Zubbles

Zubbles are the "world's first colored bubbles." According to this article from Popular Science, it took inventor Tim Kehoe eleven years to figure out how to make bubbles that were: a) colored, and b) wouldn't stain everything around them when they burst.

"The secret to nonstaining colored bubbles," explains author Mike Haney, "is a dye that could unlock a revolution in color chemistry. All you need to do is make color disappear... It turns out that coloring a bubble is an exceptionally difficult bit of chemistry. A bubble wall is mostly water held in place by two layers of surfactant molecules, spaced just millionths of an inch apart. If you add, say, food coloring to the bubble solution, the heavy dye molecules float freely in the water, bonding to neither the water nor the surfactants, and cascade almost immediately down the sides. You'll have a clear bubble with a dot of color at the bottom. What you need is a dye that attaches to the surfactant molecules and disperses evenly in that water layer. Pack in more dye molecules, get a deeper, richer hue."

Soon, (probably by Spring of this new year), you will actually be able to buy your own Zubbles. In the meantime, you can meditate a bit longer on the multi-hued marvels awaiting the playful mind.