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I saw a post recently where a member commented on another member's signature....which stated about being "colorblind" and not being able to see wire colors. I had never noticed that signature before! 
But the term "colorblind" is very wrong altogether. The proper term is Color Deficient. So now a little explaination is required.
First the nuts/bolts: The eye has 2 types of light sensors...black and white called the RODS, and then the color receptors called CONES. These receptors are little photoelectric type cells that generate small pulses of electricity when light strikes them. But they are only sensitive to specific wavelengths of light.
There are special chemicals within the receptors that cause them to work, Rhodopsin for the Rods, and actually 3 different ones for the Cones..because there are 3 different colors that they are sensitive to, Red, Green, BLUE.
Surprise, you might have been expecting YELLOW for the third one, but with the EYES, we are talking LIGHT which is an additive process. When you look at something solid of a particular color...that object actually obsorbs all of the other colors of the spectrum except the color that it is, and so it reflects that color and that's why you see it. Objects use a subtractive process.
Remember your high school science....using a PRISM to split white light into the colors of the spectrum....aka a rainbow. Conversely, if you used other prisms to shine colored LIGHT onto the same location, they will add up to WHITE LIGHT. For some fun....look very closely at your Standard TUBE style TV if you still have one. The Phosphors...the colored dots/rectangles that the TV tube beam shines onto to create LIGHT are also those same three colors...Red/Green/Blue....yet you can see ALL of the colors of the spectrum on a TV screen including WHITE....because from far enough away, the light from those 3 phosphors will combine to become white or other colors before they get to your eye.
So...now back to the human eye.....if one of the chemicals for the color receptors is missing, not being able to be created due to a genetic fault, then that person can not see objects of that color properly. But because most colors are combinations of the 3 primary colors...they see it differently. Red and Green are complimentary colors...are on opposite sides of the color wheel. The genetic defect for not making the chemical for those two colors is the most common....and so that's why it's difficult for folks to be able to differentiate either one when they don't have the chemical for that specific color receptor.
And the Gene defect is a recessive one, but it's carried on the X chromosome of the X-Y pair. And since there isn't a corresponding gene on the Y chromosome, the recessive trait comes through. This is why color "deficiency" is more common in Males than Females.
I just wanted to provide an explaination to the masses in case they were never really told or had it properly explained to them what and how they were color deficient...not BLIND!
Hopefully in the future scientists will be able to do some genetic therapy using reprogrammed virus to change the body/eye so that it would be able to make the required missing chemical.
T.C.
But the term "colorblind" is very wrong altogether. The proper term is Color Deficient. So now a little explaination is required.
First the nuts/bolts: The eye has 2 types of light sensors...black and white called the RODS, and then the color receptors called CONES. These receptors are little photoelectric type cells that generate small pulses of electricity when light strikes them. But they are only sensitive to specific wavelengths of light.
There are special chemicals within the receptors that cause them to work, Rhodopsin for the Rods, and actually 3 different ones for the Cones..because there are 3 different colors that they are sensitive to, Red, Green, BLUE.
Surprise, you might have been expecting YELLOW for the third one, but with the EYES, we are talking LIGHT which is an additive process. When you look at something solid of a particular color...that object actually obsorbs all of the other colors of the spectrum except the color that it is, and so it reflects that color and that's why you see it. Objects use a subtractive process.
Remember your high school science....using a PRISM to split white light into the colors of the spectrum....aka a rainbow. Conversely, if you used other prisms to shine colored LIGHT onto the same location, they will add up to WHITE LIGHT. For some fun....look very closely at your Standard TUBE style TV if you still have one. The Phosphors...the colored dots/rectangles that the TV tube beam shines onto to create LIGHT are also those same three colors...Red/Green/Blue....yet you can see ALL of the colors of the spectrum on a TV screen including WHITE....because from far enough away, the light from those 3 phosphors will combine to become white or other colors before they get to your eye.
So...now back to the human eye.....if one of the chemicals for the color receptors is missing, not being able to be created due to a genetic fault, then that person can not see objects of that color properly. But because most colors are combinations of the 3 primary colors...they see it differently. Red and Green are complimentary colors...are on opposite sides of the color wheel. The genetic defect for not making the chemical for those two colors is the most common....and so that's why it's difficult for folks to be able to differentiate either one when they don't have the chemical for that specific color receptor.
And the Gene defect is a recessive one, but it's carried on the X chromosome of the X-Y pair. And since there isn't a corresponding gene on the Y chromosome, the recessive trait comes through. This is why color "deficiency" is more common in Males than Females.
I just wanted to provide an explaination to the masses in case they were never really told or had it properly explained to them what and how they were color deficient...not BLIND!
Hopefully in the future scientists will be able to do some genetic therapy using reprogrammed virus to change the body/eye so that it would be able to make the required missing chemical.
T.C.
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