[Image: Midjourney / Flickr]
Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have discovered a brand new colour they dubbed “olo”.
Described as a deep, rich blue-greenish hue, the world will, however, have to wait a while before olo becomes the new hottest colour on the runways. Unfortunately, the colour can’t be seen with the naked human eye, and only becomes visible when your eyes are shot with a laser.
“It’s a variation of a blue-green, teal or peacock green colour, all of those could be considered as accurate descriptions,” Ren Ng, an electrical engineer and computer science professor at Berkeley, told USA Today. “But I think it’s deeper than that because of the saturation level.”
“It’s the most intense teal you can see in the world. It’s that striking.”
So, how do you get to see this new “intense teal”? According to the Berkeley nerds, there are three types of cone cells in the eye – S, L, and M – each sensitive to different wavelengths of the colours blue, red and green. With 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.
However, firing a laser at only the M cones sends a colour signal to the brain that never happens in regular vision, and this “specific stimulation” pushes your eyesight beyond its usual limitations, causing you to ‘see’ olo.
Participants were asked to try to match the colour they were seeing to an existing hue, with a shade of teal coming closest.
The researchers said they hope the technology could create new ways to help those who suffer from colour-blindness and allow scientists to better interpret how a person’s brain perceives colour through the distinctions between the cone cells in our eyes.
The study was published in the journal Science Advances on April 18.
[Source: USA Today]
