Color Diversity Research Articles

Morphological investigations on the wing scales of four species of common Indian butterflies

Wing scales of butterflies exhibit extreme diversity in shape, size, colour, and number of spines. They are sub microscopic with a length of 300 to 600µm and a breadth of 150 to 400µm. A typical scale possessed a flat body with basal pedicel and apical crown which is provided with a varying number of pointed edges called spines. Investigations were carried outon the morphology of wing scales in four species of common butterflies viz., Pachilopta hector (Linnaeus 1758), Troides minos (Cramer 1779), Jamides celeno (Cramer1775) and Eurema andersonii (Linnaeus 1758). Wings of P. hector possessed nine types of scales, the crown of all are with pointed spines of varying numbers, ranging from one to five. The southern birdwing T. minos, possessed nine types of scales. A major portion of wings with black colour is due to black coloured scales but white bands of the forewings are due to transparent and colourless scales. The prominent yellow colour on the hind wings of this butterfly is due to the presence of a single type of scale with a round crown that is devoid of spines and is fully packed with yellow pigment. Jamides celeno possessed twenty different types of scales, most of them are devoid of spines and the ridges within the scales are not clear. Scales on the upper surface of the wing with ashy blue colour and scales of white bands on the lower surface of the wings are identical and are transparent and colourless. The common grass yellow E. andersonii possessed twentyfive different types of scales, of which thirteen are on the black margins of wings and twelve are in the yellow portions of wings. Almost half of the total number of scales in the yellow portions of the wing is transparent and colourless and in coloured scales distribution of pigment is not uniform.This is the first report on the different types of wings scales in the selected butterflies.

Among-years rain variation is associated with flower size, but not with signal patch size in Iris petrana.

Among-years rain variation is associated with flower size, but not with signal patch size in Iris petrana.

A recessive mutation in muscadine grapes causes berry color-loss without influencing anthocyanin pathway

Anthocyanins, a major class of flavonoids, are important pigments of grape berries. Despite the recent discovery of the genetic cause underlying the loss of color, the metabolomic and molecular responses are unknown. Anthocyanin quantification among diverse berry color muscadines suggests that all genotypes could produce adequate anthocyanin quantities, irrespective of berry color. Transcriptome profiling of contrasting color muscadine genotypes proposes a potential deficiency that occurs within the anthocyanin transport and/or degradation mechanisms and might cause unpigmented berries. Genome-wide association studies highlighted a region on chromosome-4, comprising several genes encoding glutathione S-transferases involved in anthocyanin transport. Sequence comparison among genotypes reveals the presence of two GST4b alleles that differ by substituting the conserved amino acid residue Pro171-to-Leu. Molecular dynamics simulations demonstrate that GST4b2–Leu171 encodes an inactive protein due to modifications within the H-binding site. Population genotyping suggests the recessive inheritance of the unpigmented trait with a GST4b2/2 homozygous. A model defining colorless muscadines’ response to the mutation stimulus, avoiding the impact of trapped anthocyanins within the cytoplasm is established.

Multi-method study of the impact of fermentation on the polyphenol composition and color of Grenache, Cinsault, and Syrah rosé wines

Rosé wines show large color diversity, due to different phenolic pigment compositions. However, the mechanisms responsible for such diversity are poorly understood. The present work aimed at investigating the impact of fermentation on the color and composition of rosé wines made from Grenache, Cinsault, and Syrah grapes. Targeted MS analysis showed large varietal differences in must and wine compositions, with higher concentrations of anthocyanins and flavanols in Syrah. UV–visible spectrophotometry and size exclusion chromatography data indicated that Grenache and Cinsault musts contained oligomeric pigments derived from hydroxycinnamic acids and flavanols which were mostly lost during fermentation due to adsorption on lees. Syrah must color was mainly due to anthocyanins which were partly converted to derived pigments through reactions with yeast metabolites with limited color drop during fermentation. This work highlighted the impact of must composition, reflecting varietal characteristics, on changes occurring during fermentation and consequently wine color.

