Colored Leaves

Question - How and why do leaves change colors?

Answer - Pigments, weather and amount of night.

Haven't you always wondered exactly why the colors of leaves change? How does it change? There's more to what you thought the answer would be.

The one you may know is involved with the pigments. There are three type of pigments that are involved with the color changes according to www.na.fs.fed.us/spfo. There's chlorophyll which givesleaves their basic green color. The plant in which the leaves are connected to need the sunlight to manufacture sugars for their food. Carotenoids produce the yellow, orange and brown colors . Then there's anthocyanins, which appear in the watery liquid of leaf cells.

The weather needs to go from hot to cool for the leaves to begin to change colors during the fall season. Cool to cold for the winter. Cold to warm for the spring. Warm to hot for the summer. The weather helps for the leaves to change colors at certain times of the year which shows why it appears to happen out of no where before your eyes.

The one that might be somewhat surprising to you is the length of night. The timing of color change and leaf fall are primarily regulated by the calendar, that is, the increasing length of night. Temperature, food and other aspects aren't as important for the leaves to change colors. Biochemical processes in the leaf begin to change the colors in the leaf when there's less sunlight and more darkness.

If you don't know, now you know.

Skunk vs. Rose

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Question - Why are we repelled by the scent of a skunk and attracted to the scent of a rose?

The famous Looney Tune character Pepé Le Pew always wanted to fall in love. Only if he was a Rose with legs, arms and a mouth. All he need is that scent instead of his distinct, grossing smell that would drive all of the others within his looney cartoon world.

Humans are drawn away from the smell of the skunk because they have two glands on each side of their anus. In which have a mixture of sulfur that contains the chemicals methyl and butyl thiols which can be compared to the smell of rotten eggs.

The skunks spray can reach out up to 15 ft. Basically if you smell the skunk already, don't got anywhere near it because you can have temporary blindness. Watch out for the low molecular weight thiol compounds. Involves the (E)-2-butene, 1-thiol, 3-methyl-1-butanethiol and 2-quinolinemethanethiol.

Our national flower is the rose for a reason. It's beautiful to us in so many ways. The color that represents love in the eyes of many. Specifically the scent. Especially compared to the skunk.

Within the petals of the rose is what drives the great smell. The oil of the rose is what people can smell. All different kinds of roses provide scent appealing to the human nose. Any kind of rose will work compared to a skunk. The rose wins due to it's oil it doesn't spray at you, but overwhelms you with it's beauty.