A rainbow or a death-bow

Yousif Al Hamadi

April 28, 2019

4184 words
A rainbow or a death-bow

Black and white films always remind me of a time when I was six watching television with my
grandmother. So young and innocent yet fascinated by black and white films, wondering what
happened to the other colours. Is it because they did not exist in the past, or did human beings
create them. I am now able to live a colourful life, better than those who were living a black and
white one. I asked my grandmother about colours, while she was deep into her classical movies
and her response was merely, ’Colours are nonsense. I do not need them.’ Then I looked at her
with a look of compassion for her condition or deprivation. When I grew up, I discovered that
my thoughts about colours when I was young were partly true. The surprise is that their
number increases with time.

The Irish philosopher George Berkeley had an idea of reality. He claimed that there is no reality,
and the brain is what makes it. He also claimed that there is no such thing as truth, only minds
and ideas (Brook and Stainton, 2001: 88). If I decided to agree with Berkeley’s theory, then I
would be consenting that in the past, the world as I thought in my grandmother’s time indeed
had fewer colours than now. Perhaps, the capacity of people’s vision in the past was less than
today. Though, while deeply exploring the anatomy of the eye, finding what this fascinating
organ consists of, and how the brain translates lights and waves by converting them to senses.
It was then that I understand how the world became colourful.

The eye which we know today can be traced to living beings of approximately 500 million years.
And it has evolved from the first known organism able to detect the process of light known as
the euglena. It’s a very simple genus of single cell with its purpose to differentiate light from
darkness. It goes directly towards light to do the process of photosynthesis. For this simple
genus the whole world is only about light (Weeks, 2008: 153). The eye of a planarian flatworm
is more advanced. Its eye works as a light interceptor. It looks like a cup where the light goes in
with an angle. This gives it the ability to know from where the light enters and some
information about its surrounding environment (Nilsson, 2009). The eye of a nautilus, a pelagic
marine mollusc, is similar to the shape of the human eye. It looks like a circle and has a small
hole in front of it. The light which enters from the hole provides them with better sight with

2
better resolution. Thus, it is able to distinguish shapes and movements (Schutten, 2015: 181).
Our eyes’ shape may looks similar to the nautilus, but it is more complex and refined. To begin
with, it is covered with multiple layers in order to protect the eye from diseases. The human
cornea controls and focuses all entry of light. If all outlets are blocked, liquid should enter to
improve the sensation of light. (Perkins and Davson, 2018).

I totally believe that my eye is a miracle, but I was shocked that there are some flaws.
Additionally, it does not contain the specifications which I found in other creatures. It has a
layer of nerve cells lining in the back wall inside the eye known as the retina. It faces backward
against the hole making a blind spot, but my brain is good in fixing the image in a way that
cannot notice it. The octopus’s retina is different as it does not have a blind spot and perhaps
most molluscs do not. (Mike, 2010). Some animals certainly have a phenomenal vision with
distinctive features. The guitarfish for example, does not blink, Chameleon moves its eyes in all
directions, and the Colossal Squid has the largest eye in the animal world. It can reach to the
size of a football. The dragonfly has night vision that consists of 30 thousands units of
ommatidia, which contains a cluster of photoreceptor cells. It is also responsible of the accuracy
that makes the dragonfly’s vision, 250 times more accurate than me (Fildes, 2006).

The list is never-ending, but it is important to know the characteristics of the eye. I find it
surprising that with so many songs out around flirting with the human eye I have yet to come
across lyrics on how to spot your beloved as eyes of a dragonfly. They are better by a longshot.
Another species, the Mantis shrimp has 12 to 16 conical cells in its eyes, the photoreceptor cells
which are responsible of vision and colours, and to think that I have only three seems unfair.
This shrimp has imaginative abilities. It can see colours that I cannot see, in addition to
ultraviolet and infrared rays (Yong, 2014). According to this shrimp, I must be considered colour
blind.

