Researchers from China and the USA have studied the eyes of a trilobite named Dalmanitina socialis. These creatures had ‘bifocal’ eyes consisting of two lenses that bent light at different angles, enabling them to see both close up and far away objects at the same time. The researchers were “inspired by the optical structure of […]
Trilobite “hyper-eyes” found according to ScienceDaily 30 September 2021, Science Alert 3 October 2021 and Scientific Reports 30 September 2021 doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-98740-z. Trilobite eyes have long been known for precision optics, and now one kind of trilobite has been found to have more complex eyes than previously thought. Trilobites of the suborder Phacopina have two […]
Scallops have telescope mirror eyes, according to reports in Science (AAAS) News and Live Science 30 November 2017, and Science doi: 10.1126/science.aam9506, 1 December 2017. Scallops are bivalve shellfish that have many tiny round eyes. The eyes have an unusual structure – they have two retinae (light sensitive layers) and a mirror that focuses the […]
Oldest eyes like modern eyes, claim scientists in reports in ScienceDaily 6 December 2017, BBC News 7 December 2017 and PNAS doi:10.1073/pnas.1716824114, published online 4 December 2017. A group of scientists from Scotland, Germany and Estonia have studied the eyes of a trilobite fossil Schmidtiellus reetae found in Estonia rocks dated as 530 million years […]
Shrimps’ amazing eyes revealed, as described in articles in EurekAlert, UQ News Online and ScienceNOW, 20 March 2008. A group of researchers led by Justin Marshall of the University of Queensland and the Queensland Brain Institute have been studying the eyes of mantis shrimps – large reef dwelling crustaceans, also known as stomatopods. They found […]
Human eyes are badly designed with an “inverted” retina, challenge many sceptics. Now new discovery proves optical fibre design is found in human eye reports ScienceSHOTS and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 104, p8287, 15 May 2007. When light enters the eye it has to penetrate several layers of cells in the […]
Artificial bug eye made according a report in ScienceNOW 27 April 2006 and Science vol. 312 p557, 28 April 2006. Biophysicists at the University of California, Berkeley have made an artificial compound eye by making a dome of a light sensitive polymer covered with tiny bulges. They then shone ultra-violet light onto the dome so […]
An Idiotic Eye: Richard Dawkins asserts the vertebrate eye is particularly badly designed. He first condemns the eye for only having clear vision in the fovea (the central region of the total visual field for each eye), and therefore we need to constantly move the eyes and use image processing software in the brain to […]
Adjustable focus glasses made, as reported in news@nature and ScienceNOW 3 April 2006. Scientists at the University of Arizona, Tucson, have developed a liquid crystal lens that increases its magnifying power when a small electric current is applied to it. The lens could be used by people who currently need reading glasses or bifocal lenses […]