this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2025
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Science

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Initially when I read the title, I was expecting the experiment to be some sort of "forced tetrachromacy". It seems different though, more like forcing an RGB value we wouldn't see in nature.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Not so much wouldn't as can't. I wasn't able to find the source paper, but it sounds like they used a very narrow wavelength so that they only stimulated certain cells. Outside the lab, light emissions and reflections aren't so narrow.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago

It's not just the narrow wavelength. Even with a perfectly monochromatic green light, your green receptors would activate a lot but your receptors for red and blue would still activate a bit. These researchers specifically target only the green receptors to activate (by literally shooting light at those receptors in particular), so for the first time ever your brain reads a pure green signal.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Fair point on "can't".

On the source paper, I found it - it was initially published in science.org.