The ability of the eyes is not the only thing needed to appreciate colour. Cultural and linguistic
developments also play key roles in absorbing them. Blue In specific has a special case. For
example, Russians have two words signifying two shades of blue, goluboy and cync.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) noted that the Russians distinguish these two

3
degrees ten percent faster than who do not have these two degrees in their languages.
(Winawer et al., 2007). In another study by the researcher Jules Davidoff, it was found that
there is a Namibian tribe do not have a word describing blue. He made an experiment by
studying their ability to distinguish a blue square between green squares. What is bizarre is that
they were not able to distinguish it. Davidoff concluded that ‘without a word for a colour it is
much harder for us to notice what is unique about it’ (Loria, 2015).

Most ancient civilizations such as Greek, Chinese, Japanese, and Hebrew did not have a word
for blue. In 1858, the scholar William Gladstone, who later became the prime minister of
Britain, claimed that he looked for the word blue in The Odyssey by Homer, an ancient literary
heritage, and found that it was never mentioned. For example, it says ‘wine-dark sea’ rather
than blue sea. While Black, white, red, yellow, and green were all mentioned but blue was not
(Deutscher, 2016: 30). A large proportion of humans in ancient times did not signify the sky as
blue. In a study by the philologist Lazarus Geiger, a similar result was found about the blue
word. Ancient civilizations signify blue and green with the same word. This is often because the
majority of civilizations found blue colour of non-importance, which made its name come late.
People were seeing it, but did not find it necessary to call or use it. Throughout history, black
and white were the first two colours to be defined because of the day and night as well as other
things that were seen on a daily basis. Then red was defined because of blood. Yellow followed
because of the sun. Then green because of the trees. Finally, blue was defined at the end
because of its insignificance (Loria, 2015). This left me wondering, why human beings with such
high functioning brains could not name the colour that describes their planet best. Perhaps the
future carries other important colours yet to be discovered.

Some people have a different perception of colour. There might be a deficiency as with colour
blindness, or they may be able to recognize colour at a greater capability. Those who suffer
from colour blindness cannot recognize their condition unless they are tested. It occurs from a
genetic deification in the conical cells, thus losing the response to blue, green and red light
(Bailey, 2019). Facebook’s owner Mark Zukerberg, the American president Bill Clinton, and the
actor Keanu Reeves, are all colour blinds with red-green blindness. This type is the most

4
common one, and there are as many as 8% of men and 0.5% of women worldwide with this
condition (Jordan, 2017).

There are people with a genetic mutation that gives them abilities to see more colours. We,
humans, as I previously explained have three conical cells in our eyes which make us
Trichromatic. Some People have access to Tetrachromats which means that they have four
conical cells. These people can see 100 million colours more than me (Robson, 2014). I have yet
to meet someone like and yet I find reason to be envious of them thinking of the possibilities at
stake. If for some reason the majority of humans became Tetrachromats, then many of them
will look at me with pity, as how I looked at my grandmother.

I know that colours should beautifies my life, give me a special visual pleasure, assist me in
appreciating art, and gives me an ability to describes what is happening around me. However,
looking back at nature, it is known that most poisonous animals and insects are attractively
coloured. Pigmentations, paints, tints, and shades are other connotations and terms of colours,
showing that they are not just electromagnetic waves that are converted and translated by the
brain into sensations. There must be a secret behind colours. In fact, they originally were
existed before us. A large number of incidents prove that dealing with them causes chaos.
Moreover, there are incidents proving what is worse, that colours are suspected serial killers.
They were the cause of the deaths of many people, including leaders and artists.

In 2018, the rapper and songwriter, 21 Savage, decided to start a campaign called, ‘Guns down,
paintballs up’. He meant to start a paintball war, as to divide their community into two teams
and to shoot each other with fake guns containing paint bullets. Seemingly so, 21 Savage was
thinking positively as he wanted to reduce gun violence. It seems fun, that instead of shooting
each other with real firearms, indeed, people started roaming the streets and began to hit each
other with paints. One of the participants in this paintball war told the Guardian that he
previously had some strife with some people for around two years, and by joining the
campaign, they drop all their troubles a side (Lartey, 2018). This happened in North Carolina,
where more than 1,400 people have died due to gun violence as stated from statistics of 2017.
The campaign migrated and reached other states such as Detroit, Michigan and Atlanta,

5
Georgia. The outcome was an astounding 200 paintball games which happened in the streets of
America in supporting of the anti-violence campaign (O'Brien, 2018).

