News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Four new DNA letters double life’s alphabet by arketyp on Friday February 22, 2019 @09:12AM (#19225437)
Some females (due to the XX chromosome setup) are born with red cone receptors that are sensitive to sufficiently different ranges in the wavelength spectrum that they are in effect tetrachromats. I particularly remember reading somewhere that when asked how they experienced the world they had reported to often notice bad color matchings in the way people dress, I suppose much like it can sometimes be apparent that someone is red-green color blind by this same dressing queue.

But a different kind of rod altogether, firing off some completely different signal, who knows what the experience would be like. Psychophysics is a mysterious junction indeed.

Re:Four new DNA letters double life’s alphabet by groestl on Friday February 22, 2019 @02:11PM (#19228152)
There is a tetrachromatic painter who tries to visualize her experience for us common trichromatic people: https://concettaantico.com/oil-paintings/
Re:Four new DNA letters double life’s alphabet by poopchute on Friday February 22, 2019 @05:04PM (#19229546)
From what I understand, a tetrachromat has (and expresses) the normal green cone, normal red cone, normal blue cone, as well as the cone associated with either protanomaly or deuteranomaly. With that in mind, it seems reasonable that there could exist a pentachromat that expresses all of these cones.