Cuttlefish, which can both produce and see polarized light, manipulate the patterns of polarization displayed by their arms as a courtship display.

Summary: https://www.sciencealert.com/cuttlefish-literally-twist-light-to-attract-a-mate-study-finds

Original paper (not open access): https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2517167123

#Science #Nature #Cuttlefish #PolarizedLight

🌈 The Super Vision of Mantis Shrimp 🦐✨

Humans see the world in just three main colors — red, green, and blue. But the mantis shrimp? It sees up to sixteen different color channels! That means its world is bursting with shades and details we can’t even imagine.

🔬 Beyond colors, mantis shrimp can also see ultraviolet light and detect polarized light — giving them a kind of built-in super-vision. This isn’t just cool biology; it has real-world impact. Scientists studying mantis shrimp vision found that they can detect things invisible to us — even subtle signs of cancer in medical images.

This extraordinary eyesight could inspire new diagnostic tools to catch diseases earlier and more accurately.

In short: the mantis shrimp isn’t just one of the ocean’s most remarkable hunters — it’s a tiny creature that could help transform medicine. 🌊💡

Marine life & biology
#MantisShrimp #OceanLife #MarineBiology #NatureFacts #UnderwaterWorld

Vision & science
#SuperVision #ColorVision #UltravioletVision #PolarizedLight #AnimalSuperpowers

Innovation & impact
#BioInspiredTech #MedicalInnovation #ScienceDiscovery #FutureOfDiagnostics #CuttingEdgeScience

🔦 🌈 Our scientists have developed a new technique that lets researchers watch, with unprecedented sensitivity, how materials emit polarized light over time.

https://go.epfl.ch/baff11

#PolarizedLight

Ice Without Gravity

Astronaut Don Pettit is back in space, and that means lots of awesome microgravity experiments. Here, he grew thin wafers of ice in microgravity in a -95 degree Celsius freezer. Then he took the ice wafers and photographed them between crossed polarizers, creating this colorful image. The colors highlight different crystal orientations within the ice and give us a hint about how the freezing front formed and expanded. I can’t wait to see more examples! (Image credit: D. Pettit/NASA; via Ars Technica; submitted by J. Shoer)

#astronaut #crystalGrowth #fluidDynamics #fluidsAsArt #iceFormation #microgravity #physics #polarizedLight #science

The #EggNebula in #PolarizedLight
#Astronomy #Picture of the Day

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230409.html

#APOD #Nebula

Referenced link: https://phys.org/news/2023-03-states-spatially-polarized.html
Discuss on https://discu.eu/q/https://phys.org/news/2023-03-states-spatially-polarized.html

Originally posted by Phys.org / @physorg_com: http://nitter.platypush.tech/physorg_com/status/1640423957617672193#m

Storing information with spins: Creating new structured #spin states with spatially structured #polarizedlight @TUS_PR @physrevlett https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.126701 https://phys.org/news/2023-03-states-spatially-polarized.html