What If Only Females Could See Color?
Have you ever wondered how your life might be different if you could see beyond the visible light spectrum—into ultraviolet or infrared? For one thing, you might be immune, or less susceptible, to implicit racial bias. Inna Vishik, an applied physicist at U.C. Davis, says if you weren’t limited to the typical range of colors most humans see, “everyone would be the same color (except for people with a fever)”—yellowish. You’d also be able to know which places have great wifi and cell phone reception, she says, and whether you “*really* should wear sunscreen today.” No doubt if you had this special ability, it would benefit not just yourself, but your family and friends, too.
Something like this scenario has actually been discovered found, nearly one in four females has trichromatic color vision (like humans). Unlike most other members of their sex—and all the males—these females can tell red and green apart, perceiving color much as we humans do. And the perks of this genetic gift may extend to the entire lemur group, says Carrie Veilleux, a biological and molecular anthropologist at the University of Texas at Austin, and the study’s lead author.
