Colors

Radiolab's podcast, "Colors," opened my eyes to seeing beyond the limited ROYGBIV rainbow. There is much more than the typical twelve colors on the wheel - some of which we cannot even see. That being said, the two topics that the podcast covered which I found to be the most interesting are the differences in the number of cones in eyes and the rare condition called Tetrachromacy. 

In the beginning of the podcast, one of the hosts said, "the colors we see are tricks of our imagination." Although everyone may see a different shade/version of red versus someone else, everyone's eyes have cones in their eyes. Cones are photoreceptor cells that make seeing color/having color vision possible. It is important to also note that cones are different from rods in the eye. Rods are used in peripheral vision and function in different levels of light, like the nighttime. The cool thing about cones is that depending on the number your eye has, determines the amount of shades and different colors you can see. The podcast gave four examples of different creatures and explained each one's vision and the number of cones they have. The podcast mentioned dogs, humans, sparrows, and butterflies. Dogs only have two color receptors and can also see variations of blue, green, and yellow. Humans have three color receptors and can obviously see the entire ROYGBIV rainbow and variations of each shade. As explained in the podcast, that one additional receptor makes a remarkable difference. The extra receptor is the "red" color receptor and just reflecting back on the color wheel we painted in class shows the large number of additional colors we can create with the addition of only one primary color. The podcast also talked about the sparrow and finally, the butterfly. Out of the four mammals mentioned, the butterfly has the best color vision. Butterflies have five color receptors. This means that they can see colors in between the tertiary colors and even ultra-violet colors. Who knew that the smallest animal out of that group would have the best vision! 

Radiolab also talked about the rare condition known as Tetrachromacy. As defined by Google, Tetrachromacy is the "condition of possessing four independent channels (cones) for conveying color information. Organisms with tetrachromacy are known as tetrachromats." Humans with tetrachromacy can see an additional dimension of color with their fourth cone. This means that they will be able to distinguish between two virtually identical shades of yellow. Although about 12% of women in the world are tetrachromats, they must discover their ability and actually use it in order to see the additional colors. The podcast interviewed Susan Hogan, a tetrachromat, and asked her what colors she sees in the sky. Although the majority of people would say the sky is blue, she saw hues of red and greens around the clouds. After learning about this condition, I thought about how it would be to have the extra cone. Of course seeing millions of new colors would be amazing, I would definitely be frustrated not seeing what the majority of other people see. So of course I had to search some online tests to see if I have the 4th cone. According to the test (posted below), I am a tetrachromat but who knows if that is reliable...