Mice made to see a rainbow of colours

[BurtWorm]

http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070319/full/070319-12.html

News
Published online: 22 March 2007; | doi:10.1038/news070319-12



Lucy Odling Smee


Mice can usually only see a dull mix of yellow, blues and greys.



Simply by inserting a piece of DNA that codes for a human eye pigment into the genome of a mouse, scientists have introduced a rainbow array of colour to the dull mix of yellows, blues and greys that normally make up a mouse's visual world.

This suggests that the mammalian brain is very flexible and can interpret signals not normally encountered. It also hints that just a single genetic mutation could have added reds and greens to the visual palette of our ancestors tens of millions of years ago.

Gerald Jacobs from the University of California in Santa Barbara and his colleagues have genetically engineered mice with a human pigment in their eye as well as the normal mouse pigments and shown that this does appear to give the mice the ability to see colours they could not see before.

"The implications are astounding," says David Williams, an expert in vision at the University of Rochester in New York state. "It's stunning to think the rest of the nervous system in the mouse has developed to be able to process the new information."

Most mammals have just two kinds of photopigment in their retinas: one is encoded in the X chromosome and the other in an autosomal (non-sex) chromosome. But many primates, including humans, have a third photopigment, encoded by a second gene on the X chromosome. This allows for a much broader appreciation of colour....

[skypilot]

1. Looks like the Sixties just began for mice.

:smoke:

[BurtWorm]

4. Will they be able to do anything anymore but sit on their little haunches

and say, "Whooaa, dude!"

[loudsue]

8. Good one!

:rofl: It's all new!

:kick:

[TlalocW]

2. I want this for my ferrets

So they can live a richer, more rewarding life.

TlalocW

[tridim]

3. Wonder how much more the human brain can "see" that our eyes..

aren't equipped to provide? From my limited experience with LSD, it's way beyond what we see when sober. :)

It'd certainly be interesting to be able to see the whole spectrum before UV and beyond infrared.

[KittyWampus]

7. Some women are tetrachromats

recent paper by Kimberly Jameson, Susan Highnote and Linda Wasserman of the University of California, San Diego, concerning females who may have tetrachromacy shows amazing results. Up to 50 per cent of women are tetrachromatic and can use their extra pigments in "contextually rich viewing circumstances". For example when looking at a rainbow, tetrachromat females can segment it into, on average, 10 different colours, whereas their trichromat brothers and sisters can see only seven, much as Isaac Newton's red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Consequently for those special tetrachromat women, this island that they inhabit may be seen in emerald, jade, verdant, olive, lime, bottle and 34 other shades of green. Apparently, men and women do see the world differently.

[Clark2008]

12. Wow... I can do that and it never occurred to me others

couldn't.

Where do I find out more about this? Do you have a handy-dandy link?

(BTW, I probably have all 34+ shades of green in my house. I loves me some green).

[otherlander]

5. We only see what helps us survive.

If the ability to see something doesn't help survival, then the species doesn't evolve with that ability. Echolocation didn't help humans survive, so we don't have it, but it helped dolphins survive, so they do. Seeing colors didn't help mice survive, so they can't, but it helped us, so we do. If our minds could open I wonder what biologiaclly useless absolute miracles we might see...

[tridim]

11. It'd be beneficial if we could detect UV light,

Since it's a spectrum we generally want to avoid. Same deal with short wave radiation.

"Hey Ogg, it's a little less than violet out today, better stay inside!" :)

[soothsayer]

6. cool! give me ultraviolet like some animal

[TahitiNut]

13. Infrared would be my preference.

Lookin' for the warm. :shrug:

[Skidmore]

9. Freaking mice are now going to evolve until they can make

tools and take over the world. Damn. I really don't like small furry rodents.... UGH! Ick!! Shudder....

[Duer 157099]

10. Such a mouse, to the other mice, would have ESP

"Really dude! There's, like, this *other* color I'm seeing! No! REALLY, I swear!!" (said the GM mouse to the other mouse)

No doubt we have parallel situations in humans, although (hopefully) not due to genetic engineering.

Since some "psychic" abilities run in families, makes one wonder if there's a genetic basis for this "extra" perception. Will be cool when that/those genes are discovered eh?

And of course, what if we prove that some "mental illnesses" that involve hallucinations are really also just some extra genetic perception? (EGP?)

[EstimatedProphet]

14. Cool! I'm bringing mice to my next Dead show!

They'll really get off on Drumz&Space I bet.