Remake of RadioLab Colors by https://padlet.com/katieannskogsberg/vbe0kxh4k5mhm0m2 Discuss The Episode en-us 2022-03-01 19:09:23 UTC 2026-01-17 22:39:50 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet.com/katieannskogsberg/vbe0kxh4k5mhm0m2/wish/2072580333 Peyton: The choral analogy was amazing! It was super helpful in understanding the varying visual spectra of different organisms, and honestly took my breath away. I think this is a great example of cross-modality matching]]> 2022-03-02 01:23:04 UTC https://padlet.com/katieannskogsberg/vbe0kxh4k5mhm0m2/wish/2072580333 https://padlet.com/katieannskogsberg/vbe0kxh4k5mhm0m2/wish/2072582503 Peyton: I've never thought about everything in our world being made for trichromats-- I wonder how we could adjust to compensate for tetrachromats? Would lights look different? Or would different shades of certain colors be more nuanced?]]> 2022-03-02 01:24:37 UTC https://padlet.com/katieannskogsberg/vbe0kxh4k5mhm0m2/wish/2072582503 https://padlet.com/katieannskogsberg/vbe0kxh4k5mhm0m2/wish/2072589589 Peyton: The speaker in this section said that words enable "the blueness of blue," because otherwise we really wouldn't recognize the sky as blue. I wonder if there are colors we don't really recognize because we don't have words for them. (The colors of outer space come to mind for me)]]> 2022-03-02 01:29:30 UTC https://padlet.com/katieannskogsberg/vbe0kxh4k5mhm0m2/wish/2072589589 Ellie: I thought that was really interesting too! https://padlet.com/katieannskogsberg/vbe0kxh4k5mhm0m2/wish/2073808771 2022-03-02 15:31:33 UTC https://padlet.com/katieannskogsberg/vbe0kxh4k5mhm0m2/wish/2073808771 Ellie: When I was listening, I thought the story about Newton was really interesting. I did not know that people thought prisms "muddied" light. https://padlet.com/katieannskogsberg/vbe0kxh4k5mhm0m2/wish/2073810949 2022-03-02 15:32:40 UTC https://padlet.com/katieannskogsberg/vbe0kxh4k5mhm0m2/wish/2073810949 Ellie: It would be interesting to see the perspective of tetrachromats; it would be cool to see how they perceive color and what the differences would be. However, for the tetrachromats that couldn't see the differences in color, could they be taught? https://padlet.com/katieannskogsberg/vbe0kxh4k5mhm0m2/wish/2073858496 2022-03-02 15:55:39 UTC https://padlet.com/katieannskogsberg/vbe0kxh4k5mhm0m2/wish/2073858496 Ellie: This section made me want to see if I could potentially be a tetrachromat, I wonder what the DNA test would be like for determining this? https://padlet.com/katieannskogsberg/vbe0kxh4k5mhm0m2/wish/2073872410 2022-03-02 16:02:15 UTC https://padlet.com/katieannskogsberg/vbe0kxh4k5mhm0m2/wish/2073872410 Ellie: I think that there could be colors that we do not recognize! The colors that we see are a construct, so I think that this could be possible. https://padlet.com/katieannskogsberg/vbe0kxh4k5mhm0m2/wish/2073913077 2022-03-02 16:21:34 UTC https://padlet.com/katieannskogsberg/vbe0kxh4k5mhm0m2/wish/2073913077 Ellie: I thought the order of colors that appeared in language was super interesting. Besides black and white, most languages mentioned the color "Red" first. I wonder if this is because the color red has a longer wavelength? https://padlet.com/katieannskogsberg/vbe0kxh4k5mhm0m2/wish/2073919105 2022-03-02 16:24:30 UTC https://padlet.com/katieannskogsberg/vbe0kxh4k5mhm0m2/wish/2073919105 Isaac Newton and Color https://padlet.com/katieannskogsberg/vbe0kxh4k5mhm0m2/wish/2078422819 There were so many cool things that were covered in this section of the podcast, but the part that shocked me the most was when they discussed Isaac Newton and how he went about exploring color. I find it fascinating that the smartest and most inventive people in history also tend to be (more than a little bit) insane. Of course, in elementary school, we all probably learned about how Newton discovered the makeup of white light with his prism experiments, but I definitely didn't know that the FIRST thing this man thought to do was to stick a needle between his eyeball and the socket just to see what would happen!!! I can admire the creativity and the contributions he made to science, but wow did he have some mad methods!]]> 2022-03-04 18:22:12 UTC https://padlet.com/katieannskogsberg/vbe0kxh4k5mhm0m2/wish/2078422819 Lauren: Does Tetrachromacy Matter? https://padlet.com/katieannskogsberg/vbe0kxh4k5mhm0m2/wish/2078442801 I have heard about tetrachromacy before and how people with that mutation should be able to see more colors than the average trichromat. Logically, it makes sense that someone with 4 types of cones instead of 3 would have this ability, and the lady they interviewed in the podcast with tetrachromacy did say that when she looked at the sky, she saw not only blue but pink as well. However, in the color discrimination task, the trichromat man who had experience working with color as a painter performed just as well as the tetrachromat woman. This makes me wonder how much of a difference it really would make to see the world with 4 types of cones instead of the typical 3. If the color discrimination task could just as well be completed by a trichromat with experience in differentiating color, what kind of test would we need in order to actually determine the difference between trichromatic and tetrachromatic color vision? ]]> 2022-03-04 18:35:15 UTC https://padlet.com/katieannskogsberg/vbe0kxh4k5mhm0m2/wish/2078442801 Lauren: Color Vocabulary https://padlet.com/katieannskogsberg/vbe0kxh4k5mhm0m2/wish/2078472689 This section of the podcast made me think about how future scholars might look back on our current color vocabulary and come to similar conclusions about the way we determine our color groups today. For example, we find it strange that ancient texts use "dark" and "light" to describe colors, but I don't find it that strange considering that those categories could be used effectively to sort colors. It's just that today, we have broken those categories down into subcategories (e.g., red, yellow, blue, green, orange, purple). Perhaps we see the world in the same way as the ancient peoples did, but we now have the vocabulary to describe more specifically what colors we are seeing. In my mind, the comparison between color descriptions in ancient texts vs the modern day is similar to comparing the color vocabulary of the general public to that of an artist who further breaks down our subcategories into even MORE categories. Thus, when an average person says that the sky and a butterfly are the same color, "blue," an artist would say, "No they're not the same color! The sky is light cyan, and the butterfly is sapphire!"]]> 2022-03-04 18:56:07 UTC https://padlet.com/katieannskogsberg/vbe0kxh4k5mhm0m2/wish/2078472689 The Perfect Yellow https://padlet.com/katieannskogsberg/vbe0kxh4k5mhm0m2/wish/2084411265 Kennedy: I thought that the experiment with the monkeys in trying to give them red cones was very interesting. I think what makes it most fascinating is how long it took for them to be able to see the color red. It took weeks of juice and red dots for the monkeys to be successful in their task. The speakers of the podcast seemed disappointed that the monkeys did not see red immediately. But, I think that it would not make sense on a level of biology if they were able to develop the red cones immediately after their "monkey lasic". Similar to vaccinations, it takes time for our bodies to adapt to what has been injected into them. Therefore, I found it to no surprise that it took a while for the monkeys to develop this ability.

