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  • There are so many wonderful colors in the world - canary yellow, cadmium green, ultramarine.

  • ULTRAMARINE!

  • But how exactly do we get to see these amazing colors?

  • Well all color begins with light. So as the sun beams down overhead, it's actually casting

  • the entire spectrum of colors over you. When that light hits an object - like an apple

  • - the object absorbs some and reflects the rest. Whatever wavelengths of light are reflected

  • back are the colors you see.

  • So that ripe apple has a wavelength of about 650 nanometers, which is science talk for

  • the color red.

  • That amazing kaleidoscope of colors gets seen by your eye through three different types

  • of color receptors: red, green and blue (if you didn't know, that’s RGB. now you know).

  • Theses are found in cells called cones in the back of your your eye. They are responsible

  • for photopic or daytime vision and see the full spectrum of colors that can be made from

  • these three colors.

  • There are also rods in your retina that allow you to see, but they are responsible for scotopic

  • or night vision.

  • So humans have three color receptors that allow us to see the rainbow, but what if I

  • told you there are animals that have more than three?

  • Well the mighty mantis shrimp has an incredible twelve different photoreceptors in its eye.

  • That’s four times more than us! This tiny creature can see a vast array of colors that

  • are impossible for us to ever see. It’s probably like looking at a quadruple, super

  • mega rainbow all the time. Wowza****

  • Want to know more about what happens to our eyes? I think you’d love this explanation

  • why we get those sagging, tired bags under our eyes.

There are so many wonderful colors in the world - canary yellow, cadmium green, ultramarine.

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