While male squirrel monkeys are not the best at seeing color, they could help scientists find a cure for human color blindness or color deficiency. The little monkeys are protanopes; they only see medium and short wavelengths of light, blues and greens and yellow; they have no receptor for reddish hues.

Jay Neitz, a color vision researcher at the University of Washington and his wife Maureen, a geneticist, created a serum to help spider monkeys see colors they have never seen before. But, a lot has to go right.

“We’ve been working on ways to improve the efficiency,” Neitz says.

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“Monkeys with superpower eyes could help cure color blindness”