posted by Suzie Chhouk
Today, so many of us take blue for granted. And why not? Anywhere you go, you can find someone wearing blue denim jeans or, especially if one of their university's colors is blue, a blue T-shirt or sweatpants. Blue is a popular color and is well represented in the fashion industry. Long ago, like in Renaissance Europe (14th to 17th Centuries), blue was rare and whenever we could find it in nature - as in lapis lazuli, it was a difficult pigment to extract. It wasn't until a chemist in 1806 was able to determine the chemical nature of lapis lazuli - a complex sulfur-containing aluminum silicate. In 1826, the first synthetic pigments were successfully made in large quantities... and the rest is history! Read more on the science of color in Nature magazine. from the Youtube channel of Nature | Lapis Lazuli Image credit: Hannes Grobe |