What Happens When a Chameleon Looks in a Mirror?

Female in the Mirror 

Females change color to communicate their sexual status to males, Hughes says. Female Mediterranean chameleons, for example, display yellow spots to signal sexual receptivity, according to a 1998 study.

Female social signals may be fewer “because they choose and males are competing to be chosen.”

And if she sees herself in a mirror? It would likely be more subtle than the male reaction, Hughes says—although there isn’t enough knowledge of female chameleons to know for sure.

“Female-female communication in chameleons is generally not well understood,” he says, and may be less obvious than interactions between males.

Color us humans envious of an animal who looks in a mirror and sees little that needs changing.

Male in the Mirror 

Chameleon colors aren’t just camouflage, says Eli Greenbaum, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Texas at El Paso—they also change due to temperature shifts or emotions.

And males get emotional when they see other males that could be rivals for females or habitat.

“Male chameleons will, in most cases, immediately change colors in response to seeing another male, and in this instance, to itself in a mirror,” says Daniel F. Hughes, a doctoral candidate in Greenbaum’s lab. (Related: “What Do Animals See in the Mirror?“).

To illustrate his point, he referred us to a YouTube video of a male panther chameleon, a species native to Madagascar, doing that very thing.

A male chameleon that sees a “rival” would get excited and change from its camo green to noticeable hues of yellow, orange, or even red, says Michel C. Milinkovitch, a biophysicist at the University of Geneva … read more –>   http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/06/…

The Colors of Feng Shui

Feng Shui Colors

Feng Shui Colors affect people physically, emotionally and psychologically. By using just one of the Feng Shui Colors, or by combining two or more, you can strengthen the elements of Feng Shui. Feng Shui Colors are divided into the cool (Yin) and warm (Yang) areas because all things possess these two components and their balance creates wholeness.

The guiding principle in using Feng Shui Colors should be to achieve balance rather than excess. When you are planning the color scheme of your home, office or garden environment, the following characteristics of the Feng Shui Colors will give you insight into how they can be used in decorating your space.

Blue (Yin) – This color is calm and soothing, this color reflects love as it heals and relaxes. Blue creates a feeling of peace and trust. It is the color of the sea and sky, so it tends to represent adventure and exploration. It is also relaxing and calming. Navy blue is the Feng Shui color of intellect and wisdom.

Black (Yin) – Symbolizing money and income, black is great for careers, especially when combined with metal. The Feng Shui color of emotional protection and power.

Purple (Yin) – Purple, like blue, is the spiritual end of the color spectrum. It boosts spiritual awareness and is excellent for physical and mental healing. The Feng Shui color of royalty.

White (Yang) – Poised and confident, white works better when it is combined with gold or silver to generate an atmosphere of influence and control. The Feng Shui color of purity, goodness and trustworthiness.

Yellow (Yang) – Considered as auspicious as red, yellow represents sunbeams, warmth and motion. This color can make you feel cheerful. However, according to a noted color consultant, prolonged exposure to large amounts of intense yellow can cause anxiety.Yellow is the Feng Shui color of communication and health, cheerfulness and friendliness.

Orange (Yang) – Strengthening concentration, you might need this when your creative well runs dry. It gives you a sense of purpose. Orange is the Feng Shui color of organization.

Tan/Beige (Yang) – The Feng Shui color of the earth, portrays neatness, helps conceal emotions

Brown (Yang) – The Feng Shui color of Industry, being grounded and hard working.

Red (Yang) – This is the Feng Shui color of good fortune as it attracts recognition and respect for the person who uses it, especially in the winter. A color of confidence, if you ever need one! The color of luck, money, joy, protection and physicalness.

Mauve (Yang) – The color of world consciousness.

Green (Yin) – Green is refreshing, nurturing, balancing and normalizing as in being surrounded by the lush green of nature. It is the Feng Shui color of harmony, balance, healing and health; physical, emotional and spiritual. The color is good for growth and expansion, and it is peaceful and calming.

Pink (Yin) – The Feng Shui color of love.

Maroon (Yang) – The Feng Shui color of maroon is neither red nor blue it represents indecisiveness.

Lavender (Yang) – Is the Feng Shui color of sexual indecision. Suggests an ability to be manipulated.

Gold (Yang) – The Feng Shui color of God consciousness.

Silver (Yin) – The Feng Shui color of the trustworthy and the romantic.

Gray (Yin) – Gray is neither black nor white, it is the Feng Shui color of dead and dull; indefinite.

