Washington and California scientists discover 'new colour' - and only five people have seen it

You may well have heard of the ‘true cyan’ optical illusion said to induce a colour people have “never seen before” (although the actual science debunks that claim), but now, Washington and California scientists say have found a whole new colour “beyond the natural human gamut” or range.

Described by study participants as a “blue-green of unprecedented saturation” when put up against a neutral grey background, the academics have given it the name “olo”. Subjects said they needed to add white light to the hue to desaturate it and match it to the “closest monochromatic light” within the typical human range – something the scientists say is “unequivocal proof” that ‘olo’ is “beyond the gamut”.

The discovery was made using a technique called Oz, whereby the eye’s colour perception is ‘directly controlled’ by “cell-by-cell light delivery”.

In simple terms, everyone has three colour cones – S, M, L, for short, medium and long wavelengths. These cones also, respectively, concern mostly blue, red and green.

The scientists note in their study, published in Science Advances on Friday, that when it comes to normal colour vision, “any light that stimulates an M cone cell must also stimulate its neighbouring L and/or S cones”, due to overlap.

However, when they attempted stimulating M cones only, they ended up displaying ‘olo’.

As it stands, only five people have witnessed this supposed new colour, and while no other colour matches it (obviously), a similar hue was shown during an interview with Professor Ren Ng, of the University of California, Berkeley, on BBC News:

“It was breathtaking,” he said.

BBC News also reports Professor Ng – who participated in the study - and the other researchers believe the findings “could potentially further research into colour blindness” and are now looking into what this could mean for people with the condition.

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