Many butterflies display iridescent colors that result from light hitting intricate multilayer structures on their wing scales.PETER VUKUSIC, EXETER UNIVERSITY
The Royal Society's Summer Science Exhibition 2011 is in full swing. The annual showcase of all things scientific kicked off on July 5th and runs until July 10th at the Royal Society's headquarters in central London. This year's events feature leading researchers across the disciplines, from physicists talking about energy harvesting and quantum computing to oceanographers discussing the importance of plankton and zoologists presenting research on how bats might impact public health. Here's a look at just a few of the talks that caught our eye.
Structural colors
A few years ago, physicist Ullrich Steiner of the University of Cambridge got an unusual request from Beverly Glover in the university’s plant sciences department. She wanted Steiner and his colleagues to build plastic replicas of the ...
