Subject: Re: SCIENCE!
Author:
Posted on: 2010-02-20 03:12:00 UTC
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.
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.