Scientists find woman who sees 99 million more colors than others

Newcastle University neuroscientist Dr. Gabriele Jordan, recently announced that she has identified a woman who is a "tetrachromat," that is, a woman with the ability to see much greater color depth than the ordinary person.

According to Daily Mail, an ordinary person can perceive a million different hues of colors. The power to distinguish the hues comes from cells in our eyes called cones. In the average person, there are three types of cones each of which is triggered by different wavelengths of light.

Discover Magazine explains that most people have three types of cones, and are said to be "trichromats." Color blind individuals have only two types of cones and they are said to be "dichromats." Almost all animals, including dogs and New World Monkeys are dichromats.

However, scientists have long believed that there are people with four cones who can see a wider range of colors than most of us can detect. These persons are called "tetrachromats," and can see a hundred million colors. rom the perspective of such people, the hues familiar to trichromats fracture further into more subtle shades of differences that have not been given names since most of us are trichromats who cannot see these shades and name them.

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