Five people view a never-before-seen color called 'olo'

The rainbow may be due for an update. A new, high-tech method for displaying color has allowed five test subjects to see a shade beyond the standard human range. The research, published April 18 in the journal Science Advances, is proof-of-concept for a technique that could allow neuroscientists to probe previously un-answerable questions about visual perception. In time, it might even help color blind people experience the full color spectrum, and enable regularly-sighted people to differentiate between hundreds, thousands, or millions of previously undetectable hues.
“It’s a technological tour de force,” Jay Neitz, a neuroscientist and professor in the department of ophthalmology at the University of Washington who was not involved in the new study, tells Popular Science. “What they’ve been able to do, it almost falls into the realm of science fiction. It’s so amazing– the technology that’s going on here.”