The authors also talk about how the benefits of the procedure, when compared with the risks, have not been accepted by the FDA. They went on to talk about how people have offered them to secretly sneak into their labs late at night and get the injections because they were that desperate to see color. I think that that if someone wants to possibly have the opportunity to see color and are willing to do so with unknown side effects, they should be able to. It is easy for someone who is able to see color to decide that people who cannot see it don't really need it bad enough to try experimental measures.  

If you were color blind and new of a nearby lab that had 1) been successful in giving monkeys a new type of color vision and 2) were willing to secretly experiment on you, would you? ]]> 2022-03-08 16:53:13 UTC https://padlet.com/katieannskogsberg/vbe0kxh4k5mhm0m2/wish/2084411265 Color and Invisible Gorilla https://padlet.com/katieannskogsberg/vbe0kxh4k5mhm0m2/wish/2084483207 Kennedy: My favorite part of this section of the podcast was when they were describing a father's experiment with his daughter and how she did not identify the sky as blue for a very long time. This is because when we make a category for colors (such as blueish) and a word to describe a color (such as blue) it makes the color jump out at us more. We begin noticing the color around us more often and eventually it seems as if it is a very common every day occurrence. When I was listening to this, my mind immediately jumped to our Invisible Gorilla book. Specifically, I thought about inattentional blindness. For example, they talked about the Greeks and how they did not have a word to describe the color blue. The podcast discusses how they really did not need a word for it because blue was not readily available in nature around them, even though it did exist. Would this be an example of inattentional blindness in that because they were not looking or expecting to see blue, they did not notice it. But, once someone is introduced to the word blue and putting the color into a category, it is hard NOT to see it, just as it is hard not to see the gorilla once it has been pointed out to you. 

This idea would also contribute to the fact that women can have the genes to be tetrachromats, but do not exercise these genes and therefore have no idea. Maybe people can see more colors than what they think, but they are not aware of the presence of these colors and therefore do not perceive them. ]]> 2022-03-08 17:28:01 UTC https://padlet.com/katieannskogsberg/vbe0kxh4k5mhm0m2/wish/2084483207 Monkeys Being Cured of Colorblindness https://padlet.com/katieannskogsberg/vbe0kxh4k5mhm0m2/wish/2087322332 I think this was absolutely the most interesting story in the podcast. Dr. Jay Knight, an ophthalmologist, experimented with monkeys who were dichromats (no red cones, only blue and green) to see if he could cure their colorblindness. To accomplish this, he isolated the gene in humans for red cones (from the X chromosome), wrapped it into a virus, and injected it into the eyeballs of these monkeys. He then had them perform a color identification task with red blobs on a grey background. For 20 weeks after the procedure, the monkeys failed the test every single time. However, on one of the mornings of the 20th week, the monkeys began to recognize the color red and were rewarded with handsome amounts of grape juice. Dr. Knight and the podcasters describe the shock on themselves and the monkeys of their new color perception. The success of this experiment opens new doors to the possibility of genetic enhancements in humans and was one of the more interesting things I've learned during this semester thus far.

An experiment like this on humans, although theoretically possible, would probably not be the best idea. While I'm excited to identify tetrachromats in society to give myself supervision, I'm more excited for what this experiment means for helping those who are currently colorblind see color. One of these people is my roommate who heard me listening to this podcast and explained his colorblindness to me for the first time. ]]> 2022-03-10 02:08:17 UTC https://padlet.com/katieannskogsberg/vbe0kxh4k5mhm0m2/wish/2087322332