The green or gold leaf hostas including the variegated forms of these colored leaf perennials are a slugs idea of smorgasbord delights. The waxy coated leaves of this blue hosta are plants that slugs donât like to eat.
Skin pigmentation. Melanin, whose primary function is in pigmentation, has many more important functions to perform in the human body. Protection from UV radiation. Melanin functions as a sunscreen and as a broad spectrum sun radiation absorbent. The absorbed energy causes redox reactions, and both eumelanin and pheomelanin form free radical species. Eumelanin, being more photostable scavenges the originated oxidative species and neutralizes them.
The structure of melanin provides absorption of potentially harmful radiation in the ultraviolet and visible light spectrum. The primary structure of eumelanin, for example, is a mixture of 5,6-dihydroxyindole, a related molecule called 5,6-dihydroxyindole-2-carboxylic acid and the oxidized forms of each.