A new finding of reverse three-component thermochromic pigments using biomass-derived l-ascorbyl palmitate color developer

The fatty alcohol phase change material is used as the solvent for three-component thermochromic pigment (the leuco dye-color developer-solvent), which has the dual functions of both thermochromism and thermal energy storage. However, bisphenol A is usually used as the color developer of the three-component thermochromic pigments currently, which has potential safety hazards and is not conducive to market promotion. For most three-component thermochromic pigments, their colors change from colored to colorless. Here, we prepare the biomass-derived thermochromic pigment (TC-LAP) by using l-ascorbate palmitate (LAP) as a color developer, crystalline violet lactone (CVL) as a leuco dye, and tetradecanol (TD) as a solvent. Interestingly, a special reverse thermochromic phenomenon of endothermic color deepening is found. Heating causes the discoloration of TC-LAP from colorless to colored. Thermal energy storage and reverse thermochromic are realized and devoid of safety hazards. The color of TC-LAP thermochromic pigment changes from white to blue with heating, and the CIE 1931 chroma coordinates change from X = 0.21, Y = 0.26 to X = 0.36, Y = 0.36. For the TC-LAP thermochromic pigment, the chromaticity coordinates of blue (X = 0.36, Y = 0.36) correspond to the energy storage of 179.91 J/g and the discoloration temperature of 40 °C. Reverse thermochromism is an exciting discovery for the color diversity of low temperature and controlled three-component thermochromic pigment. Meanwhile, the use of biomass-derived LAP also alleviates the safety hazard of BPA color developer in three-component thermochromic pigment.

Basal Reactivity Evaluated by Infrared Thermography in the "Caballo de Deporte Español" Horse Breed According to Its Coat Color.

Simple SummaryThe importance of the coat color in horses has been present since their domestication. The interactive effect of coat color-determinant genes on other traits, such as behavior, makes it a factor of importance in horse selection, as it determines the way the horse perceives and reacts to its environment. Eye temperature at rest (ETR) assessed with infrared thermography was used as a suitable non-invasive tool to assess basal reactivity. The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of coat color on basal reactivity assessed with infrared thermography, determine their relationship with the results obtained in show jumping competitions, and to estimate the genetic parameters for ETR to test its suitability for genetic selection. Our results indicated differences in ETR due to six different factors. We also discovered a positive correlation with ranking in show jumping, indicating that less reactive horses were more likely to achieve better rankings. The genetic results indicated that part of the variability present in the basal reactivity due to coat color has an environmental origin. The heritability values indicate that ETR has a suitable genetic basis to be used in the breeding program to select for basal reactivity due to coat color.Horses have been valued for their diversity of coat color since prehistoric times. In particular, the pleiotropic effect that coat color genes have on behavior determines the way the horse perceives and reacts to its environment. The primary aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of coat color on basal reactivity assessed with infrared thermography as eye temperature at rest (ETR), determine their relation with the results obtained by these horses in Show Jumping competitions and to estimate the genetic parameters for this variable to test its suitability for genetic selection. A General Linear Model (GLM) and Duncan post-hoc analysis indicated differences in ETR due to coat color, sex, age, location, and breed-group factors. A Spearman’s rank correlation of 0.11 (p < 0.05) was found with ranking, indicating that less reactive horses were more likely to achieve better rankings. Heritability values ranged from 0.17 to 0.22 and were computed with a model with genetic groups and a model with residual variance heterogeneity. Breeding values were higher with the last genetic model, thus demonstrating the pleiotropic effect of coat color. These results indicate that ETR has a suitable genetic basis to be used in the breeding program to select for basal reactivity due to coat color.

Chemistry-Informed Machine Learning Enables Discovery of DNA-Stabilized Silver Nanoclusters with Near-Infrared Fluorescence.

