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 […]
Eye evolution problem reported in Current Biology published online 19 July 2018 doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2018.05.055. A large and diverse group of invertebrates, the cnidarians, including jellyfish, corals and sea anemones, vary a lot in their ability to detect light and see their surrounding environment. Some have no eyes, some have eye spots and others have eyes […]
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 […]
Mammals emerge into daylight after dinosaur extinction, according to ScienceDaily and New Scientist 6 November 2017 and Nature Ecology & Evolution, 2017; doi: 10.1038/s41559-017-0366-5, published online 6 November 2017. According to an evolutionary theory, known as the “nocturnal bottleneck hypothesis”, mammals evolved from a small nocturnal common ancestor who hid during the daylight hours to […]
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 […]
Shrimp eyes make better DVD players according to an article in ABC News in Science, 26 October 2009. Researchers studying the eyes of an Australian crustacean have found that its eyes process light in a more complex way than any man-made DVD or CD player. The shrimps’ eyes are able to convert linear polarised light […]
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 […]
Space and defence scientists are studying a complex navigation system that tracks the horizon, detects blue, green and ultra-violet light, has a compass that works on sunlight polarisation, gauges airspeed and changes in direction, and computes how fast images of surrounding objects pass by. No, it is not a secret device stolen from some mysterious […]
Big eyes caused Neanderthal’s demise, according to articles in ABC News in Science, BBC News and New Scientist 13 March 2013. Eiluned Pearce and Robin Dunbar of Oxford University have compared 13 Neanderthal skulls with 32 Homo sapiens skulls and found the Neanderthals had larger eye sockets, by an average of 6mm as measured from […]