{"id":15036,"date":"2019-12-02T13:37:31","date_gmt":"2019-12-02T18:37:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/textiles.ncsu.edu\/news\/?p=15036"},"modified":"2024-04-18T16:29:56","modified_gmt":"2024-04-18T20:29:56","slug":"world-of-color","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/textiles.ncsu.edu\/news\/2019\/12\/world-of-color\/","title":{"rendered":"World of Color"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n
By Cameron Walker<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Image (cropped): Benh LIEU SONG [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0)]<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Blue birds, blue jays, cerulean warblers, peacocks: all blue birds, but none of them are <\/span>actually<\/i> blue. There are no known bird species that produce blue-pigmented feathers (and in fact, only a very small handful of vertebrates are capable of making a blue pigment). The color we perceive these birds to be is due to the structure of their feathers, which reflect light in a way that makes them appear blue. The same is true for the scales of the brilliant blue morpho butterfly, the shells of certain beetles and even blue human eyes. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n But what is \u201cactually\u201d blue, anyway? Is there such a thing? To answer that, we have to explore the very nature of color: what it is, how we perceive it and how we use it.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n