DNA can stabilize silver nanoclusters (AgN-DNAs) whose atomic sizes and diverse fluorescence colors are selected by nucleobase sequence. These programmable nanoclusters hold promise for sensing, bioimaging, and nanophononics. However, DNA's vast sequence space challenges the design and discovery of AgN-DNAs with tailored properties. In particular, AgN-DNAs with bright near-infrared luminescence above 800 nm remain rare, placing limits on their applications for bioimaging in the tissue transparency windows. Here, we present a design method for near-infrared emissive AgN-DNAs. By combining high-throughput experimentation and machine learning with fundamental information from AgN-DNA crystal structures, we distill the salient DNA sequence features that determine AgN-DNA color, for the entire known spectral range of these nanoclusters. A succinct set of nucleobase staple features are predictive of AgN-DNA color. By representing DNA sequences in terms of these motifs, our machine learning models increase the design success for near-infrared emissive AgN-DNAs by 12.3 times as compared to training data, nearly doubling the number of known AgN-DNAs with bright near-infrared luminescence above 800 nm. These results demonstrate how incorporating known structure-property relationships into machine learning models can enhance materials study and design, even for sparse and imbalanced training data.

Identifying genes associated with genetic control of color polymorphism in the pearl oyster Pinctada margaritifera var. cumingii (Linnaeus 1758) using a comparative whole genome pool-sequencing approach.

For hundreds of years, the color diversity of Mollusca shells has been a topic of interest for humanity. However, the genetic control underlying color expression is still poorly understood in mollusks. The pearl oyster Pinctada margaritifera is increasingly becoming a biological model to study this process due to its ability to produce a large range of colors. Previous breeding experiments demonstrated that color phenotypes were partly under genetic control, and while a few genes were found in comparative transcriptomics and epigenetic experiments, genetic variants associated with the phenotypes have not yet been investigated. Here, we used a pooled-sequencing approach on 172 individuals to investigate color-associated variants on three color phenotypes of economic interest for pearl farming, in three wild and one hatchery populations. While our results uncovered SNPs targeting pigment-related genes already identified in previous studies, such as PBGD, tyrosinases, GST, or FECH, we also identified new color-related genes occurring in the same pathways, like CYP4F8, CYP3A4, and CYP2R1. Moreover, we identified new genes involved in novel pathways unknown to be involved in shell coloration for P.margaritifera, like the carotenoid pathway, BCO1. These findings are essential to possibly implement future breeding programs focused on individual selection for specific color production in pearl oysters and improve the footprint of perliculture on the Polynesian lagoon by producing less but with a better quality.

Color diversity and its aesthetic value in the designs of children's fashion fabrics

Fabric design is one of the arts in which humans participate functionally and aesthetically. Researching its design aspects is an important goal, especially after taking technical developments to cover many of its fields. Modern designs emphasize the importance of preparing designs and implementing them according to the child’s ability, inclinations and desires (mental, psychological and emotional). ), as the child is the real focus of the design idea, and the designer has paid most of his attention to the requirements and needs of this stage (childhood stage) because of its importance in the life of society, as he focused his attention on implementing designs that could achieve stability and stability in the child’s psyche through shapes Accordingly, the current research was based on the imposition of the following question: What are the aesthetic values and design foundations in the designs of fabrics and children’s fashion?The research also dealt with three sections, the first topic included the methodological framework in posing the problem, its importance and objectives as well as the definition of the most important terms, and the second topic included The theoretical framework, which included the following topics: First: Aesthetic value and its perception among children and its role in the designs of fabrics and fashion Second: The foundations of art Mimeh for children's fabric designs. As for the third topic, it included the research procedures to reach the objectives of the research, and it relied on the analytical description method, then the most important results and recommendations were included, and finally the sources and references were confirmed.

Wildlife trade targets colorful birds and threatens the aesthetic value of nature

A key component of nature's contribution to people is aesthetic value.1,2 Charismatic species rally public support and bolster conservation efforts.3,4 However, an insidious aspect to humanity's valuation of nature is that high value also drives wildlife trade,5,6 which can spearhead the demise of prized species.7-9 Here, we explore the antagonistic roles of aesthetic value in biodiversity conservation by using novel metrics of color to evaluate the aesthetics of the most speciose radiation of birds: passerines (i.e., the perching birds). We identify global color hotspots for passerines and highlight the breadth of color in the global bird trade. The tropics emerge as an epicentre of color, encompassing 91% and 65% of the world's most diverse and most uniquely colored passerine assemblages, respectively. We show that the pet trade, which currently affects 30% of passerines (1,408/5,266), traverses the avian phylogeny and targets clusters of related species that are uniquely colored. We identify an additional 478 species at risk of future trade based on their coloration and phylogenetic relationship to currently traded species-together totaling 1,886 species traded, a 34% increase. By modeling future extinctions based on species' current threat status, we predict localized losses of color diversity and uniqueness in many avian communities, undermining their aesthetic value and muting nature's color palette. Given the distribution of color and the association of unique colors with threat and trade, proactive regulation of the bird trade is crucial to conserving charismatic biodiversity, alongside recognition and celebration of color hotspots.

