Scientists Find 'Olo' Colors That Can Only Be Seen With Laser Assistance

The test color is similar to olo (Photo: Freepik/juicy_fish)

JAKARTA - A group of scientists claim to have found a new color. But you can't see it with the naked eye. The color is named olo and claims his invention came from a group of scientists at the University of California, Berkeley. Uniquely, olo can only be seen if the eye gets a special stimulation using a laser.

The researchers who discovered this color described it as very thick and striking greenish blue. This color is claimed to never appear in sight.

"This is a variation of the blue-green color, tea, or green bird, all of which is arguably an accurate description," said Ren Ng, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Berkeley, quoted from the USA TODAY page on Saturday, April 26.

"But in my opinion, this is more than that because of the level of saturation. I will call it the most intense teal color you can see in the world. The color is very striking," he continued.

The research, published in the journal Science Advances on April 18, 2025, focuses on how light stimulates cone cells in the human eye. There are three types of cone cells, namely S, L, and M, which are sensitive to blue, red, and green, respectively.

But under normal conditions, any light that stimulates M cells will also affect L or S cells. But in this experiment, scientists used lasers to exclusively stimulate M cells, eventually producing color signals that never happened naturally.

"What we do is stimulate M-cone specifically, without activating L or S," the researchers wrote.

As a result, new color perceptions emerged called olo. Five people managed to see this color. Two of them are researchers from the University of Washington. The other three include Hannah Doyle, a doctoral student at Berkeley, and Austin Roorda, professor of optometry and visual science who are also part of the research team.

Lasers in these experiments are able to control up to 1,000 photoreceptors in the eyes simultaneously. Participants are asked to match olo to a controllable color. The closest color they choose is the teal.

This research is not just about finding new colors. Ren Ng and his team hope this technology can be used to understand more deeply how the human brain processes color, and helps people with color blindness. Hannah Doyle sees great potential in further research.

"This research will definitely open up many opportunities for further research," he said.

He added that this technology can also be used to research retinal diseases such as loss of conical cells, which causes a decrease in color perceptions and increased light sensitivity.

"Taking into account optical limitations with adaptive optics has allowed us to make a variety of new discoveries in vision science, ranging from mosaic mappings of trichromatic cone cells for the first time, to learning how human visual sharpness responds to aberrational corrections," explained Austin Roorda.

But not all scientists believe that olo is a new color.

"This is a greender color that is saturated, which can only be produced in subjects with a normal red-green chromatic mechanism, when the input comes only from M cells," said John Barbur, a vision expert from City St George's, University of London.

If you hope to buy paint, firemail, or olo color paper, you should postpone this hope first.

"Olo is the starting point, not the end point. We want to make sure the appearance of cells after cells really works well." said Ren Ng.

Although olo cannot be enjoyed by everyone, his invention opens a new chapter in human understanding of color.