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*Colors* are such an important part of our vision. 
Most of us probably couldn't imagine a life without the ability to see color - yet, some of us experience it daily.
### So what exactly *is* colorblindness, how does it work, what causes it, who does it affect and what is it like ?! 

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## How do we see color?
The **retina** of our eyes is equipped with thousands of light-detecting photoreceptor cells - they are called ***cones and rods.***
***Rods*** are the receptors for our vision in low light / at night time, and enable us to distinguish between grey and black shades. 
And ***Cones*** are the **color receptors** of our eyes, which allow us to see different colors and details of colors shades in bright light. 
And there are 3 different kinds of cones - **red, blue and green.** 
Each of them is sensitive to different wavelengths of light.
So for most people, all of these 3 kinds of cones are working normally, and then we can see about *1 Million* different colors! 
The brain then receives a combine signal from these three kinds of cones and enables us to see color. 

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<center>![img](http://i.picresize.com/images/2016/12/17/regKj.jpg)</center>

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## What is colorblindness?
But some people are *colorblind* which means their cones are not functioning correctly. 
About 2% of the population (mostly men) are ***dichromats***, which means that, only 2 kinds of their cones are working, and they don't see a visual difference between yellow, orange, red and green.  They can still see about ten thousand colors.
Another kind of colorblindness which about 6% of males worldwide experience is ***anomalous trichromacy***.
A different term for this is **red-green colorblindness**, which you might have heard of.
For these people, all 3 kinds of cones are working, but some of the wavelengths from the red and green cones are shifted, so it's hard for the person to distinguish between a red and a green tone. 

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Apx-mTeLQE
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## Why are men more likely to experience color blindness?
Yes it's true, color blindness is **much more common in men** than in women. 
That's because the genes of the green and red pigments are located on the **X chromosome.**
Since women have *two* X chromosomes,* both* of them would have to be damaged in order for the woman to experience colorblindness, which is just much less likely. 

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<center>![img](https://rgthinkcreative.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/red-green-color-blind-isihara-test-rgthinkcreative.jpg)</center>

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## Seeing more colors - or none at all 
"Normal" colorblindness **doesn't** actually mean seeing *no* color at all.
There is a rare condition called **achromatopsia** though, where the patients can *really* only see the whole world in shades of grey and black, about 100 different shades in total. 
But on the other hand, some people can also see *more* colors than the rest of us. 
This is called ***Tetrachromacy***: in this case, the patient actually has a *fourth* type of cone, which is pretty rare.
And interestingly, this mostly affects women. 
But scientists have quite a hard time finding people that actually experience this, as it seems like this is a skill that has to be trained, and most women don't discover it although they carry the genetic information. 

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<center>![img](https://media.giphy.com/media/l41m5m8jiMatmII1O/giphy.gif)</center>

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*Images: [1](http://revision3.com/sourcefed/whats-the-weakest-eye-color), [2](http://www.wisegeek.org/do-animals-see-in-color.htm), [3](https://www.reddit.com/r/gifs/comments/35yauj/what_it_looks_like_to_be_colorblind/), [4](https://www.reddit.com/r/gifs/comments/35yauj/what_it_looks_like_to_be_colorblind/), Sources: [1](http://scienceline.org/2014/07/how-does-colorblindness-work/), [2](http://www.colour-blindness.com/general/how-it-works-science/), [3](http://www.empowher.com/eyes-amp-vision/content/science-behind-color-blindness-how-people-are-affected), [4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUj7y7eqzkU), [5](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgHm5TKBW54)*





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