Joyeeta's biology tree

The structure of the human body contains only 4 minerals: Apatite, Aragonite, Calcite & Crystobalite.

The total weight of the bacteria in the human body is 2 kg.

Facts: When you blush, your stomach also turns red. Yes it's true.

What makes an octopus change color?

√ Octopuses can shift hues because they have chromatophores — tiny, color-changing organs that are dotted throughout an octopus's skin.

√ At the heart of each chromatophore are tiny sacs filled with nanoparticles of a pigment called xanthommatin.

√ The pigment sacs are surrounded by an elastic matrix that is, in turn, connected to muscle cells that surround the sac in a pointed star shape.

√ As these muscle cells contract, the pigment sac stretches, which enables more light to enter the cell and reflect off the xanthommatin particles.

√ xanthommatin absorbs certain wavelengths, or colors, of visible light, the light it reflects back out of the chromatophore is a different color compared with the light that first entered the cell.

√ There are three layers of chromatophores in an octopus's skin, and each layer has xanthommatin particles that reflect back a different color. The top layer produces a yellow color, the middle layer reflects back a red color and the bottom layer produces a brown color, Deravi said. Octopuses can combine these colors by changing the shape of the chromatophores in each layer, which enables the cephalopods to create a wide array of hues.

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👵🏻 Can you believe that @apple introduced the iPod 20 years ago #OnThisDay? 🎶🦑🎨 #Cephalopods are masters of #camouflage, rapidly changing color to blend in with their environment in response to #neural impulses. And now researchers have demonstrated how this process works — with a dead squid hooked up to an iPod. Backyard Brains (@backyardbrains), a company dedicated to at-home neuroscience kits for students, attached an #iPod nano to the fin nerve of a longfin inshore squid (loligo pealei) with an electrode. They played “#InsaneInTheBrain" by Cypress Hill and watched the squid's pigmented cells, called chromatophores, change color and pulse in #sync with the beat, with the bass frequencies acting like neural #impulses. The team was #inspired by #experiments at the #Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass. (@whoi.ocean), where scientists recently discovered that squid skin is equipped with a nerve network allowing these invertebrates to alter their iridescence. Electrical stimulation of the nerves changes the #color and reflectance of tiny plate-like structures called iridophores, which work together with the chromatophores to create shimmering patterns of color. 🌈  Find more stories on bizarre and beautiful science now at livescience.com #marineconservation #marinelife #seacreatures #marinemammals #underwaterworld #marinebiology #oceanlife #octopusart #oceanography #colorful #colorfullife #colorfulart #amazing #nature #beautiful #naturegram #planetearth #geriatricmillennial

50,000 cells in your body died and were replaced by new ones while you were reading this sentence.