Butterflies are Solar, man!


	Butterflies are Solar, man!

robjustin

2-10-2009 2:41 AM

214 views

robjustin says:

Hopefully they'll figure out how to replicate the structure synthetically.

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/2506e2ac-99a2-49d9-a230-7dabe594fc49/28999873-19E9-44F7-BCCD-BAB851E19036/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/02/scientists-disc.html" href="http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/02/scientists-disc.html" style="font-size: 11px;">www.dailygalaxy.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/02/scientists-disc.html"><div align="center"><img src="http://content6.clipmarks.com/blog_cache/www.dailygalaxy.com/img/08A955BC-E0B1-4FB9-ACF0-5176D6FC1D96" alt="Yellowbutterfly" /></div></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/02/scientists-disc.html">Research suggests that certain scales on butterfly wings are nanobiologically-tuned to absorb heat from sunlight, enabling the insect to survive in colder or higher-altitudes than normal.  Now some scientists offer ecologists a nasty choice: you can have higher-efficiency solar cells but we have to burn butterfly wings to make them.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/02/scientists-disc.html">Shanghai scientists made cells
mimicking the buttery scales, but this is less "chameleon look at them
and be like them" mimic, more "horror movie murderer kill them and
steal their skin" mimic.  Specifically, the wings have to be soaked in
chemicals and burned away in an oven at five hundred degrees Celsius. 
This leaves a titanium-dioxide "butterfly microstructure photo-anode." 
We lack the nanotech to rebuild the unique cross-ribbed quasi-honeycomb
structure, but it turns out that even in making molecular-scale
modified materials mankind's oldest strategy still works: "set fire to
something."</blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/28999873-19E9-44F7-BCCD-BAB851E19036/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content7.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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