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Description of  Blue: In Search of Nature's Rarest Color

A globe-trotting quest to find blue in the natural worldand to understand our collective obsession with this captivating color Search human history and youll quickly conclude that weve been enamored of blue at least since the pharaohs. So, its startling to turn to the realms of nature and discover that true blue is truly rare. From the rain forests morpho butterfly to the blue jay flitting past your window, few living things are blueand most that appear so are performing sleight of hand with physics or chemistry. Cornflowers use the pigment found in red roses to achieve their blue hue. Even the blue sky above us is a trick of the light. Science journalist Kai Kupferschmidt has been fascinated by blue since childhood. In Blue, his quest to understand the science and nature of his favorite color takes him from a biotech laboratory in Japan and a volcanic lake in Oregon to Brandenburg, Germany home of the last surviving blue-feathered Spixs macaws. Whether its deep underground where blue crystals grow or miles overhead where astronauts gaze down at our blue marble planet, wherever we do find Earths rarest color, it always has a story to tell.