IUBio

"New" colours possible?

Richard Norman rsnorman at mediaone.net
Wed Oct 31 22:09:38 EST 2001


On Wed, 31 Oct 2001 16:21:08 -0000, "Tris" <null at 127.0.0.1> wrote:

>
>"Richard Norman" <rsnorman at mediaone.net> wrote in message
>news:8j00utcenk00t9pqginjdimfecsui3quer at 4ax.com...
>> On Wed, 31 Oct 2001 11:38:28 +0000, "C.J.L. Wolf"
>> <C.J.L.Wolf at ncl.ac.uk> wrote:
>>
><snip>
>> JD Mollon is certainly someone who does a lot of work in this area.
>> However a search of the US National Library of Medicine (PubMed at
>> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/) for "Mollon" gave 100 hits, none
>> of which seemed to be this work.  Searching "Jordan" gave 1184, far
>> too many to scan, but the combination Mollon and Jordan gave none.  I
>> also found nothing in the 19 hits on  "tetrachromatic".  Do you have a
>> citation?
>>
>> What does it mean "colours that no-one else could [see]".  Does
>> it mean she could separate test stimuli as looking different when
>> others thought they looked the same?
>
>Yes.
>"Drs Gabriele Jordan and John Mollon of the University of Cambridge have
>been trying for some years to confirm the existence of tetrachromats, with
>good theoretical reasons. Squirrel monkeys are generally dichromatic, but
>research carried out in 1986 showed that many females possess genes that
>make them trichromatic, giving them a wider range of colours than their
>companions."
>...
>"The experiment showed that the potential tetrachromats were much more
>finicky about declaring a match to be exact, and made different matches to
>others. "I want to be able to add more orange to the mixture, not red," said
>one subject. "It's the wrong kind of orange," said another, "it looks rather
>pink when I add more red." This suggests they can make real colour
>distinctions between shades that look identical to the rest of us. Dr
>Jordan, now at the University of Newcastle, is starting further tests to
>show conclusively whether she has discovered true tetrachromats. Getting the
>right equipment can be a challenge: how do you know the apparatus is
>producing the right signal if it all looks the same to you?"
>
>
>From http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4128183,00.html
>
>http://lists.tamil.com/lists/health/2000-11/msg00020.html
>
>The only references I can find, unfortunately.
>
>
Thanks, much.  I guess it hasn't been published in the research
literature yet.  But all the evidence seems to be there.  The genetics
and physiology all seem sound so it is just a matter of time (and
money) before the hard data gets published.




More information about the Neur-sci mailing list

Send comments to us at biosci-help [At] net.bio.net