There’s something undeniably thrilling – and slightly unsettling – about learning that scientists have somehow coaxed our eyes into seeing a colour that “doesn’t exist in nature.” They call it “olo,” and describe it as an otherworldly blue-green so intensely saturated that it sits beyond our usual visual playground.
In their study, reported in the journal Science Advances, researchers used a laser to stimulate only the M-cones in volunteers’ retinas, bypassing the S- and L-cones entirely, thereby making visible a colour hue we’ve never quite encountered. It’s a brilliant piece of vision science, this new “olo” colour. But I can’t help but wonder. Beyond the initial laboratory euphoria, what does a brand-new colour really mean for us – individually, socially, and yes, even commercially?
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It’s easy to marvel at this scientific breakthrough, and I do. But the longer I sat with the news, the less it felt like a simple marvel and the more it began to feel like an unsettling shift in the way we build the (increasingly more digital) world around our eyes.
Because, if there’s one thing technological progress has shown us it’s this… what we see often dictates how we feel. And tech is masterful at playing with our psychology through our vision, whether it’s a pixel on a digital signboard or a notification badge on the smartphone screen turning bright red. Now we have a new colour to contend with.
If you look back at tech’s evolution, it’s hard to separate innovation from the palette it presents. Think about the Apple “aqua” interface of the early 2000s, or the later “flat design” revolution with its bold primary swatches. Every shift in UI colour feels like a subtle cue that something new is happening – an invitation to explore a fresh device or a redesigned app. And now, scientists say they’ve given us an entirely new colour to play with.
How long before our phones and apps are updated to include “olo” in their accent libraries? It’s not just a gimmick, as it’s a scientific fact that colour fundamentally shapes our mood and behaviours. A flash of red might spur us to click, while a soothing teal keeps us lingering on a page. What new emotional buttons could “olo” press?
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It’s not hard to imagine the possibilities, of course. Next-gen displays boasting “true olo rendering.” AR and VR headsets promising immersion so real it taps into cones you didn’t know could be stimulated. Advertisers and interface designers leaping at the chance to dazzle our brains with an optical sensation we have zero natural immunity to. Forget brighter and sharper – what if something could just look newer to your eye? Could “olo” become the visual equivalent of an itch you have to scratch?
Part of me feels childish for even thinking in these dystopian tones. But another part knows how this movie goes. Already we live in a world where attention is a currency more volatile than Bitcoin. Everything we see on our screens, our apps, our curated feeds aren’t neutral windows, but active agents designed to tweak emotion, influence action, and yes, induce purchase.
Hence, I wonder. Do we really need a new colour? Not in the aesthetic sense – sure, I’d love to know what “olo” looks like for the sheer existential thrill of it – but in the behavioural sense, in the psychological arms race of our modern lives.
Then again, it’s not all marketing doom and algorithmic gloom. According to the scientists, the same laser magic that gave us “olo” might one day help people with colour blindness perceive a richer, fuller range of hues. Imagine that – someone seeing green properly for the first time, not in a clumsy approximation but vividly, beautifully, via a system that can tickle their retina just right. If there’s any poetry left in science, it’s there.
So maybe “olo” isn’t the next step in some sinister manipulation game. Maybe it’s just another notch in the long human tradition of expanding what’s possible – like when we first saw Saturn’s rings through a telescope, or the first photo of Earth from the Moon.
Still… a small, suspicious voice in my head wonders: if we weren’t already halfway programmed by nudges and notifications, would we even need a new colour to trigger our eyes? Or would we just be content to admire the sunset, filters off, saturation at factory settings?
Maybe I’m being too pessimistic. Maybe “olo” really is just a beautiful accident, a new crayon in the cosmic box. Or maybe not. Either way, I can’t wait to see it. And I already feel slightly bad for my poor overstimulated retinas.
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