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ARCHIVE
2010
jun days
• french & american recycled colored plastic
apr days
• color
concept &
theory widgets and apps
mar days
• red:
a portrait of a artist rothko
feb days
• talking
heads as figure/ground
jan days
• tanja's
black light dance party
dec days
• tootsie roll pop wrappers colors & flavors
nov days
• stephen vitiello's four color sound
oct days
• atmospheric perspective
sept days
• a rainbow
of antioxidants
colors
aug days
• floor stain colorants
jul days
• minimal colors
jun days
• wildflowers cataloged by color
may days
• tennis court colors
apr days
• morandi's neutral colors
mar days
• grid colorists
feb days
• black as
film noir
jan days
• flood of toxic minerals used in paints
ARCHIVE
2008
dec days
• comple-mentary
colors
nov days
• kettle korn
packaging color change
oct days
• green fluorescent protein
sept days
• red palms - not green
aug days
• blue tunes
jul days
• “blue” - textile museum
jun days
• “fiesta- ware”
colorants
may days
• “blue alchemy” hive gallery
Osamu Shimomura/Marine Biological Laboratory,
via European Pressphoto Agency
green fluorescent protein
image on the left
Aequorea victoria, the jellyfish from which green fluorescent protein is derived.
– Kenneth Chang
Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie and Roger Y. Tsien won the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (10/8/08) for taking the ability of the jellyfish to glow green and transforming it into a tool of molecular biology to watch the dance of living cells and the proteins within them.
– Kenneth Chang
Question: Is the green fluorescent color a form of light or from pigment (dye)? – crb
Answer: It's definitely a form of light. Fluorescence means some light hits the (in this case) protein, which then re-emits the light at a different (longer) wavelength. In this case the emitted light is green. It actually shoots out photons like a little flashlight. Probably you'd shine essentially white light on it (from sunlight or from artificial lights) and it would light up green. This is very different from a dye, which absorbs most of the light that hits it, and reflects back what it doesn't absorb. This is a "subtractive" process. The photons that you see reflected were already present in the incident light. With fluorescence the photon you see was created de novo in the protein using the energy of the incident light. – Joel Cohen, Biophysicist
Photo released by the University of California
AP Photo/UC San Diego
Image on left
test tubes containing various fluorescent proteins developed by scientist RogerTsien.
— Associated Press
“It's not something out of the blue, but you never know when it's going to come or if it's going to come, so it's always a big surprise when it actually happen.”
– Martin Chalfie
AP Photo/Harvard University, Livett- Weissman-Sanes-Lichtman
image on the left
brain cells of a laboratory mouse glowing with multicolor fluorescent proteins. — Associated Press
As a child Roger Y. Tsien was dazzled by colors, and that later helped him in his career. He said, “I feel a bit like a deer caught in headlights.” “I like pretty colors . . .this was a good opportunity.
— Kenneth Chang 10/8/08
“A deer caught in headlights.” – the effects on your rod cells being overwhelmed before your cone cells can adjust to the bright light. — crb
AP Photo/Harvard University, Livett- Weissman-Sanes-Lichtman
image on the left
brain cells of a laboratory mouse glowing with multicolor fluorescent proteins.
— Associated Press
When exposed to ultraviolet light, the protein glows green. It can act as a marker on otherwise invisible proteins within cells to trace them as they go about their business. It can tag individual cells in tissue. And it can show when and where particular genes turn on and off.