Friday, August 29, 2008

Humans have x-ray eyes!

I was one of those kids that dreamed what it would be like to be Super Man. Flying was the big thing, but that x-ray vision, well that had it charm, if you know what I mean. Well with the advent of personal flying devices of one type or another the flying thing has kinda lost it's shine, but there was always the vision thing. So you can imagine that I was drawn to an article in Science Daily that make a case that two forward facing eyes that one had thought were for 3d vision are in fact evolved for x-ray vision. Now I can hear you saying....I ain't got no x-ray eyes....ahh, but if we look at how your eyes work they you will understand. As the article points out forward facing eyes evolved because of a busy or cluttered environment. Not only was it important to see how far away something was but also what existed around and behind obstructions. So our eyes and brains evolved to literally see "through" obstructions. As the article describes:
  • Demonstrating our X-ray ability is fairly simple: hold a pen vertically and look at something far beyond it. If you first close one eye, and then the other, you'll see that in each case the pen blocks your view. If you open both eyes, however, you can see through the pen to the world behind it.
TADA! another step closer to superman!

<- more ->

No comments: