Tetrachromatic.

The word is just a fancy way of saying that some women seem to have four colour receptors in their eyes rather than the usual three. Actually some people also have a different set of three and this was known for some time before the discovery that quite a few women see extra colours than the rest of the population. Of course some men are missing a receptor and have only two and as a result are called colour blind. Compared to tetrachromats we are all colour blind.

Up to 50 per cent of women are tetrachromatic and can use their extra pigments in “contextually rich viewing circumstances”. For example, when looking at a rainbow, tetrachromat females can segment it into, on average, 10 different colours, whereas their trichromat brothers and sisters can see only seven, much as Isaac Newton’s red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Consequently, for those special tetrachromat women, this island that they inhabit may be seen in emerald, jade, verdant, olive, lime, bottle and 34 other shades of green. Apparently, men and women do see the world differently.

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The English language makes a distinction between blue and green but some languages do not. Many do not have separate terms for blue and green, instead using a cover term for both.

For example, the Korean word pureuda can mean either green or blue. In Vietnamese both tree leaves and the sky are xanh (to distinguish, one may use xanh lá cây “leaf grue” for green and xanh dương “ocean grue” for blue). In the Thai language, kiaw means green except when referring to the sky or the sea, when it means blue. In Japanese, the word for blue (ao) is often used for colors that English speakers would refer to as green, such as the color of a traffic signal meaning “go”. Some Nguni languages of southern Africa, including Tswana utilize the same word for blue and green. In traditional Welsh (and related Celtic languages), glas could refer to blue but also to certain shades of green and grey.

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poster { Hektor Meets Dexter Sinister }

Researchers have located long-forgotten varieties of corn with surprisingly high levels of vitamin A.

In parts of Africa and Latin America, where people rely heavily on corn for food, these new varieties of corn could keep millions of children from going blind. According to the World Health Organization, 200,000 to 500,000 children go blind each year because they aren’t getting enough vitamin A.

But they’re going to have to get used to corn of a different color — and that may not be easy. The problem: People in Latin American and Africa currently prefer white corn. The new varieties are yellow or orange.

Corn started out white when the very first varieties appeared in present-day Mexico thousands of years ago.

Then along came a genetic mutation. Corn kernels acquired chemicals called carotenoids, and became yellow.

One of these carotenoids is beta carotene, which gives us vitamin A. So, yellow corn is a little bit more nutritious than white corn.

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artwork { Barnett Newman, Yellow Painting, 1949 | oil on canvas }

A scientist at Rice University has created the darkest material known to man, a carpet of carbon nanotubes that reflects only 0.045 percent of all light shined upon it. That’s four times darker than the previously darkest known substance, and more than 100 times darker than the paint on a black Corvette.

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photo { black monolith, 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968 }

{ 1 | 2 via ffffound }

For years, scientists have studied how leaves prepare for the annual show of fall color. The molecules behind bright yellows and oranges are well understood, but brilliant reds remain a bit of a mystery.

In response to chilly temperatures and fewer daylight hours, leaves stop producing their green-tinted chlorophyll, which allows them to capture sunlight and make energy. Because chlorophyll is sensitive to the cold, certain weather conditions like early frosts will turn off production more quickly.

Meanwhile, orange and yellow pigments called carotenoids—also found in orange carrots—shine through the leaves’ washed out green.

“The yellow color has been there all summer, but you don’t see it until the green fades away,” said Paul Schaberg, U.S. Forest Service plant physiologist. “In trees likes aspens and beech, that’s the dominant color change.”

Scientists know less about the radiant red hues that pepper northern maple and ash forests in the fall.

The red color comes from anthocyanins, which unlike carotenoids, are only produced in the fall. They also give color to strawberries, red apples, and plums.

On a tree, these red pigments beneficially act as sunscreen, by blocking out harmful radiation and shading the leaf from excess light. They also serve as antifreeze, protecting cells from easily freezing. And they are beneficial as antioxidants.

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photo { Tim Knowles | 50 pens suspened from the branches of a Weeping Willow tree create a drawing }

Most mammals don’t see colors at all – they live in a black-and-white world. Marsupials and primates are among the few mammals who can see colors. Scientists know this because there are distinct cells in the retina responsible for color vision and for black-and-white vision. Color vision is done with the help of “cone” cells, while black-and-white (and grey) vision is done with the help of “rod” cells. Most mammals have only rods. Scientists have recently found that marsupials also have three types of cones. { Softpedia | full story }

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is getting a facelift and among the most pressing dilemmas is what color to paint the building’s exterior.

There’s buff yellow, the original color of the exterior selected by Frank Lloyd Wright, the museum’s architect.

There’s also a shade of off-white that, with slights variations, has been the museum’s public face over the years.

Warm yellowish beige, cool grayish white? Powell buff or London Fog?

Some preservation groups, pointing out that Wright abhorred white, favor restoring the building to its original color while some neighborhood associations prefer the museum’s proposal to keep it a shade of off-white.

The associations argue that the building was buff yellow only for its first five years and that there have been four additions to Wright’s circular structure, which opened in October 1959 months after the architect’s death.

The city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission, which has approved all changes to the museum’s exterior since it was designated a landmark in 1990, could settle the dilemma as early as this week.

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Maybe Joe Joe Science a Yellowman

{ HP Color Laserjet | Publicis, Bucharest, Romania }

A Grade 9 student arrived for the first day of school last Wednesday wearing a pink shirt and was set upon by a group of six to 10 older students who mocked him, called him a homosexual for wearing pink and threatened to beat him up.

The next day, Grade 12 students David Shepherd and Travis Price decided something had to be done about bullying. “It’s my last year. I’ve stood around too long and I wanted to do something,” said David.

They used the Internet to encourage people to wear pink and bought 75 pink tank tops for male students to wear. They handed out the shirts in the lobby before class last Friday — even the bullied student had one. “I made sure there was a shirt for him,” David said.

They also brought a pink basketball to school as well as pink material for headbands and arm bands. David and Travis figure about half the school’s 830 students wore pink.

It was hard to miss the mass of students in pink milling about in the lobby, especially for the group that had harassed the new Grade 9 student.

“The bullies got angry,” said Travis. “One guy was throwing chairs (in the cafeteria). We’re glad we got the response we wanted.” David said one of the bullies angrily asked him whether he knew pink on a male was a symbol of homosexuality.

He told the bully that didn’t matter to him and shouldn’t to anyone.

{ Chronicle Herald | Continue reading }

{ Color palette genrator | Big Huge Lab }