All images & information 2001 Shop Feng Shui, Inc

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A Child’s Play In Hong Kong

Photograph by Wing Ka H., National Geographic Your Shot

Against the backdrop of a high-rise as colorful as the ball court, a child in Hong Kong lets off some steam after school … Colors are vibrant throughout the city:  In addition to its candy-colored high-rises, Hong Kong’s taxis are color-coded by service region, and the city’s Pearl River Delta is home to the uniquely hued Chinese white dolphin.

courtesy of:  http://yourshot.nationalgeographic.com/

The Meaning Behind the Many Colors of India’s Holi Festival

Two friends play in the color-soaked mud in Mathura City, India

From red to green to indigo, each color provides festival-goers with a sense of beauty, ritual and tradition.  If you land in India anytime in late February or March, it’s wise to check the dates of the annual Holi festival, and bring a spare set of clothes. That’s because for a few days in spring, people crowd the streets and splash brilliantly colored dyes on anyone walking by. It’s hard to avoid the fun—and paint—unless you stay inside or look menacing enough to discourage the custom …

Holi represents the arrival of spring and the triumph of good over evil. It is also said to be the enactment of a game the Hindu god Lord Krishna played with his consort Radha and the gopis, or milkmaids. The story represents the fun and flirtatiousness of the gods but also touches on deeper themes: of the passing of the seasons and the illusory nature of the material world … With its gorgeous textiles, exotic flowers, exuberant advertising billboards, hand-painted rickshaws and trucks covered with lights, patterns and brightly painted pictures of gods, India is one of the most colorful places on the planet.

But there’s something else to know about colors here. They are not just pretty: In India they have meaning … In Hinduism there are three main deities: Brahma the creator, Shiva the destroyer and Vishnu the preserver.

Vishnu spends eternity sleeping, until when called upon in a crisis, he wakes and like the most powerful of superheroes saves the world. One name for him is Nilakantha, the blue-necked one, because of a story that he drank a pot of poison to save creation. So BLUE is a reminder that evil exists but can be contained, through courage and right actions.

Krishna is a manifestation of Vishnu. His name means “dark,” and like Vishnu he is portrayed with blue skin … In addition to being associated with the gods, blue—through the indigo dye—is also historically linked with India.

If blue is the spiritually complex color of the gods, GREEN is the color of nature and happiness. It’s the color of another manifestation of Vishnu, Prince Rama, who spent most of his life in exile in the forest. In Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh in central India, married women often wear green bangles and a green sari in Rama’s honor … There is no naturally green dye in India, so dyers would often double dip their cottons and silks in indigo and in turmeric or pomegranate peel, which made vivid yellow dyes.

YELLOW is also associated with the third caste, of Vaisyas, or merchants. The 3,500-year-old Rig Veda book of sacred hymns refers to Lord Vishnu as tantuvardhan, or weaver, because he is said to have woven the rays of the sun into a garment for himself. He and Krishna are almost always shown dressed in yellow. In paintings of these deities, artists in India sometimes used one of the stranger pigments in history: Indian yellow … Through the 18th and 19th centuries, wooden boxes of this strange-scented pigment would arrive at the London docks. When the colormen, whose job was to process and sell paint to artists, picked up the deliveries, they had little idea of how it was made or what it was. Just that it made a fairly good watercolor, even though it was rubbish in oil.

And then there is RED … the ruins of Mohenjo Daro, in what was then northern India … the Indus Valley … the world’s largest Bronze Age urban settlement … a team of archaeologists did a thorough excavation and, among the artifacts, discovered a fragment of cotton fiber stuck to an ancient silver vase. The fiber most likely had been bright red—or perhaps bright orange or deep purple—and had been dyed from the root of the madder plant … Woven 4,300 years ago, it is the oldest piece of decorated cotton cloth ever found. Its presence, together with dye vats from a similar period found nearby, joyfully suggests that ancient India must have been as full of brilliant color as modern India is.

“Color is a physical thing: It’s not just a surface,” said the British artist Anish Kapoor in a BBC interview, in explaining his bold use of primary colors. “… It’s that sort of interplay between the ‘stuffness’ of color and its illusory, somewhat evasive, ‘other’ qualities that much of the work is about.”

You might say something similar about how colors work in India. On the surface, they provide pleasure as well as useful signals of tradition and ritual.  But if we’re attentive, colors in India also remind us of that which is easy to forget:  the evasive nature of matter, and of our own special relationship with light, whatever that light may be.

read more, see pics —>  http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/

 

LED Holiday Lights: 6 Need-to-Know Tips

LED holiday lights vs. old-fashioned bulbs: 6 tips to help you decide which is right for you.

Should you chuck all your good old holiday light strings and buy new LED holiday lights? Here’s how to decide.

1.  LED holiday lights save you money. LED lights use up to 90% less energy than traditional holiday lights, according to the U.S. government’s Energy Star program.

That results in a $50 energy savings for the average family during the holidays, says a Sierra Club spokesperson.Put it into perspective: The amount of electricity consumed by one 7-watt incandescent bulb (in a light string) could power 140 LEDs — enough to light two 24-foot strings, says Energy Star.2.  But LED lights typically cost more than old-fashioned holiday lights.

• 100-bulb string of LED lights: about $20 to $46

• 100-bulb string of conventional lights: about $7 to $12

But shop around because LED prices are coming down. And you’ll likely find sales on LED holiday lights — if not before the holidays then certainly after.

3.  LED holiday lights last and last. LED bulbs can keep your season bright for as long as 100,000 hours, says Cathy Choi, president of Moonachie, N.J.-based Bulbrite, which manufactures LED and regular bulbs. That’s substantially longer than the life of your old holiday light strings.

