News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Scientists find woman who sees 99 million more colors tha... by btilly on Sunday May 26, 2013 @08:28PM (#5772909)
Why is this being reported as new, when there have been reports of such for some time now? For example here is a 2006 link to a very similar story (this time with names):

http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/health/some-women-m...

Re:Scientists find woman who sees 99 million more colors tha... by jpalioto on Sunday May 26, 2013 @10:18PM (#5773136)
As with most things, you can blame The Oatmeal http://theoatmeal.com/comics/mantis_shrimp
Re:Scientists find woman who sees 99 million more colors tha... by cLeEOGPw on Monday May 27, 2013 @06:52AM (#5774177)
If I were tetrachromat I would keep mantis shrimp as a pet.
Re:Scientists find woman who sees 99 million more colors tha... by tokenadult on Sunday May 26, 2013 @10:33PM (#5773172)
I wonder what university press release lies under the several stories with very similar wording that were published at about the same time last year. I note the submission here is at best a linkbait copy-and-paste of an article that originally appeared in another publication.
Re:Scientists find woman who sees 99 million more colors tha... by theklub on Sunday May 26, 2013 @09:49PM (#5773080)
Simple, it makes a great headline and linkbait. I've seen this story reposted and rewritten over the past week all over the internet.
Re:Scientists find woman who sees 99 million more colors tha... by X4 on Sunday May 26, 2013 @08:52PM (#5772951)
I think it's because people still think that this is esoteric and fiction, although scientifically proven.

Btw. only women have this ability. I believe the function of better eyes is to protect from predators or men, by differentiating more types of shades and therefore recognizing motion a lot earlier.

Re:Scientists find woman who sees 99 million more colors tha... by JimJames on Sunday May 26, 2013 @09:28PM (#5773039)
That last statement is wildly speculative. More likely is that it's because some key genes are present on the X chromosome but not on the Y chromosome. The same reason colour blindness is much more prevalent in males.
Re:Scientists find woman who sees 99 million more colors tha... by rohitrohit on Sunday May 26, 2013 @09:40PM (#5773064)
The real reason is that these genes sit on the x chromosome, which makes it possible for women to be heterozygotes. If one of the receptors is mutated and color-shifted, then women will be homozygous for the wavelengths of two of the three receptors, but heterozygous for the remaining receptor, which gives her two more wavelengths to interpret. Therefore, she will have a four-dimensional color space. A male with the same mutation does not have a normal copy of the gene, so still only sees three-dimensional color, with the third dimension different from what most of the rest of us see, which manifests as a type of color blindness, since the rest of society has engineered the world for normal RGB people.