A team of scientists from the University of California, the US claim they have discovered a ‘new colour’ that no one has ever seen before!
The discover came to light during an experiment in which researchers fired laser pulses into the eyes of volunteers.
Through the stimulation of specific cells in the retina, the participants claimed to have witnessed a new blue-green colour, which they named “olo.”
Some experts, however, said that the existence of a new colour is a “matter of interpretation,” and is “open to argument.”
The findings of the experiment have been published in the journal Science Advances.
Professor Ren Ng, the study’s co-author, described the novel discovery as “remarkable,” and believes the findings could potentially further research into colour blindness.
He was amongst the team of five scientists that took part in the experiment.
Professor Ng spoke to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, stating that olo was "more saturated than any colour that you can see in the real world".
As an example, he said: "Let's say you go around your whole life and you see only pink, baby pink, a pastel pink. 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."
The experiment consisted of shining a laser beam into the pupil of one eye of each participant. They looked into a device called OZ, which consisted of mirrors, lasers, and optical components.
The participants involved four males and one female, all of whom had normal colour vision.
Professor Ng and two of the other participants are the co-authors of the research paper.
According to the research paper, in normal vision, "any light that stimulates an M cone cell must also stimulate its neighbouring L and/or S cones", because its function overlaps with them.
But in this study, the laser only stimulated M cones, "which in principle would send a colour signal to the brain that never occurs in natural vision". Meaning that the colour olo cannot be seen by a person's naked eye in the real world, and is only perceivable with the help of specific stimulation.
In order to validate the colour observed during the experiment, each participant adjusted a controllable colour dial until it matched olo.
Professor Ng acknowledged that although olo is "certainly very technically difficult" to see, the team is studying the findings to examine what they could potentially mean for colour-blind people, who find it difficult to distinguish between certain colours.
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