Timeline for answer to Natural mechanism behind the skin of golden apples by Viridescent Virago
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
Post Revisions
11 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 23 at 19:57 | comment | added | François Jurain | Good! So, here we are with the better wording, thanks to you. Now find the gene which controls the length of the cellulose spirals, lengthen them by 30-50%, replace the unsavory pulp with your favorite {apple | passion fruit | yuzu | whatever} variety. Done. Note that marble berries do not disperse seeds the shit-chute way but by being put in nests as ornaments. Bling-bling takes up where gluttony fails. | |
| Jan 23 at 16:30 | comment | added | Viridescent Virago | @FrançoisJurain Your wording did so. If you say "what's responsible for the process you described is not X but yes Y" as a comment under someone else's answer it is implied that you are correcting that person for saying it is X (which is especially weird when they already said it is Y so you're just repeating their own argument back to them). If you wish to complement and not correct, a better wording would have been "In addition, the size of the fruit does not interfere with this mechanism so it isn't unreasonable that a much larger fruit would display that same effect as the berries do." | |
| Jan 23 at 16:10 | comment | added | François Jurain | Ah... I'm not sure what in my text made you understand me say you claimed anything about the size of the berries. Only pointing that it is quite plausible that a few genes control the perceived color without requiring to reengineer the whole cell of the reflecting layer. Important if you want a normal apple-tree genome with only a marble berry peel. | |
| Jan 23 at 15:23 | comment | added | Viridescent Virago | @FrançoisJurain, I'm not sure what in my text made you understand me say that it was the size of the berries what made them blue. I didn't mention size once. In fact I very clearly stated it was the structural composition of their skin. Also, user Themoonisacheese had already pointed out that the yellow color would indeed be possible to obtain through this same structure, which I too added into my text. | |
| Jan 23 at 12:50 | comment | added | François Jurain | What governs the color of the marble berries is not the size of the berry, it is a structure parameter of the special layer of cells in the peel which make the reflected ambient light interfere constructively around a given wavelength. There is no theoretical obstruction to the plant's DNA favoring a wavelength 30% longer (copper red) than IRL (peacock blue). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_coloration#Fixed_structures | |
| Jan 22 at 18:24 | history | edited | Viridescent Virago | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Added context provided by another user's comment.
|
| Jan 22 at 18:19 | comment | added | Viridescent Virago | @Themoonisacheese, I suppose it could be due to the fruit's flesh not being as attractive to animals as other fruit. The marble berries I mentioned are, roughly, the same color as blueberries, just with an added metallic sheen, but they aren't particularly tasty, so the flashy skin helps it attract animals that would otherwise ignore it in favor of tastier fruit. So, I suppose if those golden apples taste kinda bland in comparison to other fruit that exists in the area, it could make sense to invest in a little glam. | |
| Jan 22 at 16:04 | comment | added | Themoonisacheese | spiral structures are very much capable of constructively interfering in the yellow range, and there's nothing nominally stopping it from developping in plants. The only issue i see left is "what kind of evolutionary pressure made it yellow that way instead of the much cheaper other versions of yellow" but nature is weird sometimes. | |
| Jan 21 at 19:46 | comment | added | Robert Rapplean | Well done! I could see a genetic engineer of the future using this path to make something like this. | |
| S Jan 21 at 12:44 | review | First answers | |||
| Jan 21 at 12:51 | |||||
| S Jan 21 at 12:44 | history | answered | Viridescent Virago | CC BY-SA 4.0 |