This woman can see 100 times more colors than you can
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If you're a tetrachromat—which, odds are, you aren't—you can see more colors than the rest of us, thanks to an extra structure in your eyes. The structure, known as a cone, detects certain light wavelengths.
With three cones, most of us can see about a million colors, while tetrachromats, who have four, can see 100 million, Popular Science reports. One such person is an artist named Concetta Antico, who explains her experience gazing at a leaf: "Around the edge I’ll see orange or red or purple in the shadow; you might see dark green but I’ll see violet, turquoise, blue ... It's like a mosaic of color." Only about 1% of humans are tetrachromats, and it would appear that the condition is limited to women—though, the Huffington Post reports, researchers aren't certain about that.
Women have two X chromosomes, and theories have suggested that the condition depends on mutations in both. Researchers have been studying Antico to learn more about tetrachromatism.
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Meanwhile, the rest of us can perhaps benefit from looking at her artwork: As the Huffington Post notes, her "canvases seem to burst with extra, vivid color as only she can depict." For others, the BBC reports, the condition may be a nuisance at times: One woman describes seeing major clashing in clothes others believe match.
(Someone else whose vision might make you jealous: your cat.)
This article originally appeared on Newser: Meet the Woman Who Can See 100 Times the Colors You Can
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