As usual, campaigns such as this one often get out of control. People were not only shooting
paints on the people who were playing with them, they were also shooting other people on the
streets that had nothing to do with the campaign (O'Brien, 2018). All in all, the idea to reduce
gun or gang violence is commendable. However If I came home from a tired and exhausted day
at work, and a foul boy ruins my brown suit with paints because he wanted to reduce gun
violence I too might be ready to show them some not so pleasant repercussions . Especially, if I
had bought the suit by a large amount of money.

I should always remind myself that any story having to do with colours may not end well. As the
paintball campaign proceeded in Atlanta, a 15-year-old boy used a real gun and shot a three-
year-old child. It is still not clear if he did it on purpose or not, but no one noticed that it was a
real gun. Moreover, the police didn’t even notice that it was a real gun. When they discovered
the body of the child, they began to arrest people, but all of whom were arrested were caring
paintball guns. They reached a point that they decided to revoke all the paintball guns that
were on the street (O'Brien, 2018).

The amount of irony in the story is massive. A campaign aimed to reduce violence of guns led to
the capture and death of people because of colours. Frankly, 21 Savage had not studied history
well. If he only had read a little, he would know that colours are dangerous serial killers. Colours
have been killing us since the time we began to use them. He would know that some colours
such as green were made of radium which was discovered by Pierre and Marie Curie in 1898. If I
look at the radium colour, it is unnatural, bright, attractive, and illuminates in the dark. Its main
problem is the radiant material, and there are consequences and side effects out of using it
such as cancers and other deathly diseases (Dronsfield and Ellis, 2011).

In 1911, watch companies began to exploit the discovery of radium for its ability to shine in the
dark. The workers of these watch factories were to not paint the watches with their hands.
They were putting the brush in their mouths to add the radium. I know what I am saying sounds
odd. However, they were ingesting some radium every day directly with every watch they
6
painted. The radium was also used in making a luminous paint for young women’s nails and
teeth. Many of these radium girls started to die 10 years later. People were using radium in
almost everything. It was the latest fashion in the market, lipstick, chocolates, tonics, and
watches. Thankfully, in 1938, all these products were banded (Orci, 2013).

I do not want to hear anyone tell me that I am hard on green. If someone tried to tell me that it
is the colour of life, traffic flow in hot days, dollars, or the colour of the interesting fantasy
character Shrek, I would tell them that they are ignorant. It is a dangerous colour, and to begin
the clarification, the word ‘shrek’ means monster and it is related to terror and fear. This is why
the character designer of DreamWorks chose green to be the colour of this ogre (Nieguth and
Lacassagne, 2011: 48). Second, this is not the first incident where green is accused of killing
people. In the eighteenth century, green was made of arsenic, and it was made on two shades,
Scheele’s green and Paris green. Before its toxicity was found, it was of preference to people as
opposed to what is extracted from nature. They used it in paintings, food, toys, wallpapers and
even dresses. At that time, a strange phenomenon spread, that dresses with a green colour
were made of arsenic causing fainting. It was also common among people that the colour kills
insects. People would paint their rooms in green to kill bugs such as bed bugs (Kelleher, 2018).
Of course it is insane to think that one might live in the middle of an insecticide and nothing will
happen. Napoleon Bonaparte is one who believed these stories, painted his bedroom with
green paint which might may have cause his death as hypothesised. It seems that what has
been found should lead to the green colour to being avoided at all cost. Perhaps Ireland should
do something with its St. Patrick’s Day’s colour. It might behove them to return it to its original
blue (Romero, 2010).

White is just as much dangerous as green. It is the one which contains all colours and I should
worry from it. White is imprisoned between the black and the colours of the spectrum, but
taking advantage of them. It may claim purity, serenity, and the symbol of surrender and peace.
It is the rice colour, the main dish in all Asian meals and I do like food, or the yogurt colour to fix
digestive problems. I should not let it fool me; it is also the colour of cocaine and hallucinogenic

7
pills. It is a first-rate criminal. White is also guilty for the murder of the well-known Dutch artist
Vincent Van Gogh.

