Skimmed over an article today while at the doctor's office.
Something about a strange type of optical receptor mutation found only in women that gives them a fourth color to see.
As you know, normal humans have red/green/blue color receptors in their eyes. Color blind peeps (like me) usually have one or all 3 of them malfunctioning at different levels (aka you might not see red at all or like me, you can see all 3 colors but not all their different tones.. there are about 42 tones for every color and I can only see 5 of each).
But these women have red/green/blue working in perfect order but there is a FOURTH color receptor which scientists still cannot figure out what it is.
Tests they did showed these women had an incredible accuracy in telling all types of colors apart, even in a huge color pallete it took them a split second to 'spot' a color tone they had been shown before..where a normal person would have to browse through the color pallete and produce a 'range' of possible matches.
One test they did was showing the women in the dark and turning on a UV light. Normal people would not see any changes but the women with that 4th color receptor noticed a significant improvement in shape discrimination in dark conditions.. not that it made objects 'glow' but it made them stand out at a glance to them.
Interesting stuff.
And no, there will never be a naturally occurring male tetrachromat.. this happens only when the color gene in both X genes are active.
NOW.. we finally know why women make such a fuss about color matching.
