Some plants and fruits, like Pollia condensata, produce vivid colors that never fade. They are created not through pigments but through microscopic structures that manipulate light – this is called structural coloration.
I am director of the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam, Germany, and a professor of chemistry and biomaterials at the University of Cambridge. I am a 2019 Philip Leverhulme Prize winner.