Carbon will bond with more carbon on any of its 4 sides. These were the start of cell walls, but first they simply conveyed resistance against erosion to its clay host. Things have color when light hits them because the light excites the electrons of the atoms on their surface. When these excited electrons jump back to their regular orbital they give off a color of light whose energy corresponds to the energy they received. Clear things have optically un-reactive electrons.
Green things absorb all but green light.
Some things that glow, such as phosphorus, produce a spectrum that includes each of the 3-freqences humans see. TVs have a filament so electrically charged it arks out like lightning. The electric field generated by the coils of copper wire in TVs pull this lightening back and forth and right and left across the screen. This is done by sending a consistently pulsing supply of energy to the coils. The coils do not receive data.