purple

Lake Hillier: Pink Australian lake gets its colour from red and purple microbes

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DNA sequencing has revealed that a bright pink lake on an island off Western Australia gets its colour from a mix of salt-loving bacteria and algae Earth 10 March 2022 By Alice Klein Aerial view of Lake Hillier, Australia Tourism Western Australia The unusual bubblegum pink colour of a remote lake in Western Australia has … Read more

Superfoods: Genetically modified purple tomato could go on sale soon in the US

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A small company has applied for approval in the US to sell a genetically modified tomato that is rich in the beneficial pigments found in blueberries Health 23 February 2022 By Michael Le Page Purple tomatoes contain higher levels of antioxidant pigments Eugenio Butelli/Andrew Davis A purple tomato genetically modified to make it rich in … Read more

1st image from NASA’s new IXPE X-ray telescope looks like a ball of purple lightning

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IXPE’s first science image shows the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A.  (Image credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/IXPE) NASA’s newly-launched X-ray hunting probe has snapped its first science image and — wow — it’s spectacular. The Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) probe launched Dec. 9, 2021, on a mission to observe objects like black holes and neutron stars in X-ray … Read more

Mysterious Syndrome Turning Sea Stars Into Goo Reveals Another Strange Twist

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As we battle against our own pandemic, sea stars are being killed in the millions by a horrible condition that melts them into a sickly goo. Sadly, there’s no straightforward way to help these animals, such as protecting them with a vaccine, so conservation biologists have been desperately trying to find another way.   In … Read more

Purple space ‘lightning’ spews from stellar corpse, creating cosmic shock waves (photo, video)

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A streak of purple “lightning” sprawls across the cosmos in a gorgeous new image from NASA. Light and energy twist and turn in an explosive relationship between a stellar corpse known as a white dwarf and a variable red giant star called R Aquarii (R Aqr) orbiting each other out in space. NASA’s Chandra X-ray … Read more