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The world is a colorful place, and human eyes have evolved to take in all its chromatic splendor, from vermillion red to bright tangerine to cobalt blue.

But when we do, are you and I seeing the same thing? What you might be seeing as red might be very different from what I'm seeing as red.

My wife likes a color, which I don't like.

I like the color she doesn't like.

She will say, oh, this is maybe a little bit more brighter, maybe.

But I'll say, no, no, it looks good. Your eyes respond to only three different colors or wavelength

bands of light. This trichromatic view is different than that of other animals. We can see both

more colors and fewer, depending on the animal. Also, humans can't see into the ultraviolet or

infrared like some

critters can. So what colorful insights might we be missing? I'm Seth Shostak.

I'm Molly Bentley. Welcome to Big Picture Science produced at the SETI Institute. In this

episode, why color perception is a trick of the brain, making that question we've all once asked

still relevant. How do we know

that the color I'm seeing is the same color you're seeing? Plus, platypuses and the growing club

of fluorescent mammals and the first new blue pigment in more than two centuries. This episode is

...