I guess I should have known. But, not until I was 14, did I know this…

Back when I was young (you know, when Ben Franklin was flying his kite), chemical analysis used color testing to discern various components. And, while I had a full chemistry lab, I had stopped doing these kind of tests over the past 8 years. (My chemistry interests were more devoted to dialysis and hydroponics.) So, when I took chemistry in school, I asked the teacher what the various test colors were. Given the nature of who he was, Bob McManus (a great teacher) and who I was (a wise guy), he lied about the colors. And, I got half the unknowns wrong.

It turns out that I lost my ability to clearly discern colors, when I had an accident (at age 6). But, there are some 32 million people who are truly colorblind in the US. Interestingly men outnumber women in this category 16 to 1. (8% of all men are colorblind.)

The most common color-discerning failures are red-green, but there are plenty of other combinations. While we don’t need humans to discern colors for chemistry any more, there are tons of professions that are worried about the subject’s colorblindness.

Pilots, railroad engineers, and truck drivers need to recognize various lights (traffic, landing strip approach), instrument panels, and maps. Air traffic controllers have to deal with altitude displays on their radar screens (which are all color coded). Law enforcement uses color to identify suspects (hair, clothes, cars, etc.). There are other professions, but you can get the idea.

The old way to determine colorblindness was to show various pictures to see what numbers are visible. Some of the cards have numbers that can or can’t be seen, others have two different numbers that can be seen (or not) depending upon your vision. (Now, there are all kinds of tests online – and on smartphones.  You can do the search with your favorite engine.)  It turns out those tests that have dual numbers are the ones that trip me up (since my colorblindness is not inherited, but due to disruptions in my eye)- I usuallly see them both.

That is a key fact, by the way. It’s not that colorblind folks see everything in black and white; it’s that they can’t discern certain colors, which means someone with red problems not only misses red, but usually sees purple objects as blue. Folks who are red-green colorblind folks can’t discern mixtures of reds, greens, or browns. (Red and green make brown.) If the colors are vibrant (pure, strong colors), most colorblind folks can see them; it’s the muted or blended variations that are their weak points.

Now, Genevolve Vision Diagnostics  has developed a genetic test. (That won’t help me!) It will immediately identify what colorblindness folks have- and can be used on younger children, who may not be able to actually know the numbers or letters displayed on the cards.  While the test will be useful for the military and aviation fields, the real desire of the firm is to develop a genetic treatment to eradicate the condition.

Dr. Jay Nietz (University of Washington) is also aiming for that same result . He was able to restore red-green vision to two squirrel monkeys. His lab group (Katherine Mancuso, William W. Hauswirth, Qiuhong Li, Thomas B. Connor, James A. Kuchenbecker, Matthew C. Mauck, & Maureen Neitz) injected the missing gene into the primates’ retina (by encapsulating the gene in a virus). (They still can identify colors properly). His ophthalmology lab is hoping to have something for humans soon.

(Oh, Roy G. Biv- that’s the colors of the visible light spectrum- red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.)

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