Mighty Mouse

Having dwelt in evolution's guttural land of the color-blind, some mice have emerged with full technicolor vision thanks to the constant meddling of scientists. For our furry rodent friends, I wonder if it's anything like watching the Wizard of Oz.

In the simplest of terms, mice have two kinds of color detector "cone" cells. This same genetic trait is what causes people to have red-green colorblindness. They only see the world in hues of blues, yellow, and grays. All other humans have three kinds of receptor cells, and thus we see in trichromat.

Scientists took this third kind of receptor cone cell from human retina cells and super-glued them to the eyes of unsuspecting mice. Now they can safely drive through heavy traffic intersections. Well, the smart ones can at least.

And what does this new mighty mouse mean for us? It means a possible cure for red-green colorblindness in humans, "and perhaps add a fourth color receptor, which would allow a finer parsing of the spectrum."

Scientist Jay Neitz explains it this way: "You'd think that the color world of a tetrachromat would be very rich compared to ours."

Soon we'll all be seeing the smell of roses after a surgical procedure instead of tripping out on hallucinogens.