Decoding the formation of diverse petal colors of Lagerstroemia indica by integrating the data from transcriptome and metabolome.

Lagerstroemia indica has great economic value due to its ecological, medicinal, and ornamental properties. Because its bloom color is one of the most essential characteristics, research into its color development is a hot topic. In this study, five representative colored cultivars were chosen, each representing a different color, such as white, red, pink, violet, and purple. Fully bloomed flowers were used to detect flavonoids in the petals. Anthocyanin is the main factor for the color formation of L. indica. 14 anthocyanins were discovered among the 299 flavonoids. Among 14 anthocyanins, malvidin-3,5-di-O-glucoside varied greatly among four colored samples and is the main contributor to color diversity. Transcriptome sequencing revealed that compared to white flowers, Anthocyanin pathway genes appear to be more active in colored samples. Analyzing the correlation network between metabolites and differential expressed genes, 53 key structural genes, and 24 TFs were detected that may play an essential role in the formation of color in L. indica flowers. Among these, the differential expression of F3′5′H and F3′H between all samples are contributors to color diversity. These findings lay the foundation for discovering the molecular mechanism of L. indica flower color diversity.

Recent Progress in Smart Polymeric Gel-Based Information Storage for Anti-Counterfeiting.

Information security protection has a tremendous impact on human life, social stability and national security, leading to the rapid development of anti-counterfeiting materials and related techniques. However, the traditional stored information on hard or dry media is often static and lacks functions, which makes it challenging to deal with increasing and powerful counterfeiting technologies. Modified intelligent polymeric gels exhibit color changes and shape morphing under external stimuli, which give them great potential for applications in information storage. This paper provides an overview of the latest progress in polymeric gel-based information storage materials in relation to counterfeiting. Following a brief introduction of anti-counterfeiting materials, the preparation methods for intelligent gels with adjustable colors (e.g., chemical colors and physical colors) and various encryption/decryption modes involving dimensions and diverse colors are outlined. Finally, the challenges and prospects for information storage and anti-counterfeiting based on smart gels are discussed.

Diversity and Sexual Dichromatism in Treefrog Throat Coloration: Potential Signal Function?

Sexual dichromatism, where males and females of the same species differ in coloration, is best studied in diurnal animals. Nocturnal animals such as frogs do not seem good candidates for widespread sexual dichromatism, or for the use of visual signals in social communication in general. Yet, up to 25% of treefrog species (Anura: Hylidae) show some degree of sexual difference in their dorsal coloration. The ventral side of frogs is hidden during rest, but the throat region becomes visible in active individuals, especially in calling males. We compiled a database of 249 treefrog species that include members of all seven subfamilies of the Family Hylidae. We document that the throat region of male frogs is frequently colorful and of a different color than the abdomen (ventral dichromatism), that there is interspecific variation in throat coloration, and that males and females differ in throat coloration (sexual dichromatism). We also examined intraspecific variation in throat coloration, using Eastern Gray Treefrogs, Dryophytes versicolor (Hyla versicolor) as the focal species. Here, we document throat color is sexually dimorphic, that it varies among males, is associated with better body condition, and on average is darker in mated compared to unmated males. Our study finds that throat color dichromatism is the most prevalent type of sexual dichromatism in treefrogs, and that throat coloration may have sexual signal function.