In the eighteenth century, the white colour was taken from lead. A large exposure to lead has
been known to cause problems such as not controlling ones anger, symptoms of depression,
and hallucinations. Van Gogh was often licking the brush while painting, which of course had a
white colour on it. There are those who said he was licking it to make the brush into a convex
shape to reach a certain result in the painting. Others say that this is the reason of his strange
mental state which he eventually died from. Perhaps, when he painted The Starry Night (1889)
his vision was wobbly and was actually seeing the sky as the painting. Van Gogh was not the
only victim. Lead and white were also responsible for the death of the famous painters
Michelangelo, Francisco Goya and Caravaggio (Khazan, 2013). I should not despite that there is
a bit of blame on these painters. They all belong to the school of impressionism which portrays
the beauty of nature. Curiously, if they had a deeper introspection towards nature, they would
find that colours are also dangerous for animals.

In 1867, the naturalist Alfred Wallace received a letter containing a question about an unusual
phenomenon regarding coloured caterpillars from the biologist Charles Darwin. Naturally,
animals and insects are coloured for two reasons. The first reason is that the male seeks to have
a sexy look to attract females such as peafowls. The other reason is for camouflage such as
lizards. But, these coloured caterpillars did not have the colour of the place where they live to
hide themselves, and were not sexually active. There reason for these beautiful clear colours
did not seem obvious (NHM, 2012). Wallace had an unusual response which has drawn my
attention. He assumed that some caterpillars take certain colours to show that they taste bad
or poisonous (Smith and Beccaloni, 2010: 145). Amazingly, through their colours, predators
such as birds understand that these caterpillars are not suitable for eating.

After two years, the insects’ scientist John Jenner Weir offered results to prove Wallace’s
hypothesis. He said that birds actually move away from caterpillars whose colours are
glamorous. This phenomenon is called aposematism and not only in caterpillars, the cinnabar
moth is a poisonous type of butterflies with red and bright wings. Some frogs are also

8
poisonous such as the dart frog with its vibrant red colour. It is not always necessary for colours
to be glamorous. The animal may have a specific and known pattern that makes any creature
move away from it. As for the skunk, its colours are black and white, distributed in a well-
known way. It is not poisonous but if you get close to it, you will be in a stink of trouble.

It is highly intriguing that instead of hiding, your defence mechanism is to show yourself with
confidence and without fear. This method for some has proven itself to be effective as some
non-poisonous insects and animals have learned to imitate poisonous animals resemble to alert
predators. Remarkably, they knew the power of colours and how they could overcome their
opponents by using them. This phenomenon is known as Batesian mimicry. For example, there
are species of snakes and butterflies, some of them are poisonous and others are not, and it is
difficult to differentiate between them (Katoh, Tatsuta and Tsuji, 2017).

Animals and insects are not the only ones that mimic each other. We, human beings apply this
phenomenon in sparking colours to grasp our enemies’ attention when we are confronted. In
most of the recorded cases the militia have been wearing a clear red colour, like the red dart
frog. Obviously, red, the colour of blood and anger seeks to end human beings as well. The
British army used to wear red coats in the 17th century; the idea seemed to be effective but
lost its effectiveness over time. In their encounters with the French and in North America, they
were a clear target for snipers and lost many lives, wearing red between trees was like an
official suicide (Knighton, 2016).

Other great nations have made the same mistake. For the national pride, the French Army wear
red trousers, Le Pantalon Rouge. At first, I thought that they were training or in a small battle,
but they were marching in the First World War with red trousers (Knighton, 2016). Were not
the French supposed to remember that they just beat the British because of their red coats. It
is clear that these guys did not give any importance to either colour or their bottom half.

Colours play a big role in our lives. They express our identity, such as red represents
communism, blue represents conservatives, and rainbow colours all together are taking into
consideration as well. I must understand that colours have permeated themselves in our lives
and polluted our minds. Even those who say that they have no problem with it must
9
understand that denial is also a problem. These people might even reach the stage of
unresponsiveness because of the luxury offered by the colours’ prejudiced systems.

From the beginning of humanity up to recent times, people were free to move on earth,
walking on its plains, mountains, and seas unhindered. But when the trust among nations
collapsed after the First World War broke out, strict procedures of movement and immigration
were imposed. In 1914, the first modern passport was issued by Britain as a single paper that
could fold to eight layers (BBC, 2010). Since that date, this paper turned into a collection of
coloured books. Some of them lift you up and others lower you down, some close doors and
others open them. It is the passport, one of the most prominent tools of racial discrimination in
the 21st century.

