Has the color “olo” been discovered by scientists?

Only with the aid of laser technology can humans see this “deeply saturated teal” color.

With the aid of technology, a group of scientists says they have found a new color that is invisible to the human eye.

The American researchers claimed that by utilizing a system named after the Wizard of Oz, they were able to “experience” the color, which they called “olo,” by directing laser pulses into their eyes.

Olo is invisible to the unaided eye, but according to the five witnesses, it resembles teal.

What did the study discover?

On April 18, professors from the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Washington School of Medicine presented their findings of a color that is outside the range of human eyesight in an article published in the journal Science Advances.

They clarified that the Oz approach they had developed may “trick” the human eye into perceiving Olo. The Wizard of Oz inspired the technique’s name.

In his 1900 book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Frank Baum describes a guy who misled the people of the made-up country of Oz into believing he is a wizard. For example, the Emerald City, the capital of Oz, is thought to be so vivid and bright that tourists must wear special eye protection glasses. One of the wizard’s tricks is the glasses, which give the impression that the city is larger and greener.

How do people view color?

Three different kinds of photoreceptors, or “cone cells,” in the retina are responsible for the human eye’s ability to see color. Shorter, bluer light wavelengths are detected by S cones, medium, green ones by M cones, and longer, redder ones by L cones.

Francis Windram, a research associate at Imperial College London’s department of life sciences, told Al Jazeera that the signals from these cones are then transmitted through a convoluted network of cells in the retina that work to integrate and clean up the signal before sending it through various parts of the brain via the optic nerve.

The visual cortex is the area of the brain that receives visual information.

How was the “new” color discovered by scientists?

Since the functions of the neighboring S and L cones and M cones overlap in normal vision, any light that activates M cones also activates the other two cones. The M cones don’t work by themselves.

In an article posted on its website, Ren Ng, a professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at UC Berkeley, clarified that no wavelength in the world is capable of stimulating just the M cone.

I started to wonder what would happen if all of the M cone cells were stimulated. Would it resemble the most verdant green you’ve ever encountered?

Thus, Ng partnered with Austin Roorda, a professor of optometry and visual science at UC Berkeley and one of the inventors of the Oz technology.

James Carl Fong, a doctoral student at UC Berkeley studying electrical engineering and computer sciences, started working with Oz in 2018. The studies that allowed the new color, olo, to be seen by human beings were conducted by Hannah Doyle, another doctorate student at Berkeley.

Is Olo a brand-new hue?

The olo shade has always been there; it simply lies outside the range of hues that the human eye can perceive. We are unable to see further shades of this type. Therefore, from a physical and scientific standpoint, olo is not a newly discovered color.

However, “from a sociolinguistic perspective, perhaps if people use this technology to assign new names to colors that were previously indistinguishable! How you express it determines everything,” Windram remarked.

To what extent has Olo been sighted?

Five people—four males and one woman—have reported seeing the “new” color. Everyone’s color vision was normal.

Three of the subjects—including Roorda and Ng—are co-authors of the research paper, while the other two are University of Washington lab members who participated in the study without knowing its goal.

How does Olo appear?

Olo is described by those who have seen it as a teal or green-blue color that they have never seen before.

It is defined as a “blue-green color of unparalleled saturation” in the UC Berkeley article.

It resembled a deeply saturated teal. Roorda remarked, “The most saturated natural color was just pale by comparison.”

Although I wasn’t the focus of this study, I have since seen Olo, and it’s amazing. Doyle remarked, “You know you’re looking at something very blue-green.”

According to the experts, the color that most closely resembles Olo is an image of a teal square. This square is not, however, olo-colored. The shade is simply invisible to the unaided eye.

“Olo won’t be appearing on any TV screens or smartphone screens anytime soon. According to an article in the UK’s Guardian newspaper, Ng stated, “And this is very, very far beyond VR headset technology.”

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