Eli5 What causes colour-blindness?
In: Biology
There are a lot of different things that can cause color blindness and there are a lot of different types of color blindness. The most common form is caused by a genetic defect that happens to be located on the X chromosome. This is supposed to have a gene which encodes an important protein for the development of the red color cones in your retina. If you do not have this gene then you are left with only two types of cones to detect colors instead of three and will have a harder time distinguishing certain colors from each other, for example certain shades of red and green. Because this gene happens to be located on the X chromosome and girls have two such chromosomes they are less likely to be affected then boys which only have one. The girls essentially have a spare gene in case one is damaged. So this form of color blindness affects about 8% of boys but only 0.5% of girls.
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