4. You can string a BIG strand of LED lights. Safety wise, you shouldn’t connect more than three traditional light strings, but you can connect up to 87 LED holiday light strings, totaling a whopping 1,500 feet, Choi says. So blow your neighbor’s display away by cocooning your house in lights:

• You won’t have to buy as many extension cords.

• You can take your holiday lighting display further away from the outlet.

5. LED lights reduce the risk of fire. They stay cooler than incandescent bulbs, according to Energy Star.

6. How about that hue? Some people stick with their old lights because they don’t like the brighter hue that white LED holiday lights emit. But Choi says manufacturers now offer a “warm white” bulb that more closely mimics the glow of an incandescent light. Be sure to read the label to choose a bright or warm white and to ensure what you’re purchasing is Energy Star-certified.

Courtesy of: http://members.houselogic.com/

10 Christmas Light Tips to Save Time, Money, and (Possibly) Your Life

Here’s how to light up your Christmas light display safely and economically.

Christmas lights can be modest displays to show good cheer, or million-bulb light-apaloozas that draw gawkers from near and far. Here are some tips on how to get the most from — and spend the least on — your holiday display.

1. Safety first. Emergency rooms are filled with home owners who lose fights with their holiday lights and fall off ladders or suffer electric shocks. To avoid the holiday black and blues, never hang lights solo; instead, work with a partner who holds the ladder. Also, avoid climbing on roofs after rain or snow.

2. Unpack carefully. Lights break and glass cuts. So unpack your lights gingerly, looking for and replacing broken bulbs along the way.

3. Extension cords are your friends. Splurge on heavy-duty extension cords that are UL-listed for outdoor use. To avoid overloading, only link five strings of lights together before plugging into an extension cord.

4. LEDs cost less to light. LED Christmas lights use roughly 70% to 90% less energy and last up to 10 times longer than incandescent bulbs. You can safely connect many more LED light strings than incandescents. Downside: Some think they don’t burn as brightly as incandescent bulbs.

5. Solar lights cost nothing to run. Solar Christmas lights are roughly four times more expensive to buy than LEDs, but they cost zero to run. They’re a bright-burning, green alternative. Downside: If there’s no sun during the day, there’s no light at night. The jury’s also still out on how long they last; they’re too new on the market for results.

6. Dismantle lights sooner than later. Sun, wind, rain, and snow all take their toll on Christmas lights. To extend the life of lights, take them down immediately after the holidays. The longer you leave the up, the sooner you’ll have to replace them.

7. Plan next year’s display on Dec. 26. Shop the after-Christmas sales to get the best prices on lights and blowups that you can proudly display next year. Stock up on your favorite lights so you’ll have spares when you need them (and after they’re discontinued).

8. Permanent attachments save time. If you know you’ll always hang lights from eaves, install permanent light clips ($13 for 75 clips) that will save you hanging time each year. You’ll get a couple/three years out of the clips before sun eats the plastic.

9. Find those blueprints. Instead of guessing how many light strings you’ll need, or measuring with a tape, dig up your house blueprints or house location drawings (probably with your closing papers) and use those measurements as a guide.

10. Store them in a ball. It sounds counterintuitive, but the best way to store lights is to ball them up. Wrap five times in one direction, then turn the ball 90 degrees and repeat. Store your light balls in cardboard boxes, rather than in plastic bags: Cardboard absorbs residual moisture and extends the life of your lights.

Courtesy of:  http://members.houselogic.com/

Solar Christmas Lights: Should You Make the Switch?

Solar Christmas lights don’t cost anything to operate, but are they better than plug-in LED strings?

In the last few years, energy-efficient LED holiday lights have largely replaced more wattage-thirsty incandescent strings, resulting in significant savings — LED lights use 50% less energy than their incandescent predecessors, and they last up to 10 times longer as well.

Now there’s a newish kid in the string-light neighborhood: LED solar Christmas lights promise grid-free festive lighting.

Powering up Solar Christmas Lights

A string of solar Christmas lights uses a small solar panel for power; there are no extension cords that must be plugged into outlets. The panel — about the size of a hockey puck — powers rechargeable batteries that illuminate a 25- to 100-bulb string of LED lights.

Panels come with small stakes so you can put them in the ground, where they can take advantage of the sun. A fully-charged string of lights should glow for six to eight hours after the sun goes down.

Solar Lights vs. LED Plug-In Costs

Pricing for solar-powered and plug-in LED holiday lights runs neck and neck.

Compare purchase prices:

• A 100-light string of miniature solar-powered LED lights costs about $20 to $40.

• A 100-light string of miniature plug-in LED lights costs about $20 to $46.

Compare costs to operate:

• Operating a string of plug-in LED holiday lights for 300 hours — more than enough time for an entire holiday season — costs about 24 cents, using an average energy cost of 12 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh).

• Solar-powered Christmas lights, of course, don’t cost anything to operate. That means you’re saving 24 cents per year in energy costs.

Advantages of Solar Lights

• No extension cords

• No need for exterior electrical outlets

• Withstand cold temperatures and precipitation

• Zero cost to operate

• Light output comparable to plug-in lighting

• Green option

Disadvantages

• May not operate under cloudy skies

• Unproven longevity (too new on the market for results)

Read more: http://members.houselogic.com/