In this field, four colours are competing, black, red, green, and blue. There is no clear reason
why countries choose their passports colours. For example, before 1918, individuals did not
need passports to enter America, but to be a member of the League of Nations, it was forced to
follow modern international standards. In the beginning, it was similar to the British sheet and
then it turned into a book with a green cover. In 1970 the colour was changed to blue, then
returned to green in 1993, then returned again to blue in 1994 until today (LaGrave, 2016).
Member states of the Caribbean Community and South American regions often choose blue for
their passport covers such as Brazil, Paraguay, and Venezuela for geographical reasons. Some
Islamic countries choose green for religious reasons such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan and
Morocco. Countries of the European Union often choose red colour grades, and African
countries often choose black. The diplomatic passport of China is red, while the regular one is
black (Kim, 2017). So, there are no special criteria for passport colours as long as they are
between the shades of these four colours.

In any case, passports are not granted by the United Nations, but are issued by governments to
their citizens under conditions and considerations for granting, postponing, or even cancelling
them completely. Today, there are rankings for the strongest and weakest passport in the
world. This is the reality we actually live in. The number of countries that a passport holder can
enter is an indicator of his or her strength. The United Arab Emirates ranks first in the list, while

10
there are many Arab countries at the bottom, such as Somalia, Iraq, Yemen, Sudan, Syria and
Palestine (Passport Index, 2019). All are witnessing conflicts and displacements. The United
Nations and world leaders should be working to solve international affairs, but they are
spending money on security and ways to avoid fabrications, leaving the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights remains without a stamp, without solutions, and without a colour.

These are bright and dark sides of colours. We live among them, try to understand them, and
look for explanations of their existence. But, we cannot control them, and in fact, they control
us. Our eyes and minds are hypnotised to their beauty. Ancient civilizations and those who
suffer from colour blindness are gifted by staying away from colours. I recommend that people
in power should set up an organization and it would be best if it was a secret one. Something
like Marvel’s X-Men to gather those who have genetic mutations to discover the most
dangerous colours in nature. It will be great to find ways to develop our genes to have a vision
ability as them, perhaps as smart as Albert Einstein, or as fast as Usain Bolt. History has played
out time and time again alerting the urgent need to teach ourselves that we need to stop
treating colours from its romantic angle only. Accidents take place on a daily basis and many
evidences about the dangers of colours are everywhere and will remain as long as colours exist.
Perhaps that wise old lady sitting with me was trying to tell me ’Colours are nonsense'. She
completely changed the why how I see colours. I will never see her in the way I saw her before.

11
Bibliography
Bailey, G. (2019). Color blindness: Causes, symptoms and how to adapt. Allaboutvision.com.
Available at: https://www.allaboutvision.com/conditions/colordeficiency.htm [Accessed
28 Apr. 2019].

BBC (2010). The nine lives of ID cards. BBC News. Available at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8748441.stm [Accessed 28 Apr. 2019].

Brook, A. and Stainton, R. (2001). Knowledge and Mind: A Philosophical Introduction.

Massachusetts: MIT Press.

Deutscher, G. (2016). Through the Language Glass: Why The World Looks Different In Other
Languages. London: Random House.

Dronsfield, A. and Ellis, P. (2011). Radium - a key element in early cancer treatment. Education
in Chemistry. Available at: https://eic.rsc.org/feature/radium-a-key-element-in-early-
cancer-treatment/2020217.article [Accessed 28 Apr. 2019].

Fildes, J. (2006). Insect eye inspires future vision. BBC News. Available at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4946452.stm [Accessed 28 Apr. 2019].

Jordan, C. (2017). why you should care about color-blindness. Medium. Available at:
https://medium.com/@courtneyjordan/designing-for-all-users-why-you-should-care-
about-color-blindness-beabd61943eb [Accessed 28 Apr. 2019].

Katoh, M., Tatsuta, H. and Tsuji, K. (2017). Rapid evolution of a Batesian mimicry trait in a
butterfly responding to arrival of a new model. Scientific Reports, 7(1).

