Reflectance Detectors (aka Eyeballs)

Color blindness may be more troublesome now than ever due to our reliance on computers and graphic images for conveying information. But, according to this article in the Boston Globe, Tenebraex Corp. has come up with a relatively simple solution. The company designed a computer program that allows users to interact with the colored areas in an image in a variety of ways. Here's a flash animation of the program.

On the other side of the spectrum, researchers may have located women that are able to perceive more than the normal range of colors. Normally humans are able to see well in three areas of the light spectrum (blue, green and red) using three types of cones (light-detecting structures in the eye).

Color detection genes reside on the X chromosome which is why color blindness is much more common in men. Men have only one X and therefore only one copy of each gene. Check out this great post over at damninteresting.com.

I've always wanted to be on the same wavelength as the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees- all of them can communicate using ultraviolet signals. Birds have feathers that reflect in the ultraviolet range and receptors to receive those messages. Flowers also display UV-reflectance to lure insects (including bees) for pollination.