The human eye discerns more shades of green than any other colour. In Nurinnurun-Green: The SEEN Colour, Chase from Shellharbour Public School explains how the retina and the colour green (or Nurinnurun, in the local Dharawal language) have impacted human evolution and survival. This video is a finalist in the Eureka Prize.
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00:00 Why is it that the human eye sees more shades of green than any other colour?
00:13 Humans slowly developed the ability to see more shades of green than any other colour
00:17 to better detect food sources, find poisonous plants and avoid predators.
00:23 The retina is at the back of your eye and it has photoreceptors or light sensitive cells
00:28 called rods and cones.
00:30 When you look at something, light hits the retina, then rods and cones send electrical
00:33 signals to your brain along the optic nerve.
00:35 The brain then uses these signals to understand what you're seeing.
00:39 It is believed that humans have three types of cone cells in their eyes, red, blue and
00:43 green, which detect distinct colours of light and even though there are more red cones in
00:48 our eyes, greens are detected way more.
00:50 But why?
00:51 Well this may be because the white light from the sun is mostly light in the green range
00:57 of the spectrum and with the combined action of rods and cones working together, this may
01:01 be why what we see in the bright light of day might be recognised by our brains as lots
01:06 of shades of green.
01:07 And although science calls them red, green and blue cones, that may not be entirely accurate.
01:13 You see we have one in the blue region and two in the yellow region.
01:20 So we have one cone that's really sensitive to greenish yellow, one that's really sensitive
01:25 to reddish yellow and a blue one that's slightly sensitive to green as well.
01:30 And with so many cones that are picking up greenish wavelength, our brains will pick
01:34 up lots of shades of green.
01:37 This means we can detect a wider range of green shades than any other colour.
01:41 Isn't it fascinating how evolution has shaped our ability to see the world around us?
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