THIS IS HOW WHEAT GROWS

video upload by Photo Owl Time Lapse

"A lot of you have been asking for a soil time-lapse since I posted the one with cigarettes in soil. This video shows what happens to wheat underground over a few months. Notice how new heads of wheat could not be formed, it's because I shot this video indoors. I plan to redo a similar one outdoors, so we'll see the head formation too."

The Worlds Shiniest Material is an African Fruit

via DISCOVER Magazine
"In the forests of central Africa, there’s a plant that looks like it’s growing its own Christmas decorations. Shiny baubles sprout from between its leaves, shimmering in a vibrant metallic blue. Look closer, and other colours emerge – pinpricks of red, orange, green and violet. It looks as if Seurat, or some other pointillist painter, had turned their hand to sculpture.

But these spheres, of course, are no man-made creations. They’re fruit. They are the shiniest fruits in the world. Actually, they are the shiniest living materials in the world, full-stop.

They belong to a plant called Pollia condensata, a tropical metre-tall herb that sprouts its shiny berry-like fruits in clusters up to 40-strong. These little orbs are iridescent – they use special layers of cells, arranged just so, to reflect colours with extraordinary intensity. This trick relies on the microscopic physical structures of the cells, rather than on any chemical pigments. Indeed, the fruits have no blue pigment at all..."