Substances are selectively absorbing; that is, they absorb radiation of specific wavelengths. Green glass is transparent to green light but opaque to blue and red, and hard rubber is transparent to infrared and X-rays but opaque to visible light. Thus, radiation of an unwanted wavelength may be removed from a mixture of waves by letting them pass through an appropriate medium. Those substances that are designed to absorb a particular wavelength or band of wavelengths are called filters.

5 things thatabsorb light

CFP, or Cyan Fluorescent Protein, is a synthetic derivative of the green fluorescent protein (GFP), which was originally discovered in the jellyfish Aequorea victoria. GFP and its derivatives, including CFP, have become invaluable tools in molecular biology, cell biology, and biochemistry for imaging and tracking protein dynamics in live cells.

What does it mean toabsorb light

Since its development, CFP has been widely used in conjunction with other fluorescent proteins, such as YFP (Yellow Fluorescent Protein) and RFP (Red Fluorescent Protein), in various applications. These include FRET (Förster Resonance Energy Transfer) experiments, where CFP can act as a donor molecule, and multicolor labeling of cells and tissues to study protein interactions and dynamics within live cells.

absorption, in wave motion, the transfer of the energy of a wave to matter as the wave passes through it. The energy of an acoustic, electromagnetic, or other wave is proportional to the square of its amplitude—i.e., the maximum displacement or movement of a point on the wave—and, as the wave passes through a substance, its amplitude steadily decreases. If there is only a small fractional absorption of energy, the medium is said to be transparent to that particular radiation, but if all the energy is lost, the medium is said to be opaque. All known transparent substances show absorption to some extent. For instance, the ocean appears to be transparent to sunlight near the surface, but it becomes opaque with depth.

Absorb lightwavelength

As radiation passes through matter, it is absorbed to an extent depending on the nature of the substance and its thickness. A homogeneous substance of a given thickness may be thought of as consisting of a number of equally thin layers. Each layer will absorb the same fraction of the energy that reaches it. The diagram shows a beam of waves passing from right to left through a series of layers (d1, d2, and d3) of a medium. If the fractional absorption is taken as 33 percent, or 1/3, after the beam passes through the first layer d1, its initial energy (E0) will be reduced to E0/3. One-third the energy E0/3 will be absorbed passing through layer d2, and the beam will enter layer d3 with energy 1/3 (E0/3), or (E0/9). Similarly, each successive layer absorbs one-third of the energy it receives. Thus, for radiation of a given wavelength, an infinitesimally thin layer will reduce the energy of a wave by a fractional amount that is proportional to the thickness of the layer. The change in energy as the wave passes through a layer is a constant of the material for a given wavelength and is called its absorption coefficient.

CFP and its derivatives have revolutionized the field of live-cell imaging, allowing scientists to visualize and study the behavior of proteins, nucleic acids, and other cellular components in real-time, providing insights into cellular processes and mechanisms.

CFP was developed through the mutation of GFP to shift its emission spectrum. By altering specific amino acids in GFP, researchers were able to create a variant that fluoresced cyan instead of green. This mutation involved changing the tyrosine residue at position 66 to tryptophan (Y66W), among other modifications, which shifted the peak emission from 509 nm (green) to approximately 477 nm (cyan).

The discovery of GFP can be traced back to the early 1960s when Osamu Shimomura isolated it from the jellyfish Aequorea victoria. Shimomura's work initially focused on aequorin, a bioluminescent protein, but during his research, he also discovered GFP, which fluoresced bright green under ultraviolet light.