Colour is a powerful thing, and it often lies at the heart of our perception of the world. Colours help us identify specific objects and associate properties to them. Colours also help us interpret emotions and recognise real world threats. However, an interesting question is where did this sense of colour come from?

How we see in colour

It all starts with your eyes.  Unlike many other living animals, human eyes are designed to interpret a wide range of light wavelengths which helps us identify colours. On a technical level, colours are simply different spectrums of wavelengths either travelling faster or slower towards our eyes and into our brain. We are good at it, but before you get big headed, we aren't the best at interpreting colours: Many animals have a colour perception ability that is far beyond our comprehension, for example, the Mantis Shrimp:  Believe it or not the mantis shrimp has 4 times better colour vision than humans do.