We’ve all heard about colorblindness, but have you ever heard of tetrachromacy before?
In the United Kingdom, scientists have finally identified a woman with super vision. Her condition, called tetrachromacy, gives her four types of cone cells in her eyes. Humans normally only have three types of cone cells; the combination allows a human with normal color vision to view around 1 million different colors. On the other hand, individuals who are colorblind and only have two functional types of cone cells can only see approximately 10,000 shades. The presence of a fourth type of cone cell in tetrachromats allows an individual to see 99 million other colors which are not readily visible to trichromat humans.
This discovery comes decades after Dutch scientist HL de Vries first hypothesized tetrachromacy. To push the concept of super vision further, Newcastle University neuroscientist Gabriele Jordan decided to conduct a test, which singled out the woman only identified as cDa29 as having special vision.
The results of their study have yet to be reviewed and published; nevertheless, this exciting finding can help us understand more how our vision works.
For more information on tetrachromacy and cDa29, watch the video below:
Source: Science Alert, DNews