The diversity of plumage coloration and behavioral features of synanthropic blue rock pigeon of urbanized territories

The paper considers the features of the phenotypic structure formation of blue rock pigeons populations on the basis of plumage color on territories with varying degrees of urbanization. The distribution of morphotypes may depend on the number of pigeons in flocks (the density of micropopulation groups), which is determined by migration processes associated with the transformation of the habitat, changes in foraging and other factors. An important role in the phenotypic structure formation of the pigeon population is the development of adaptations to living conditions in the city. The most anthropotolerant and, accordingly, adapted to the conditions of urbanization, are the most numerous morphotypes black and grey, which have developed various adaptation strategies in the process of co-evolution. Representatives of these morphotypes predominantly constitute the sedentary part of pigeon populations in urban areas. Migrants, among whom, apparently, there is a large proportion of aberrant morphotypes or hybrid forms, demonstrate less adaptability to anthropogenic impact and to the conditions of urbanization. The existence of stable polymorphic populations of blue rock pigeons in the urban environment indicates the development of multidirectional behavioral strategies that make it possible to fully use the features of urban landscapes and adapt to humans and numerous anthropogenic disturbance factors. One of the directions of the adaptive population strategy of blue rock pigeons is the development of moderate anthropotolerance, which is possessed by representatives of the most common black-striped phenotype.

Fluorescent carbon nanoparticles from Chinese ink

<p indent="0mm">Chinese ink has been widely used and preserved due to its unique color stability, diversity and uniformity, and has recently been proved to be an excellent source of carbon particles. Here, we prepared a series of carbon nanoparticles with different luminescent properties from Chinese ink, which offered a new method for preparing carbon quantum dots. The particle size and luminescence properties of carbon quantum dots were systematically investigated. We identified carbon quantum dots (CQDs) with a diameter of <sc>5–7 nm</sc> in the supernatant of the lampblack “ziyuguang”, and the fluorescence emission of CQDs was characteristic of excitation wavelength dependence, which provided the evidence for the presence of shining purple jade light in this “ziyuguang” stick. More than seven kinds of CQDs with different fluorescence properties were separated <italic>via</italic> polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) after oxidizing the raw soot. The fluorescence emission of lanes 1–7 ranged from 350 to <sc>670 nm,</sc> covering the whole visible light region of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple. The size distribution of CQDs was uniform, and the fluorescence emission spectrum was excitation independent, implying the uniform size and the simple and single interfaces. It is thus expected that high-quality CQDs can be produced on a large scale by exploiting the China’s ink capacity, laying the foundation for its application in various fields. Considering the long history and large-scale production capacity of Chinese ink production process, this provides a new way for large-scale, high-throughput preparation of CQDs with uniform size and stable fluorescence properties.

The genomic and bulked segregant analysis of Curcuma alismatifolia revealed its diverse bract pigmentation

Compared with most flowers where the showy part comprises specialized leaves (petals) directly subtending the reproductive structures, most Zingiberaceae species produce showy “flowers” through modifications of leaves (bracts) subtending the true flowers throughout an inflorescence. Curcuma alismatifolia, belonging to the Zingiberaceae family, a plant species originating from Southeast Asia, has become increasingly popular in the flower market worldwide because of its varied and esthetically pleasing bracts produced in different cultivars. Here, we present the chromosome-scale genome assembly of C. alismatifolia “Chiang Mai Pink” and explore the underlying mechanisms of bract pigmentation. Comparative genomic analysis revealed C. alismatifolia contains a residual signal of whole-genome duplication. Duplicated genes, including pigment-related genes, exhibit functional and structural differentiation resulting in diverse bract colors among C. alismatifolia cultivars. In addition, we identified the key genes that produce different colored bracts in C. alismatifolia, such as F3′5'H, DFR, ANS and several transcription factors for anthocyanin synthesis, as well as chlH and CAO in the chlorophyll synthesis pathway by conducting transcriptomic analysis, bulked segregant analysis using both DNA and RNA data, and population genomic analysis. This work provides data for understanding the mechanism of bract pigmentation and will accelerate breeding in developing novel cultivars with richly colored bracts in C. alismatifolia and related species. It is also important to understand the variation in the evolution of the Zingiberaceae family.

