Peter Bamfield

The bioluminescent phenomena appears annually on the waves in bays  along the South Wales coast. The cause, a chemiluminescent reaction within the bodies of plankton, is well known, but this year has produced particularly spectacular displays In  Dunvegan Bay. These were captured by photographer Lee McGrath on in the very early hours of June 21,…

She is sitting in an old but comfortable armchair to the right of the fireplace. The room is clean and tidy and currently sunlit, giving the room a brightness, enhanced by the wall to wall, blue carpet and the cream-coloured walls. The contents seem personal rather than being fashionable items of any era. There are…

I have been playing around with the new version of Bing and asked it to write a short story on photochromism. It didn’t produce a short story but a paragraph as shown below.  Quite amusing for a first go and interesting that the inventor was a woman. Sure, here’s a short story on photochromism: Once…

As a member of the American Chemical Society, I regularly get their issues of the C&EN Newsletters.  As an addendum they have an item called “ Chemistry in Pictures”, which are always good fun. One in a very recent issue ( February 23, 2023)  in particular caught my eye and since readership is restricted I…

2022 has been a very good summer for seeing rare blue coloured creatures  on the shores and uplands of the UK, and I don’t mean flag waving, tory would-be prime ministers. Blue snails have been seen on the beaches of the Isles of Scilly,: a blue lobster  turned up in the pots pf a fisherman…

For most of the last 75 years the examination and appraisal of classic string instruments, such as those made by Stradivari, has included the use of light of a variety of wavelengths. Most commonly this has been done using light in the UV range, utilising the induced fluorescence.  Employing this technique the state and origin…

The Blue Rose has been used  a symbol of the unattainable, an unrealisable dream over generations For plant breeders one of the most elusive targets has been a blue rose that can be grown in the garden. Traditionally, for many centuries, these have been produced only for display by putting a blue dye in the…

I have had a lifelong interest in the use of colour in poems concerned with the natural environment , especially in the garden. I have a notebook full of extracts that I have collected from poems on this topic over the years. It is essential to be selective  as there are so many, but I…

Light emission by both flora and fauna is known as bioluminescence. One of the most fascinating areas  in the natural world, that has attracted the attention of  both artists and scientists is that of the firefly. There are possibly hundreds of poems that allude to the firefly but here are some lines from just four…

Just recently I seem   to be reading a lot about the importance of the colour red to certain artists. In Thursday’s (30/9) Guardian G2 there was a most interesting interview of Anish Kapoor by Jonathan Jones, in which he expressed the importance of red in his work. “I have an obsessed with red. My favourite…