New Research on Color Blindness

"Now, a host of new research and tools promise to improve life for the estimated 32 million Americans—8% of men and 0.5% of women—who have some degree of colorblindness," reports Yahoo! Finance picking up a story from the Wall Street Journal. "For many, getting through the day—avoiding wardrobe perils and worse—has often involved bringing in a second pair of eyes. But new websites and smartphone apps offer to help identify or enhance hard-to-see colors. Videogame manufacturers are increasingly including 'colorblind' modes in their games. And researchers are homing in on more specific vision tests that may allow mildly colorblind people to qualify for jobs that, until now, have been closed to them." Read more.

"Sunglasses" for the Color Blind

"EnChroma will be demonstrating several new sunglass lenses aimed at helping the color blind," writes Discovery. Its "lenses are formulated for the one in 20 males worldwide with either deuteranomalous or protanomalous color vision deficiency; the Cx-D lens addresses deuteranomalous (red-green) color blindedness and Cx-PT tackles protanomalous (red-lacking). These filters represent the first non-haploscopic solution -- allowing the same color perception by each eye -- to provide an effective correction for color blindedness. Constructed with over 100 layers of nano-thin, but durable, metal-oxide coatings applied to the surface of a chemically tempered ultra-thin glass substrate, these lenses selectively reduce exact light wavelengths responsible for the color confusion." Read more.