82 Lustrous Facts About Colors That’ll Blow Your Mind

Green and red peppers are not distinct varieties. Rather, green peppers are simply immature versions of red peppers.

52. As a deterrent to poachers, South African authorities inject a strong red dye into rhino horns which is clearly visible and poisonous to humans.

53. The only green over red stoplight in USA world is in Syracuse, New York because some persistent local Irish kids didn't want the red (British) above green (Ireland).

54. The biggest sperm bank in the world turns down redheaded donors because “not enough people want ginger kids.”

55. Stoplight loosejaw is a deep sea fish that takes advantage of the fact that other fishes can’t see a red light, and illuminates its prey with a beam of red bioluminescence so it can hunt with an effectively invisible beam of light.

Karate belts progress from light to dark colors as you progress in rank because in poorer times it was easier and cheaper to keep dying 1 belt a new (darker) color than keep buying new belts.

57. American school buses are yellow because you see yellow faster than any other color, 1.24x faster than red in fact.

58. White asparagus is the same as green asparagus except that it's kept buried when growing so no photosynthesis occurs.

59. Some babies in Asia are born with a Mongolian Blue Spot, a blue birthmark on the lower back and butts that usually disappears after three to five years.

60. Mandarinfish is one of only two vertebrates known to have blue coloring because of natural cellular pigment. In all other cases of blue colored animals, the color blue is made through the scattering of light.

China invented fireworks, but Italy gave them color. Colors are created using metallic powders. Calcium makes orange, sodium makes yellow, and barium makes green. Also, cylindrical tubes create whistling sounds, aluminum flakes make hissing noises, and flash powder makes the loud “booms.”

62. Men and women see colors differently. In general, women are better at discriminating among colors while men excel at tracking fast-moving objects and discerning detail from a distance.

63. The reason that (research) submarines are yellow is because yellow is one of the last few colors to be visible at great depth.

64. There is a 20 storey light spire on a building in downtown Stockholm, and anyone with a smartphone can change the colors on the lights that are shining in it. Its creators hope that the work can stand as a statement on the power of democracy and the power of the public.

65. Sulfur has all of the primary colors. It melts into a red liquid, burns blue, and is a yellow solid.

The pizza Margherita owes its name to Italy's Queen Margherita who in 1889 visited the Pizzeria Brandi in Naples. The Pizzaiolo (pizza maker) on duty that day, Raffaele Esposito created a pizza for the Queen that contained the three colors of the new Italian flag.

67. NES and SNES consoles turn yellow as they age because of a breakdown of a flame retardant chemical added to plastics used on older computer hardware.

68. The most complex eyes throughout the animal kingdom belong to the mantis shrimp, who can manipulate light polarization throughout its entire visible spectrum. That’s at least 10x as many colors in our visible spectrum.

69. Disney Imagineers created two colors (Go Away Green, and No Seeum Gray), which are used to help disguise buildings, bins, and anything else visually distracting, or unappealing.

70. We see the colors that we do because it’s the only spectrum of light that passes through water, the area where eyes first evolved. There hasn't been any evolutionary reason on land to see any broader spectrum.

Golden poison frogs are curious, bold, and seemingly aware of the fact that they are next to invulnerable. They make no attempt to conceal themselves and actually flaunt their beautiful colors to intimidate potential predators.

72. Purple as a color is similar to violet, but violet is a spectral color with its own wavelength on the visible spectrum of light whereas purple is a composite color, made by combining red and blue.

73. Red color-blind monkeys who underwent gene therapy by having their eyes injected with a red cone, had their color blindness cured, potentially opening a door for curing color blindness in humans.

74. A fireman's eyes at the Chernobyl disaster are said to have turned from brown to blue because of the intensity of the radiation he received.

75. A device has been developed that can kill 100 mosquitoes per/sec up to 100 feet away using infra-red motion censoring and a Blue laser. The idea came about after Bill Gates requested help to fight mosquito-spread Malaria in underdeveloped countries. Production cost is around $50.