{"id":2008,"date":"2024-03-17T09:44:16","date_gmt":"2024-03-17T09:44:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/17\/heres-why-blueberries-arent-blue-but-appear-to-be\/"},"modified":"2024-03-17T09:44:17","modified_gmt":"2024-03-17T09:44:17","slug":"heres-why-blueberries-arent-blue-but-appear-to-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/17\/heres-why-blueberries-arent-blue-but-appear-to-be\/","title":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s why blueberries aren\u2019t blue \u2014 but appear to be"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Here\u2019s<\/div>


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Roses are red and blueberries look blue. But the berry\u2019s color is not really true. The fruit\u2019s waxy coat just masquerades as blue<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A waxy covering coats some blue-colored fruits \u2014 such as blueberries, dark grapes and certain plums. This wax contains a host of tiny structures, each less than a thousandth the thickness of a piece of paper. Such nanostructures scatter blue and ultraviolet (UV) light. To our eyes, that makes these fruits look blue. Birds \u2014 which can see UV light \u2014 probably see such delicious snacks as bluey-UV.<\/p>\n

Blue is not a common color in nature. While some fruits do appear blue, few contain pigments in that color. Blueberries, for instance, contain a heaping amount of anthocyanin (An-thoh-SY-uh-nin). That skin pigment should leave each sphere a dark red.<\/p>\n

But if you rub off the outer layer of wax, a blueberry no longer looks blue \u2014 or red. Instead, it\u2019s completely dark, Rox Middleton says. Middleton is a physicist who works at the University of Bristol in England and at Dresden University of Technology in Germany. Structures in the fruits\u2019 waxy outer layers create blue hues that are faux, her team now shows.<\/p>\n

Researchers viewed the skins of blue-colored fruits under a high-magnification microscope. The resulting images revealed that the fruit skins have texture on their surface made of tiny features called nanostructures. The nanostructures in blueberries (left) reflect blue and ultraviolet light. That covers up dark red anthocyanin pigments found underneath the waxy coat on the fruit\u2019s skin. Similar structures found in Oregon grapes (center) and plums (right) also make those fruits appear blue.<\/span>R. Middleton et al<\/em>\/Science Advances<\/em> 2024<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The researchers zoomed in on the skin of a variety of fruits using a high-resolution microscope. This turned up an assortment of tiny molecular structures. Additional experiments revealed that these nanostructures scatter blue and UV light.<\/p>\n

Middleton\u2019s team shared its findings February 7 in Science Advances<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The team also managed to re-create this effect in the lab. They placed wax from Oregon grapes (Mahonia aquifolium<\/em>) in a solution of carbon-based molecules. The wax dissolved and turned transparent. After being spread on a card, the wax dried into a crystalline material<\/a>. That\u2019s a solid in which molecules form a repeating pattern. As a crystal, the waxy layer again appeared blue. <\/p>\n

Creating materials that mimic a blueberry\u2019s coating might prove useful. \u201cThis kind of coloring is cool because it doesn\u2019t stain,\u201d Middleton says. It could provide a new way to tint plastics or makeup blue.  <\/p>\n

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Do you have a science question? We can help!<\/h2>\n

Submit your question here<\/a>, and we might answer it an upcoming issue of Science News Explores<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Roses are red and blueberries look blue. But the berry\u2019s color is not really true. The fruit\u2019s waxy coat just masquerades as blue. A waxy covering coats some blue-colored fruits \u2014 such as blueberries, dark grapes and certain plums. This wax contains a host of tiny structures, each less than a thousandth the thickness of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2009,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/020724_eg_blueberries_inline1_mobile.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[606],"tags":[1165,3530,3529,671],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2008"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2008"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2010,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2008\/revisions\/2010"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}