicked Witch Elphaba.

 

by modean987.

Vermillion. The name of this bright red pigment is derived from the Latin word for "worm." Vermillion is naturally produced from Chinese cinnabar.

 

by Jesse Gardner.

Cerulean. The name of this deep blue sky color is derived from a Latin word meaning "heavens."

 

by Kelly Sue.

Ecru. The name of this light gray-yellow color comes from a French word meaning "raw, unbleached." Once considered a synonym for beige, ecru is now regarded as a separate color.

 

by key-bee.

Carnelian. This orange-red-brown color is named for the reddish semiprecious mineral chalcedony. The word is derived from a Latin root meaning a flesh-colored horn. The color is famous as the official shade of Campbell's Soup cans.

[Read the entire article in my guest blog at ColourLovers.com.]

From the margins (or margarines, rather) of philosophy:

A proposed ice skating safety costume (inflatable), from the Jan. 10, 1891 issue of Punch.

Origami cranes never go out of fashion, but here's a half-submerged hippopotamus by Leong Cheng Chit, wet-folded from a rectangle of mulberry foil.

Abecedarian's own Carte Blanche Atlas of Uncharted Territories ranked #1 in Stephen Saperstein Frug's top ten "still-fresh" resources on the Web.  Frug explains that "lots of things on the web are evergreens: just as good a year from now as a year ago."  He has collected "pieces whose virtue are not bound by historical moment" and that are "worth your attention."  Thanks, Stephen!  We're honored!

Meanwhile, our own One-Letter Words: A Dictionary was recommended in the Harvard Independent's holiday gift guide.  They call it "a lot more fun than a regular dictionary."  Let's hear the Harvard cheer: "Rah, rah, rah!"

A picture's worth a hundred pennies. 

Multicolored, Multilingual

When we talk of colors, we can't help but be multilingual. Our world tour of exotic color names continues on through Italy, England, Greece, and Iran. Let's take a pictorial tour of these colorful cultures, in search of an exotic blue metamorphic rock that yields a bright pigment when crushed.

by Brian J. Geiger.

Magenta is named in honor of the town in northern Italy where the bloodlike purplish red dye was discovered.

 

by ho visto nina volare.

Siena is named in honor of the city in Tuscany where a school of art flourished in the 13th and 14th centuries. Burnt siena is a deep reddish-brown pigment.

 

by cbmd.

Scarlet is a Middle English word originally meaning any brightly colored fabric. Today it exclusively refers to brilliant red.

[Read the entire article in my guest blog at ColourLovers.com.]

A door of an Omani fort, or a make-your-own-lemonade stand?

Mineral Colors from the Near Side of the Moon

Eons of meteorite impacts on the lunar surface have left an amazing array of mineral deposits. Back in 1971, cartographers Don E. Wilhelms and John F. McCauley of the U.S. Geological Survey created a series of startlingly colorful lunar maps for NASA. The details below are from the Moon's near side. To see large and complete maps of the moon, see the U.S. Geological Survey Website.

[Read the entire article in my guest blog at ColourLovers.com.]

I finally understand how three-layer cake can be part of a balanced diet.