Subject: Ah, the power of light.
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Posted on: 2010-02-17 01:10:00 UTC
Light seems to throw scientists for a loop fairly often. It's fun that something that's constantly around us can still be so mysterious and difficult to study.
(WARNING: ACTUAL SCIENCE!)
I was reading through my latest edition of Science News lately, and I found out something quite interesting. You see, the brain receives color in two channels: R/G and B/Y. All colors seen are made by the brain mixing blue or yellow with red or green. However, no color can ever appear bluish AND yellowish, or reddish AND greenish, because the different responses of the color channels are in opposition. (It's like trying to flex your bicep and tricep at the same time: the opposing impulses cancel eachother out.)
However, recent research has shown that under special conditions, the opposing-color theory is incorrect. When two opposing colors of equal luminance are placed side-by-side, and the image is stable on the viewer's retinas, the border between blue and yellow will blur, and you'll perceive a solid field of Blello (or Reen, if you're using reddish green).
Sadly, Urple cannot be produced with this method (as pink and purple are not opposing colors) but it's kind of neat, don't you think?
Science is awesome. I've always been kind of intrigued by the idea of metamers -- that's the red, green, and blue channels that we use to perceive color, and all color is a combination of use of those three. Well, apparently there are people who have an extra metamer, and can perceive an extra dimension of color. These people are mostly women, who can perceive color changes in a person's face that most of us can't --changes that are indicitive of health alternations when you're getting sick. Pretty cool, huh?
If I remember class right, all women have four metamers - the usual red, green, and blue, plus a fourth that's a red-orange. Usually, it's so close to red that there's no visual difference, but in some cases, it's distinct enough that it gives them crazy amounts of color sensitivity.
Light seems to throw scientists for a loop fairly often. It's fun that something that's constantly around us can still be so mysterious and difficult to study.
I was reading a Scientific American today, and it said something about impossible colors on the cover, but I was more interested in why humans don't have fur.
We don't have fur mainly because we were filthy and never took care of it, so it was an evolutionary plus not to have fur to prevent parasites and nastiness.
i would take very good care of it and i would brush it all nice and occasionaly dye it purple.
with early humans though. apparently we were too busy hunting, eating, and breeding to take care of our fur.
Yeah, it was a Scientific American. Specifically, that particular SA.