Scientists Discover A Woman Who Can See 99 Million More Colours Than The Rest Of Us

Most people can see a pretty wide range of colours - about a million hues, according to scientists.

We perceive all those gradations in colour using cells in our eyes called “cones”. Most people have three cones, making us “trichromats”. People with colour blindness have only two cones that function normally, so they’re called “dichromats”.

Now, a scientist in Newcastle, England has apparently discovered a woman who can see 99 million more colours than the average person. Her ability to perceive all those colours is extremely rare.

She’s a tetrachromat, with four cone cells in her eyes, and she’s able to see many colours that haven’t even been named, since trichromats can’t perceive them.

Click title to read more.

Bizarre eyeball transplant allows tadpoles to see out of their tails

Get ready for custom eyeball transplants for people who absolutely must have eyes in the backs of their heads — or pretty much anywhere on their bodies. Researchers at Tufts University just published a paper where they report transplanting working eyes onto the tail of a blind tadpole. Here’s how they did it.

Xenopus tadpoles arise from a genus of frogs native to Sub-Saharan Africa. Within this genus of aquatic frogs is Xenopus laevis,better known as the African clawed frog. To carry out the study, researchers at Tufts removed the eyes from several Xenopustadpoles used in testing. Then they transplanted a primordial eye harvested from an embryonic tadpole onto the tail of the newly-blind tadpoles. Positioning the eye on the tail was important, because it contains the nerve-heavy spine.

Using a set of blinded tadpoles with eyes attached to their tails, the researchers color-coded a tank to determine if the “tail eyes” would function.

Click title to read more.

Basketball-sized eyes help squids play defense

It’s no surprise that giant and colossal squid are big, but it’s their eyes that are the real standouts when it comes to size, with diameters measuring two or three times that of any other animal. Now, researchers reporting online on March 15 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, have used complex computations to explain those massive peepers. Giant squids’ 10-inch eyes allow them to see very large and hungry sperm whales from a distance in the pitch darkness of their deep-sea home. According to the researchers’ calculations, animals living underwater would have no use for such large eyes if the goal were to see an average object, such as prey smaller than themselves. That’s why even the eyes of large whales aren’t much more than 3.5 inches across. Credit: Nilsson et al.: “A unique advantage for giant eyes in giant squid.” Current Biology

“They’re most likely using their huge eyes to spot and escape their predators,sperm whales,” said Duke biologist Sönke Johnsen.

Johnsen collaborated with a group of biologists to model, both physically and biologically, how and why a squid uses such a big eye. The team found that the design and size of the eye give squids the ability to see approaching sperm whales as they disturb bioluminescent organisms. The study appears in the March 15 Current Biology.

Big squids come in two types — giant and colossal. They can grow to weights of five adult men put together, which is comparable to a large swordfish. But swordfish eyes are about the size of softballs, about 3 inches in diameter.

“It doesn’t make sense a giant squid and swordfish are similar in size but the squid’s eyes are proportionally much larger, three times the diameter and 27 times the volume,” Johnsen said. “The question is why. Why do giant squid need such large eyes?”

Click title to read more.