The crazy part is the exact science behind why plants reflect green specifically is still debated. One theory is that, because much of the sun’s energy is released on that wavelength, controlling for it specifically allows the plant to better manage energy fluctuations (highly simplified but you get the idea)
That's just science
Submitted 18 hours ago by The_Picard_Maneuver@lemmy.world to science_memes@mander.xyz
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/7dda2771-e830-40da-bbc8-b7fe88c55545.jpeg
Comments
sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml 18 hours ago
rumba@lemmy.zip 3 hours ago
“Why” and “biology” famously do not get along. The best you can usually do is say it’s evolutionarily advantageous because the true answer is usually a neural network the size of life itself. There are plenty of decent reasons that play parts that we can quibble over, though.
rants_unnecessarily@piefed.social 14 hours ago
So why are some plants purple?
Aqivex@fedinsfw.app 13 hours ago
Which curiously enough, can also photosynthesize, and more readily absorb energy from green light than chlorophyll!
Makes me wonder what could be achieved with some careful engineering…
Sirdubdee@piefed.social 9 hours ago
Cold nights while growing.
Zorcron@lemmy.zip 14 hours ago
Very interesting, thanks for the info!
aeronmelon@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
“Incandescent rage” is one of those phrases I have pocketed for a future conversation.
isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 hours ago
Mirshe@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
I mean, technically they weren’t wrong.
rethnor@lemmy.zip 13 hours ago
Except the sun isn’t yellow, it’s white with a slight bias towards green.
Want to check, put something white outside, it looks white, not yellow.
merc@sh.itjust.works 12 hours ago
The reason the sun appears to be yellow is the same reason that the sky appears to be blue.
Blue light is scattered more by the air in the atmosphere than other wavelengths. Remove blue from white light and you get yellow. So the light coming from the sun that isn’t scattered and dispersed through the sky (making the sky look blue) is yellow.
Allero@lemmy.today 12 hours ago
Neither water is blue
They take us for absolute fools
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Maybe not the water you drink (chugs Gatorade frost)
WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
That’s why I never developed super powers.
CareHare@sh.itjust.works 15 hours ago
Purple leaves are a thing.
lemmyng@piefed.ca 15 hours ago
That’s from plants that get their air mostly from the shade and sunsets, so obviously they’d be less yellow and more dark and red.
CareHare@sh.itjust.works 15 hours ago
I know this is a joke, but to be fair: the scientific consensus (now) is that the purple pigmentation acts as a sort of sunscreen against too much sunlight.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 4 hours ago
they are more dark green if they a understory plant, or a shaded plant. there of course plants that have no chlorophyll whatsoever. 2 types, one is mostly albino plants where they lose all thier chlorophyll, the other is mycoheterotrophic plants(either partial or fully). ever seen a albino redwood, apparently it lives off being attached to the roots of the parent plant where it came from or from nearby trees.
MML@sh.itjust.works 10 hours ago
There’s also an extremely tiny percent of plants that are entirely white, they don’t get their energy through photosynthesis but instead a parasitic relationship of fungi and other plants.
sneekee_snek_17@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Mycoheterotrophs! Love them, such bizarre little plants
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 4 hours ago
Albino plants are a thing, but they usually are attached to the main plant where they came from. albino redwoods is an example. fully parasitic plants usually dont have leaves or have a small nonfunctional ones. some parasitic plants is exist as filaments inside a host(no stem no, leaves whatsoever)(rafflesia, pilostyles)
isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 hours ago
As is purple rain.
ech@lemmy.ca 15 hours ago
Whinging about a fact being wrong without providing a correction is worse than the one being wrong.
gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 hours ago
The thing is it’s kinda right, just lacking detail
ranzispa@mander.xyz 10 hours ago
This is indeed a valid theory, but not very powerful since it can only explain the color of green plants and not for example the color of non green plants or animals.
More powerful theories have been developed which can work on a much broader range of applications. For example the theory that plants are the color they are because God painted them that way.
hirihit640@sh.itjust.works 13 hours ago
Cab you help explain it? I thought that the sky was blue because it reflects the ocean and because of rayleigh scattering, but do either of these affect the color of plants?
heartSagan5@lemmy.zip 3 hours ago
So, what color were plants during the Hadean æon?
AgentOrangesicle@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
I’m still not following. What part of “blue air” imparts chlorophyll with its color? I get the sun. I understand how light works (reflection, refraction, and scattering). I understand our perception of light on a neuological level (including post-processing) to an extent that most people haven’t studied. Why “blue” air make green plant?
Deme@sopuli.xyz 7 hours ago
My guess would be that plants optimize also for absorbing a significant amount of the light they receive from the blue sky, so they still get some when direct sunlight isn’t available.
Sixseven@sh.itjust.works 10 hours ago
Mix blue and yellow paint and you end up with green paint.
heartSagan5@lemmy.zip 3 hours ago
So, is the blue from the water in the plant or the air?
whereitsat@lemmy.zip 13 hours ago
lemmy poster here. both of these people are annoying, unfunny fucks.
bet you didn’t see that one coming!
btw i have a masters degree in internet posting.
isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 hours ago
I liked a version of this (I believe) XKCD said once.
A perfectly valid response to the question, “why is the sky blue?” is simply, “because air is blue.”
Yes, you can give a lot of explanation about refractive index and Rayleigh scattering. But all this does is provide details of how light interacts with air. And the same reason anything is the color that it is is due to the way it reflects, transmits, or absorbs light. You’re citing real scientific principles, but you’re ultimately just explaining why air is blue.
bullsworth@pawb.social 10 hours ago
It’s a very good relevant XKCD.
The title text is more directly applicable: If you ask “why are leaves green?” the usual answer is “because they’re full of chlorophyll, and chlorophyll is green,” even though “why does chlorophyll scatter green light?” is a great question too.
Redditmodstouchgrass@lemmy.zip 10 hours ago
“Don’t breathe air, it has sharks in it! BLUE HAS SHARKS IN IT!” -The funny purple man
isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 hours ago
???
tetris11@feddit.uk 10 hours ago
But it’s an incomplete answer.
“air is invisible at short distances, blue at longer distances, and takes on red green and orange at unset” would be better
isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 hours ago
The same is true for all colors. Tell me the color of a single atom.
Yes, air can be colors other than blue at unusual light conditions, like sunset. But the same is true for any material.
You’re stuck on the urge to explain. You call “the air is blue” incomplete. But all answers are incomplete. When someone asks what color an object is, they mean under ordinary distances and conditions. Air is blue even in an ordinary room. It just takes miles worth of air for its slight blue color to be noticeable.