About 10 years ago, glass scientist Don McPherson was playing in an Ultimate Frisbee tournament in California. At the time, McPherson specialized in making glasses to protect surgeons’ eyes from lasers that they use to perform operations. Some of the doctors reported an unexpected effect of the safety glasses: The lenses seemed to make certain colors—like the deep red hue of blood—more vivid. A few surgeons even enjoyed wearing them outdoors as sunglasses. 

McPherson was wearing a pair at the Frisbee tournament when a teammate asked to borrow them. The friend put the glasses on and looked out at the field, scanning the end zone marked with bright orange cones. “Dude,” he exclaimed suddenly, “I can see the cones!” 

At first McPherson didn’t understand what his teammate was talking about. The friend, a talented player, explained that he was colorblind. He’d always had trouble distinguishing the orange cones from the green grass surrounding them—until he put on McPherson’s glasses and the colors popped like never before.

Colorblind people do just fine most of the time but can run into problems in certain situations. Some may have trouble telling whether produce is ripe, seeing whether meat is properly cooked, and noticing skin rashes or sunburn. They also may be unable to distinguish the colors of traffic lights. In daylight they can often tell the lights apart by their positions on the traffic signal, but at night it may be impossible to see. 

In schools, “students sometimes have difficulties, since a lot of information on assignments may be color-coded,” says McPherson. The issue may even come up on tests. Teachers may not realize that certain students are colorblind—and students themselves may not know if they haven’t been tested. Currently, most states don’t require color vision testing in schools.

On the other hand, colorblindness may have some upsides. Research suggests that colorblind people can distinguish certain colors that look identical to viewers with standard color vision. And some types of colorblindness may give people an advantage at detecting camouflage. During World War II, colorblind servicemen reportedly spotted hidden enemy soldiers, ships, and weaponry that others couldn’t see.

McPherson conducted experiments to find out how well the glasses worked. Some people with red-green colorblindness become much better at identifying colors with the glasses on, and some improve their performance on certain tests of color vision. 

The glasses don’t work for everyone. People who have an abnormal pigment may notice a big difference in their color vision, but people who are missing a pigment usually don’t see much improvement.

McPherson cofounded a company, EnChroma, that sells the glasses. Anyone can take a test at the company website to see how likely it is that the glasses will help (see Our Results). 

Some researchers hope to develop a permanent cure for colorblindness. In 2009, University of Washington scientist Jay Neitz injected a pigment gene into the eyes of two colorblind adult monkeys. Soon, the monkeys started passing tests of color vision that they had consistently failed before.

Someday, a gene-based fix could open people’s eyes to a colorful new world.