Go Blue

Jacob is studying plants this semester for science, and he performed an experiment the other day about transpiration and cohesion and all that kind of exciting stuff. His plan was to place white flowers into four glasses of water, each dyed a different color, in order to discover how nutrients are absorbed through roots & stems and up into petals & leaves. Jacob's science textbook claimed that the flower placed in the blue food dye would most likely soak up the water before the other colors, but no explanation was given for this prediction. (And the only thing that Adam could come up with is that perhaps blue dye has smaller molecules or something.) Anyway, the blue food coloring did indeed travel up the stem rather quickly - within an hour - and tinted the flower in its glass a lovely blueish shade. Two days later, we are still waiting for the other three flowers to show some hint of color on their white petals. What the heck is it about blue food coloring? And why didn't the other dyes soak up into the flowers at all? I am almost curious enough to do some research myself.

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