A team of scientists claim to have discovered a new colour that no human has ever seen before.
The research follows an experiment in which researchers in the US had laser pulses fired into their eyes.
By stimulating specific cells in the retina, the participants claim to have witnessed a blue-green colour that scientists have called ‘olo’, but some experts have said the existence of a new colour is ‘open to argument’.
The findings, published in the journal Science Advances on Friday, have been described by the study’s co-author, Prof Ren Ng from the University of California, as ‘remarkable’.
He and his colleagues believe that the results could potentially further research into colour blindness.
Prof Ng, who was one of five people to take part in the experiment, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme yesterday that olo was ‘more saturated than any colour that you can see in the real world’.
“Let’s say you go around your whole life and you see only pink, baby pink, a pastel pink,” he said.
“And then one day you go to the office and someone’s wearing a shirt, and it’s the most intense baby pink you’ve ever seen, and they say it’s a new colour and we call it red.”
During the team’s experiment, researchers shined a laser beam into the pupil of one eye of each participant.
There were five participants in the study – four male and one female – who all had normal colour vision. Three of the participants – including Prof Ng – were co-authors of the research paper.
According to the research paper, the participants looked into a device called Oz which consists of mirrors, lasers and optical devices. The equipment was designed previously by some of the involved researchers – a team of scientists from UC Berkeley and the University of Washington, and updated for use in this study.
Some experts, however, say the new perceived colour is a ‘matter of interpretation’.
Prof John Barbur, a vision scientist at City St George’s, University of London, who was not involved in the study, said that while the research is a ‘technological feat’ in stimulating selective cone cells, the discovery of a new colour is ‘open to argument’.
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