Debunking diffusion: The New York Times on July 20 reported on research by Rodolfo H. Torres, professor of mathematics, and former KU professor Richard O. Prum of Yale University. In the Journal of Experimental Biology, Torres and Prum overturned the century-old assumption that the flesh of a mandrill and the feathers of a blue jay appear blue by a scattershot scattering of light — as does the sky — and show instead that the fine structure of the skin and feather fibers precisely amplifies rather than diffuses the blue wavelengths of light.