What type of pasta would be more appropriate for the analogy? Clearly, spaghetti is probably the worst... I suggest macherroni (i.e. the mac and cheese noodle) or, perhaps, cavatappi.
I think it is a good example because it is fundamentally different than a sponge. Spaghetti have air pockets moving in just one dimension, in a linear fashion, and of the same size; whereas a sponge has multisize 3d air pockets.
>scientists theorized that birds look blue for the same reason the sky looks blue: Red and yellow wavelengths pass through the atmosphere, but shorter blue wavelengths bounce off of particles and scatter, emitting a blue glow in every direction.
As XKCD has pointed out, there's a complicated physics reason behind every substance's color and the atmosphere isn't special or unusual in that regard. The sky is blue because air is blue.
Right, as I was reading this I was thinking "Isn't that just describing the way light and color normally works?" We haven't really answered the question "why is the sky blue," more like, "how does the sky get its blue color?"
In what way is a sponge like a box of spaghetti?