Researchers id new class of photoreceptors

The identification of a new class of photoreceptors in the retina of fruit flies sheds light on the regulation of the pigments of the eye that confer color vision, researchers at New York University’s Center for Developmental Genetics report in a new study appearing in the Public Library of Science’s journal, PloS Biology. The findings, they write, may also have implications for the regulating of olfactory receptors, which are responsible for the detection of smells, because both types of receptors belong to the same protein family.