It's getting darker and darker.

The sky grew darker and darker.

The clouds are getting darker.

And as you go deeper, that lovely, blue water you were launched in gives way to darker and darker blue.

This color is a bit darker than that one.

I started exploring the darker abscesses of the human mind.

It's thicker, it's darker, it's coarser, it doesn't have the contours.

Some of those adventures are a little bit dark or on the darker side.

Shrinking ice sheets make the planet darker, so it absorbs more sunlight and becomes warmer.

So here is a picture of the high seas as seen from above that area in the darker blue.

They discovered countershading, a common method of defence in the animal kingdom, which means the top of the creature was darker than its underside.

Also, site measurements by SPIREX confirmed that the sky at South Pole is darker by a factor of at least three than any other site previously surveyed.

As Michael Klag and his colleagues showed a decade ago, in general, the darker one's skin color, the higher the rate of hypertension for American blacks, even within the African American community. The differences were not biological or genetic in origin , but biological in effect due to stress related outcomes of darker skin color reduced access to valued social goods such as employment, promotion, housing, etc.

Gul s wife s headscarf was interpreted as the symbol of darker changes to come. If the First Lady wears a headscarf, maintained the secular minded elite, the whole secular system could be undermined.

Their emergence and increasing sophistication points to something darker and deeper within our culture, a retreat from the ideal of gender equality toward a desire for sex with subjugation as an optional add on.

ATHENS On Valentine s Day, countless couples will celebrate romance by candlelight. On the same day, one billion women and men worldwide will stand up to shine a light on the darker side of gender relations.

Take GeoMapping. In this map from Kenya, the red dots show where all the schools financed by donors are located, and the darker the shade of green, the more the number of out of school children.

CAMBRIDGE Many countries have substantial diasporas, but not many are proud of it. After all, people tend not to leave a country when it is doing well, so the diaspora is often a reminder of a country s darker moments.

But, as Bangalore s citizens prepare to go to the polls in state elections, their concerns are not merely economic. The city s financial success stories mask a darker reality quality of life for many city dwellers has deteriorated over recent years.

As the sky gets darker, and the outside air temperatures drop below minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit, the most environmentally hostile segment of Helios's journey has gone by without notice, except for being recorded by specially designed data acquisition systems and their associated sensors.

With little knowledge of China s tectonic changes, foreigners have been investing, buying, trading, and extravagantly praising its amazing, but hell bent, economic boom. Fear of China bashing has made it difficult for so called friends of China to discuss its darker side openly.

He records a song called Blind Willie McTell, named after the blues singer, and the song is a voyage through the past, through a much darker time, but a simpler one, a time when musicians like Willie McTell had few illusions about what they did.

Among the few certainties in crafting economic policy is the need to adapt to external change. Our challenge is like that of Industrial Revolution era moths, which adapted to their new soot laden environment by becoming darker (and thus better able to hide from predators).

This is one reason why London has experienced the other, darker side of the multicultural society the veneer of multiculturalism is thin. It does not take much to turn people of one group against those of others with whom they had apparently lived in peace.

The former path leads to membership in the European Union the latter would take Ukraine to a darker and more dangerous destination. Millions of Ukraine s citizens favor EU membership, but their enthusiasm is tempered by the absence of a clear EU policy towards Ukraine.

But perhaps its most remarkable impact would be cultural. Though she would not be the first woman president (Rousseff broke the gender barrier) or the first from humble origins (Lula broke that taboo), she would be the first mulatto darker skinned than traditional Brazilian political leaders to hold the office.

Regardless of whether it charts a course toward a brighter or darker future, a country s political leadership by definition plays the central role at the helm. Leaders of both China and Japan need to accept their position in this process and, above all, not simply ride on the froth of current events.

Governments may need incentives to act, but they also need to be able to show their citizens that reform pays. If, after a few quarters of fiscal adjustment and painful reform, output is lower, unemployment higher, and the outlook darker, governments may soon lose public support and reform may stall, as we have seen in Greece.

When it was finally proved that power had turned Chen into a common criminal, the KMT was voted back into power. But, while Chen s legacy of lies and corruption has ended, the reborn KMT under President Ma Ying jeou has much to do to convince a cynical public that Chen s ways, reminiscent of KMT s own darker past, have not become embedded in the system.