Scientists Claim Discovery Of A New Color No One Has Ever Seen Before
"Olo," as it's called, can only be experienced by firing laser pulses into people's eyes.
A team of scientists from the University of Washington and the University of California, Berkeley, published a paper detailing a technique that uses lasers to stimulate individual retinal cells, pushing human perception beyond its natural boundaries.
The five individuals who witnessed the color olo described it as a blue-green hue that is both "jaw-dropping" and "incredibly saturated." This turquoise square is the closest visual representation they had of olo:
Humans perceive colors through three types of cone cells in the retina, each sensitive to different light wavelengths: long, medium, and short. Natural light stimulates these cones to varying degrees, allowing us to see different colors. Red light activates L cones, and blue light activates S cones, but M cones are uniquely positioned, and no natural light specifically stimulates them alone. This experiment, however, precisely targets and stimulates these M cones.
According to the research paper, the participants looked into a machine called Oz, which consists of mirrors, lasers, and optical devices. Although reactions to this study are mixed, with Prof. John Barbur, a vision scientist at City St George's, University of London, arguing that olo is not a new color, but rather a "more saturated green", the team believes that their findings could lead to advancements in color blindness research.
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