It's still autumn, and I recently remembered something cool ("cool") and autumnal that I found out last year that I could share.
Last October I was writing a news story about the breakdown of chlorophyll in bananas. The link to the digital mag is here if you want to check it out. It turns out the areas around the brown spots on bananas glow blue under UV light (Apparently; I'm yet to get hold of a black light and verify this, but it sounds worth having a go to me). Chromatography was used to figure out much of what was going on in the tiny banana cells, which meant I got to write about it but also read around the subject a little. As the chlorophyll in the bananas fades the banana goes from yellow to brown and in the middle of that process you get the glowing stuff. Stick that stuff in a chromatograph and I have a news story! Yay!
But really interesting ("interesting") bit is that the fading chlorophyll is the same process that makes green leaves go red this time of year. I never really thought about why it happens but it's reassuring to me that someone out there has got a handle on the situation.
Chlorophyll is the important bit in leaves; capturing sunlight and looking green. As the summer ends and the shorter days mean they don't need to do this so much, the veins in leaves close off and the chlorophyll starts to fade. As the green disappears, oranges and yellow that were hidden all along can be seen. In some trees, like maples, glucose is trapped in the leaves after photosynthesis stops. Sunlight and the cool nights of autumn cause the leaves turn this glucose into a red color.
So yeah; how brilliant is that?
