Blue: A Scientist's Search for Nature's Rarest Colour

Description

A globe-trotting quest to find blue in the natural world - and to understand our collective obsession with this bewitching colour. Blue is a rare colour - natural blue, that is. From morpho butterflies in the rain forest to the blue jay flitting past your window, vanishingly few living things are blue - and most that appear so are doing sleight of hand with physics or complex chemistry. Flowers modify the red pigment anthocyanin to achieve their blue hue. Even the blue sky above us is a trick of the light. Yet this hard-to-spot accent colour in our surroundings looms large in our affections. Science journalist Kai Kupferschmidt has been fascinated by blue since childhood. His quest to find and understand his favorite colour and its hallowed place in our culture takes him to a gene-splicing laboratory in Japan, a volcanic lake in Oregon, and to Brandenburg, Germany - home of the last Spix's macaws. From deep underground where blue minerals grow into crystals to miles away in space where satellites gaze down at our "blue marble" planet, wherever we do find blue, it always has a story to tell.

Kai Kupferschmidt studied molecular biomedicine and works as a science writer in Berlin. He contributes to the US journal Science as well as to German newspapers such as the Suddeutsche Zeitung, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung and Die Zeit. Unless he takes some time off, which he then spends thinking about the colour blue. Kai Kupferschmidt has won numerous prizes, including the Media Prize of the German HIV/Aids Foundation.

A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection "In readily accessible prose, Kupferschmidt, an experienced science reporter, walks readers through intricate material in chapters that describe blue in stones, vision, plants, language, and animals. . . . The complexities are laid out with wonderful diagrams and illustrations in an engaging and approachable manner. . . . Blue is charming and readable."--Booklist "A comprehensive history of the color blue [that] deftly bridges mineralogy, botany, and art history to explore humanity's quest for the perfect blue pigment. With equal ease, [Kupferschmidt] describes Picasso's Blue Period palette and the microstructures that blue jays use to 'cheat' their way to a dazzling cerulean."--Science "Fascinating and well-researched. . . . Kupferschmidt travels the world to understand the history and many origins of the color blue. . . . The book also features striking illustrations of pigments, flowers, and stones that underscore its message that the experience of blue is both universal and deeply personal."--Shelf Awareness "Human beings have been obsessed with the color blue for thousands of years, and in Blue, science journalist Kai Kupferschmidt travels the globe to discover why it has always been so special. . . .[His] global quest follows his lifelong obsession with blue, taking him to the core of what it means to be human."--Foreword Reviews "This fascinating book delves into art, chemistry, biology, physics, geology, history, and literature in order to elucidate the beautiful mysterious color blue. Richly illustrated with gorgeous colors and helpful diagrams, as well as quotes from poetry and prose, the book also contains a surprising personal revelation at the end."--Seattle Book Review Praise from Germany "Using anecdotes, reportage fragments and research stories, Kupferschmidt succeeds in explaining the science of blue in an entertaining and vivid manner."--Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung "With such dedication and clarity that one is astonished to see what aesthetic pleasure natural science can bring. How does beauty come into the world? As a book."--Sonntag Kultur "Poets, painters, psychologists--what fascinates them about the color blue? This book shows it in word and design."--Die Zeit "A hymn to the color blue that makes you want to immerse yourself in the world of research, culture, and wonder."--Deutschlandfunk Kultur "The book is beautifully equipped, with the blue book cut and a beautiful blue in the cover."--NDR Kultur, The Mixed Double "Praise for perhaps the most beautiful color in the world in one of the most beautiful books in recent years."--ZEIT Wissen "Kupferschmidt succeeds in presenting facts concisely and with humor."--Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung "Even if you are not a scientist, you get an uncanny desire to understand such connections."--Deutschlandfunk Kultur "Everything you need to know about blue."--BR Fernsehen