A mechanism for red coloration in vertebrates

Red coloration is a salient feature of the natural world. Many vertebrates produce red color by converting dietary yellow carotenoids into red ketocarotenoids via an unknown mechanism. Here, we show that two enzymes, cytochrome P450 2J19 (CYP2J19) and 3-hydroxybutyrate dehydrogenase 1-like (BDH1L), are sufficient to catalyze this conversion. In birds, both enzymes are expressed at the sites of ketocarotenoid biosynthesis (feather follicles and red cone photoreceptors), and genetic evidence implicates these enzymes in yellow/red color variation in feathers. In fish, the homologs of CYP2J19 and BDH1L are required for ketocarotenoid production, and we show that these enzymes are sufficient to produce ketocarotenoids in cell culture and when ectopically expressed in fish skin. Finally, we demonstrate that the red-cone-enriched tetratricopeptide repeat protein 39B (TTC39B) enhances ketocarotenoid production when co-expressed with CYP2J19 and BDH1L. The discovery of this mechanism of ketocarotenoid biosynthesis has major implications for understanding the evolution of color diversity in vertebrates.

Automatic signboard detection and localization in densely populated developing cities

Most city establishments of developing cities are digitally unlabeled because of the lack of automatic annotation systems. Hence location and trajectory services such as Google Maps, Uber etc remain underutilized in such cities. Accurate signboard detection in natural scene images is the foremost task for error-free information retrieval from such city streets. Yet, developing accurate signboard localization system is still an unresolved challenge because of its diverse appearances that include textual images and perplexing backgrounds. We present a novel object detection approach that can detect signboards automatically and is suitable for such cities. We use Faster R-CNN based localization by incorporating two specialized pretraining methods and a run time efficient hyperparameter value selection algorithm. We have taken an incremental approach in reaching our final proposed method through detailed evaluation and comparison with baselines using our constructed SVSO (Street View Signboard Objects) signboard dataset containing signboard natural scene images of six developing countries. We demonstrate state-of-the-art performance of our proposed method on both SVSO dataset and Open Image Dataset. Our proposed method can detect signboards accurately (even if the images contain multiple signboards with diverse shapes and colors in a noisy background) achieving 0.90 mAP (mean average precision) score on SVSO independent test set. Our implementation is available at: https://cutt.ly/dhr1D2K.

Code crack of colour diversity

Code crack of colour diversity

Improving Skin Color Diversity in Cancer Detection: Deep Learning Approach.

The lack of dark skin images in pathologic skin lesions in dermatology resources hinders the accurate diagnosis of skin lesions in people of color. Artificial intelligence applications have further disadvantaged people of color because those applications are mainly trained with light skin color images. The aim of this study is to develop a deep learning approach that generates realistic images of darker skin colors to improve dermatology data diversity for various malignant and benign lesions. We collected skin clinical images for common malignant and benign skin conditions from DermNet NZ, the International Skin Imaging Collaboration, and Dermatology Atlas. Two deep learning methods, style transfer (ST) and deep blending (DB), were utilized to generate images with darker skin colors using the lighter skin images. The generated images were evaluated quantitively and qualitatively. Furthermore, a convolutional neural network (CNN) was trained using the generated images to assess the latter's effect on skin lesion classification accuracy. Image quality assessment showed that the ST method outperformed DB, as the former achieved a lower loss of realism score of 0.23 (95% CI 0.19-0.27) compared to 0.63 (95% CI 0.59-0.67) for the DB method. In addition, ST achieved a higher disease presentation with a similarity score of 0.44 (95% CI 0.40-0.49) compared to 0.17 (95% CI 0.14-0.21) for the DB method. The qualitative assessment completed on masked participants indicated that ST-generated images exhibited high realism, whereby 62.2% (1511/2430) of the votes for the generated images were classified as real. Eight dermatologists correctly diagnosed the lesions in the generated images with an average rate of 0.75 (360 correct diagnoses out of 480) for several malignant and benign lesions. Finally, the classification accuracy and the area under the curve (AUC) of the model when considering the generated images were 0.76 (95% CI 0.72-0.79) and 0.72 (95% CI 0.67-0.77), respectively, compared to the accuracy of 0.56 (95% CI 0.52-0.60) and AUC of 0.63 (95% CI 0.58-0.68) for the model without considering the generated images. Deep learning approaches can generate realistic skin lesion images that improve the skin color diversity of dermatology atlases. The diversified image bank, utilized herein to train a CNN, demonstrates the potential of developing generalizable artificial intelligence skin cancer diagnosis applications. RR2-10.2196/34896.