Scientists have claimed there’s a new color based on a study that involves stimulating specific cells in the retina.
Imagine seeing a color you’ve never even heard of before. Obviously, that’s a task that’s near-impossible for the human mind to comprehend. However, it appears to be a different story for five participants who took part in a study introducing a new principle for displaying color.
The study, published in Science Advances on April 18, 2025, details the method of using a laser to stimulate specific cells in the retina to create visual stimuli that natural light alone cannot produce.
As a result, these participants have claimed to witness a color described as “blue-green of unprecedented saturation.”
Scientists claim there’s a new color based on an experiment
Scientists have named this new color “olo,” and they’ve provided an image of the shade that looks the closest to it, as seen in the image below.
This shade is the closest match of olo, according to researchers.
The paper elaborates that the experiment targets the eye’s cone cells, which detect long, medium, and short light wavelengths.
In this case, the laser specifically activates only the medium-wavelength cones—something that doesn’t occur naturally on its own.
Because of this, the color olo cannot be seen with the naked eye without the aid of specific stimulation.
The participants in the study, who all had normal color vision, looked into a device consisting of mirrors, lasers, and optical devices called “Oz.”
This was the equipment used that theoretically enabled “display of colors that lie beyond the well-known, bounded color gamut of natural human vision.”
Speaking to BBC, Prof Ng, who was one of the co-authors and experiment’s participants, described olo as “more saturated than any color that you can see in the real world.”
He explained: “Let’s say you go around your whole life and see only pink, baby pink, and pastel pink. “And then one day you go to the office, and someone’s wearing a shirt, and it’s the most intense baby pink you’ve ever seen, and they say it’s a new color, and we call it red.”
Following the study’s findings, one expert has weighed in to share their thoughts. As spotted by The Guardian, John Barbur, a vision scientist at City St George’s, University of London, argued that it’s not a new color.
“It’s a more saturated green that can only be produced in a subject with normal red-green chromatic mechanism when the only input comes from M cones,” he said, before going on to mention the work had “limited value.”
As to whether or not everyone else will eventually be able to see this color, Ng said that this is “basic science” and that it’s not going to be seen on “any smartphone displays or any TVs any time soon. And this is very, very far beyond VR headset technology.”
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