Top Five Facts: Colour

1. Seeing red
Like a large number of animals, bulls are colour blind and can’t see red. So it’s a common misconception that a matador’s red cloth is what gets a charging bull wound up.

2. Sticky light
Try ripping a piece of sticky tape off the roll in the dark. This separates positive and negative electrical charges – when they recombine, it creates a flash of blueish light.

3. Slow sparkle
Want to slow light down? It travels at its slowest inside a diamond. Even then, it still manages a fairly impressive 124,000 kilometres (77,000 miles) per second!

4. Whiter than white
Ever seen white clothes glow under a UV light? Laundry detergents contain optical brighteners, which emit blue light under UV to stop your whites from looking yellow.

5. How many colours?
By measuring our eyes’ top performances, scientists have estimated that we can distinguish up to 10 million colours, though thankfully we don’t have names for them all!