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From: gasp@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Isaac Kohane)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: sex and color
Message-ID: <2302@bucse.bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Date: Thu, 6-Nov-86 23:58:41 EST
Article-I.D.: bucse.2302
Posted: Thu Nov  6 23:58:41 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 7-Nov-86 23:42:41 EST
Organization: Boston U. Comp. Sci.
Lines: 18

Well, it seems that women can in fact see more than men.

In Nature Vol 232 p 578:

We (humankind... I'm treading on thin ice, have to watch out for
net.women) are basically trichromatic.  That is we have three pigments
in our retina (red green and blue) each with its own characteristic
peak absorption/stimulus range. Now, it appears that the long wave
(red-sensitive) pigment in our cones (in our retina) is genetically
coded for by a locus (jargon for "segment of") on chromosome X.

Now, as we all know, women have twice as much X chromosome as men do.
Therefore, if there are multiple alleles (versions of that gene at
that locus) for the red pigment (as is suggested by recent experiments
in this area), then a women could have one allele on one X chromosome,
and another allele on the second X chromosome. Each allele would have
a different peak absorption wavelength. It might be then, that some
women are in fact quadrichromatic. What do they see that we don't? :-)