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Monday, March 16, 2015

Google Doodle Celebrates 216th Birthday of British Botanist Anna Atkins Monday March 16,2015

 Google doodle celebrates 216th birthday of British botanist Anna Atkins
Google today Monday March 16,2015 celebrates the 216th birthday of  British Botanist Anna Atkins with a beautiful blue doodle.

The botanist is widely known for her use of cyanotypes - or 'sunprints' - of plants and algae in botanical studies which paved the way for the use of photography in scientific publishing.

The doodle as seen in the picture is a version of her photographic images and it reflects her famous cyanotype process. The delicate leaves used to spell out the name of the search engine are slate blue against a darker blue background. This effect is due to the cyanotype process, which involves the exposure of a mix of ammonium iron citrate and potassium ferricyanide to ultraviolet light, leaving the paper so-called Prussian blue

Born in Tunbridge, Kent, England in 1799, she had a keen interest in botany. Later she discovered photography as a means to document botanical specimens for a scientific reference book, entitled ‘British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions’. This book subsequently became considered to be the first book to demonstrate light-senstive materials in a publication.

British Botanist Anna Atkins died on 9 June 1871 in Halstead, UK.

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