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Super-Black Is the New Black (theatlantic.com)
Feathers on birds of paradise contain light-trapping nanotechnology that makes some of the deepest blacks in the world, a new study has found. From a report: Blackbirds, it turns out, aren't actually all that black. Their feathers absorb most of the visible light that hits them, but still reflect between 3 and 5 percent of it. For really black plumage, you need to travel to Papua New Guinea and track down the birds of paradise. Although these birds are best known for their gaudy, kaleidoscopic colors, some species also have profoundly black feathers. The feathers ruthlessly swallow light and, with it, all hints of edge or contour. By analyzing museum specimens, Dakota McCoy, from Harvard University, has discovered exactly how the birds achieving such deep blacks. It's all in their feathers' microscopic structure.
A typical bird feather has a central shaft called a rachis. Thin branches, or barbs, sprout from the rachis, and even thinner branches -- barbules -- sprout from the barbs. The whole arrangement is flat, with the rachis, barbs, and barbules all lying on the same plane. The super-black feathers of birds of paradise, meanwhile, look very different. Their barbules, instead of lying flat, curve upward. And instead of being smooth cylinders, they are studded in minuscule spikes. These unique structures excel at capturing light. When light hits a normal feather, it finds a series of horizontal surfaces, and can easily bounce off. But when light hits a super-black feather, it finds a tangled mess of mostly vertical surfaces. Instead of being reflected away, it bounces repeatedly between the barbules and their spikes. With each bounce, a little more of it gets absorbed. Light loses itself within the feathers. McCoy and her colleagues, including Teresa Feo from the National Museum of Natural History, showed that this light-trapping nanotechnology can absorb up to 99.95 percent of incoming light.
A typical bird feather has a central shaft called a rachis. Thin branches, or barbs, sprout from the rachis, and even thinner branches -- barbules -- sprout from the barbs. The whole arrangement is flat, with the rachis, barbs, and barbules all lying on the same plane. The super-black feathers of birds of paradise, meanwhile, look very different. Their barbules, instead of lying flat, curve upward. And instead of being smooth cylinders, they are studded in minuscule spikes. These unique structures excel at capturing light. When light hits a normal feather, it finds a series of horizontal surfaces, and can easily bounce off. But when light hits a super-black feather, it finds a tangled mess of mostly vertical surfaces. Instead of being reflected away, it bounces repeatedly between the barbules and their spikes. With each bounce, a little more of it gets absorbed. Light loses itself within the feathers. McCoy and her colleagues, including Teresa Feo from the National Museum of Natural History, showed that this light-trapping nanotechnology can absorb up to 99.95 percent of incoming light.
Is this something we could apply solar cells/panels to boost efficiency?
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Blinds and curtains to keep the light out. I bet they would have an incredible insulating factor also.
"Technology"? Really?
Vantablack has already been invented, move on!
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Hopefully in a few years someone can finally build that spaceship for Disaster Area's concert.
This gave me an idea: Could you grow silicon crystals in a 3-dimensional pattern that would do what these feathers do? If you could wouldn't you be able to create extremely efficient solar cells?
Black Birds Matter?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
And the answer is none. None more black.
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"Feathers contain nanotechnology"... Interesting, who developed that tech and put it on birds? Inquiring minds need to know.
“It's like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is none — none more black.”
. .
Can someone explain how the light gets 'absorbed'? Does it turn into heat? I'm interested in what happens to the photon as it's getting bounced around in the feather.
Blackbirds, it turns out, aren't actually all that black.
How dare you? If a bird wants to self identify as being black, who the hell are you to say that they aren't?
This is just another attempt by the old ivory gull patriarchy to further marginalize an historically oppressed species and deny their cultural identity.
I can't believe that there wasn't a trigger warning on this post. Don't you know that /. needs to be a safe space, free from the tyranny of archaic ways of thought and ideas and words that are by definition violent?
Super Green
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Black Birds Matter?
I've always thought they do.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Blacker than the blackest black, times infinity.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
This sounds to me like a VERY good idea for Stealth Tech... of course the size and material would need to be tailored for the wavelengths involved but it's all EM energy....
Why would you want answers from people you think of as retards?
and hank hill is super white!