The world has several locations that either have the weirdest topographical features or have a population with a biological difference so common that it is given a nickname. One such place is the island of Pingelap Atoll, which is known as the “Island of the Colourblind” for obvious reasons.
Colour blindness is not very uncommon among human beings. But most of them have the inability to see red and green while other colours are usually clearly visible. However, people on the Pingelap Atoll island see the world in almost entirely black and white. According to Discovery, the island made its first public impression in 1996 with the book “The Island of the Colorblind” written by Oliver Sacks.
It was also the origin of the nickname the island earned. The red-green colour blindness is seen in about 8 percent of men and is pretty common. About 10 percent of the population of Pingelap Atoll suffer from achromatopsia, a condition in which a person is able to see mostly in black and white colours.
The endemic achromatopsia started back in 1775 when a typhoon destroyed the island and only a few survivors were left behind. One of them, the king of the island, had the condition and passed it on to his future generations as the island repopulated. Within two hundred years, the ratio of people who had achromatopsia was 1 in 10.
There are three types of cone cells that are responsible for our eyes differentiating between colours. One of the types is sensitive to red, the second one to green and the third one is sensitive to blue. Achromatopsia happens when none of the cones works properly and leaves only the rod cells, sensitive to brightness, working well. This is the reason such people can only see things in grayscale and are unable to differentiate between colours. People with achromatopsia are also very sensitive to light which makes it easy for them to see at night better than others but can also make their lives difficult when the sun shines bright during the day.
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