Kelleher, K. (2018). Scheele’s Green, the Color of Fake Foliage and Death. The Paris Review.
Available at: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/05/02/scheeles-green-the-color-
of-fake-foliage-and-death/ [Accessed 28 Apr. 2019].

Khazan, O. (2013). How Important Is Lead Poisoning to Becoming a Legendary Artist?. The
Atlantic. Available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/11/how-
important-is-lead-poisoning-to-becoming-a-legendary-artist/281734/ [Accessed 28 Apr.
2019].

Kim, S. (2017). The surprising reasons behind the colour of your passport. The Telegraph.
Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/surprising-reasons-behind-the-
colour-of-your-passport/ [Accessed 28 Apr. 2019].

12
Knighton, A. (2016). 11 Military Uniforms That Got Soldiers Killed. Available at:
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/history/11-military-uniforms-got-soldiers_killed.html
[Accessed 28 Apr. 2019].

LaGrave, K. (2016). What Your Passport Color Says About You. Available at:
https://www.cntraveler.com/stories/2016-03-08/what-your-passport-color-says-about-
you [Accessed 28 Apr. 2019].

Lartey, J. (2018). 'Guns down, paintballs up': the US trend for settling feuds with paintball wars.
The Guardian. Available at: ht
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/05/savage-21-paintball-wars-trend-gun-
violence [Accessed 28 Apr. 2019].

Loria, K. (2015). No one could describe the color 'blue' until modern times. Business Insider.
Available at: https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-blue-and-how-do-we-see-color-
2015-2?r=US&IR=T [Accessed 28 Apr. 2019].

Mike, M. (2010). The Octopus Visual System. Available at:

http://cephalove.blogspot.com/2010/05/octopus-visual-system.html [Accessed 28 Apr.
2019].

Nilsson, D. (2009). The evolution of eyes and visually guided behaviour. Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 364(1531), pp.2833-2847.

NHM (2012). Wallace Letters Online - Record number: WCP609. National History Museum.
Available at: http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/scientific-
resources/collections/library-collections/wallace-letters-online/609/609/T/details.html
[Accessed 28 Apr. 2019].

Nieguth, T. and Lacassagne, A. (2011). Investigating Shrek: Power, Identity, and Ideology. New
York: Springer.

Orci, T. (2013). How We Realized Putting Radium in Everything Was Not the Answer. The
Atlantic. Available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/03/how-we-
realized-putting-radium-in-everything-was-not-the-answer/273780/ [Accessed 28 Apr.
2019].

O'Brien, B. (2018). Detroit police call for end to paintball war, arrest six people. Reuters.
Available at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-paintball-detroit/detroit-police-call-
for-end-to-paintball-war-arrest-six-people-idUSKBN1HZ09P [Accessed 28 Apr. 2019].

13
Passport Index (2019). Explore the World of Passports by Color. Passport Index. Available at:
https://www.passportindex.org/byColor.php [Accessed 28 Apr. 2019].

Perkins, E. and Davson, H. (2018). Human eye anatomy. Encyclopædia Britannica. Available at:
https://www.britannica.com/science/human-eye [Accessed 28 Apr. 2019].

Romero, F. (2010). 10 Things You Didn't Know About St. Patrick's Day. TIME.com. Available at:
http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1972553_1972551_197
2489,00.html [Accessed 28 Apr. 2019].

Schutten, J. (2015). The Mystery of Life: How Nothing Became Everything. New York: Simon and
Schuster.

Smith, C. and Beccaloni, G. (2010). Natural Selection and Beyond: The Intellectual Legacy of
Alfred Russel Wallace. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Robson, D. (2014). The women with superhuman vision. BBC. Available at:
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140905-the-women-with-super-human-vision
[Accessed 28 Apr. 2019].

Weeks, B. (2012). Alcamo's microbes and society. Massachusetts: Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Winawer, J., Witthoft, N., Frank, M., Wu, L., Wade, A. and Boroditsky, L. (2007). Russian blues
reveal effects of language on color discrimination. Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences, 104(19), pp.7780-7785.

Yong, E. (2014). Nature’s Most Amazing Eyes Just Got A Bit Weirder. National Geographic.
Available at:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2014/07/03/natures-most-
amazing-eyes-just-got-a-bit-weirder/ [Accessed 28 Apr. 2019].

14