You’ve probably never asked yourself this question… If blueberries are blue on the outside, their juice is red… a difference that has a scientific explanation!
Orange, red, yellow… Fruits come in a wide variety of colors and are not just a result of chance! For blueberries, for example, if they are blue on the outside, their juice is closer to red. This small bay contains a really strange way No blue pigment. Then how can the fruit be this color? Scientists seem to have discovered the reason.
A “structural” color
“The blue of Blueberry It cannot be ‘extracted’ by crushing, as it is not found in the pigmented juice of pressed fruit. That’s why we knew there must be something strange about this color“explains Rox Middleton, a biology researcher who led a team of Bristol scientists who worked on the subject and whose results were published in the journal. Science Advances.
What actually makes blueberries blue? A very thin layer of wax that covers its skin, about two microns (two thousandths of a millimeter) thick, barely 1/50ᵉ the size of a human hair. This is what we call “Structural” colorLike the bright blue plumage of the peacock or Cotinga de Doubenton (Cotinga cotinga) “whose color comes from the interaction between light and the microstructures present on its feathers”, our colleagues note. Science and the Future.
Blueberry-derived paint soon?
The thin layer of wax is actually made up of multiple tiny crystals that interact with the incident light, causing an interference phenomenon. We don’t know what explains the presence of wax on these fruits but researchers have guessesIt can also serve as a hydrophobic layer or as a self-cleaning layer. This can also be a way to reach more charming for the birds.
This color is also found in other fruits, such as plums but also black grapes, blackberries, cherries and blood oranges. Middleton’s team is now looking to replicate this wax for application to other surfaces. The discovery could also lead to new types of paint capable of reflecting blue and UV, which could be “more sustainable, biocompatible and even edible”.
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