Color+Blindness

=**What is color blindness?**= Color Blindness is thought of as a mild disabilty that affects the way some people see certain colors. About 1 in ten men in America are color blind. Less than one percent of American women are color blind. The three most common types of color blindness are: Most people who are color blind have trouble distinguishing red and green.Most of the time it will be difficult for them to tell different shades of colors apart.(Ex. red and red-orange look the same, sky blue and dark blue look the same,etc). A rare type of color blindness is Blue-green. Being completly color blind is called **achromatopsia**. This is incredibly rare. When people have achromatopsia the only colors they can see are gray, black, and white. If you suffer from achromatopsia, you might experience eye problems like photophobia (fear of light), nystagmus, and lowered visual sharpness.
 * Red-green vision defects (most common)
 * Blue-yellow vision defects
 * Totally color blind (you can't see any colors)

**How is color blindness genetic?**
Color blindness is linked to the sex chromosomes. There are two X chromosomes in girls and one X and one Y chromosomes in boys. There are two X chromosomes in women, which means the alleles could be homozygous dominant or recessive. In men, only one X chromosome is present, which means the disorder will show up in the genotype. Because mostly men are color blind, women can have two recessive alleles that would normally lead to color blindness, but because there are two X chromosomes in their genotype, they would only be a carrier.

=What are the symtoms of color blindness?= The symptoms depend on the type of color blindness you have. If you're completley color blind, your general vision won't be as good and you might have lazy eye. If you have mild color blindness, you'll most likely have trouble telling red-greens, blue-yellows, or even blue-greens apart.

The picture below shows how a person with normal vision or different variations of color blindness would see the colored pencils.

Here's a link to a great article on color blindness: [] This is an awesome video about color blindness: []

By Corinna Cardone