Pssst! You! Yeah, you... are a passenger on a planet... on a blue-green planet that's orbiting a golden star. And right now we're traveling through a place in our yearly orbit where life is on the move because light is on the rise. Here in the northern hemisphere, the sun is above us for more time each day than it's underneath us. Yes, after the spring equinox and until the fall equinox, we have more daylight than darkness. And this light is fuel for life. So, creatures are shaking off their winter sluggishness, finding mates, building nests - and some creatures are migrating. Monarch butterflies, as you may know, migrate as much as thousands of miles from their winter homes in Mexico to their summer homes farther north. What you may not know is that monarch butterflies have technological skills that are bringing our scientists to their knees.

If you've ever looked up close at the wings of these creatures, you've noticed that they interact with sunlight in beautiful and intriguing ways. They also interact with sunlight in ways that are more high-tech than anything ever invented by humans. These wings contain tiny scales that function as solar panels. Scientists researching butterfly solar panels discovered that they harvest sunlight more efficiently than solar panels made by humans. As a result, researchers are working to use what they've learned from monarch butterflies to develop solar panels that are simpler, lighter and faster to assemble.

Now, I don't know how you feel about this development, but it's making me wonder... Could we reduce our dependence on gasoline by developing airplane wings inspired by monarch butterflies?

Meanwhile, African swallowtail butterflies are boggling scientists' minds because they have been doing for 30 million years what scientists recently thought they invented. These butterflies signal to each other using light-emitting diodes in their wings. As you may know, light-emitting diodes (called LEDs) are in computer screens, traffic lights, car brake lights and a variety of gadgets that flash color without using a conventional light bulb. One scientist involved in this research has said, "butterflies are smarter than MIT students."

If you've ever wondered how butterfly wings take sunlight and make it iridescent, you're in good company. British scientists are researching the iridescence in butterfly wings in order to develop new electromagnetic materials for improved wi-fi efficiency, radio-frequency identification, security and anti-counterfeit technology.

I have a hunch that if some of our kids follow the lead of scientists who are humble enough to take lessons from butterflies, we might learn how to live pollution-free by the light of the star that we're orbiting.

This is Harriet Witt, your guide for this little ride on our passenger planet.


If you have any questions, drop Harriet an email: harriet@passengerplanet.com


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