This is a short video I recorded about the way that we teach children that the rainbow is ROY G BIV.
It’s a simplification of course and it may be that it reasonable to simplify things when we are teaching small children.
If you like this sort of thing you might also like this article from The Colour Literacy Project. It is easy to understand. What is less easy to understand is why I recorded my video in the fog. You’ll see what you mean if you watch it.
You’ll be green with envy if you miss this podcast all about the colour green. Malachite was one of the earliest green pigments and a substantial source was the Great Orme in North Wales (the largest prehistoric mine in the world). Green is also the most dangerous of colours. Scheele’s Green may even have killed Napoleon. The team also discuss the association of green with the devil and with Ireland. The use of colour in movies is also discussed and the use of green in The Wizard of Oz is of particular interest. And did you know that the Statue of Liberty was not always green? You do now. But listen to the podcast for the full story.
The Over The Rainbow team discuss the colour yellow. Yellow Ochre was one of the earliest pigments used by mankind. Orpiment was also widely used in antiquity despite it being based on arsenic and being poisonous. Yellow has also long been an important colour culturally. The Greeks – starting from Empedocles – believed that the world considered of four elements; each of the elements was associated with a colour. Yellow (or a yellow-green colour) was associated with earth; white with air, black with water and red with fire. This tetradic thinking about 4 special colours continued until the 14th or 15th Century; the idea of three special colours is a relatively recent idea. Yellow is probably the least favourite colour and invokes quite different reactions in different people. It is, perhaps, the marmite of colours.
In our second colour podcast we chat about how long human colour vision has been the way it has. When did we first colour? How long have we even been human?
Our first colour podcast was all about animal colour vision. Can dogs see colour? Are bulls enraged by the colour red? Can they even see it? And which animals have even better colour vision than we do. You can list to this short podcast here.
About 80 years ago the Milkybar was introduced by Nestlé. Since then, chocolate has broadly speaking been one of three colours: dark, milk and white. Today I read that a new colour of chocolate has been developed which is claimed to be the first new natural colour of chocolate since Nestlé’s innovation. The beans are grown in Ivory Coast, Ecuador and Brazil and the new chocolate, which is being referred to as ruby chocolate, has been underdevelopment for just under a decade. Apparently this new chocolate has a natural pinkish colour and a berry flavour. I suspect the manufacturers are choosing to call it ruby chocolate rather than pink chocolate because the latter sounds childish; they probably want to market this new chocolate in the upper price brackets and emphasize that its colour is natural (there are plenty of pink children’s sweets out there that are full of artificial colorants).
Interesting online article about colour vision in animals
Just over two years ago I wrote about a special colour chart that you can use to check the colour of your urine. You can see the original post here.
I guess it was only a matter of time before there would be a poop chart. Well, not a chart exactly but a description about what the different colours mean
The work that has been done has been done in petri dishes in lab however and further studies are needed to see if certain coloured sheets could be effective bug deterrents.
For more see here.
According to Joseph Corbo, an associate professor of pathology and immunology at Washington University, the genes affecting red coloration belong to a wider family of genes involved in detoxification. Redness may be a sign of a robust, quality mate who can easily cleanse harmful substances from his body.
“In many bird species, the redder the male, the more successful it is at finding mates,” – Joseph Corbo.
For more see http://www.deccanchronicle.com/science/science/200516/researchers-solve-mystery-of-red-colour-in-birds.html