It may shock you to learn that our perception of millions of different color hues is made possible with our retinas having only three color receptors.
Remember the mnemonic from grade school about rods and cones? Cones, like ice cream cones, are the color receptors in the eye. And each human cone has one of only three varieties of a color sensing pigment called opsin. (Your dog and many other mammals only have only two types of cones, so compared to us, they're somewhat color blind. Hawks have four types - including a type that sees UV rays and helps them spot their prey from high above.) Of our three opsin pigments, two are X-linked. That's why 1 in 12 men have some degree of color blindness, and even some men without diagnosed color blindness can have difficulties telling the difference between their navy and black socks.
Most of our color-sensing cones are located in the center of the macula in a tiny area known as the fovea, which work best in daylight. That's why we don't see much color at night. Since color vision relies on macular health, it's important to take your AREDS 2 and macular support eye vitamins every day. And all VisiVite AREDS2 eye vitamins require that you take not one, but two capsules every day, to get the full nutritional value listed on the bottle. Be sure to keep up and not forget to take them.
