Unicellular Eye found in a Dinoflagellate Warnowiid - iCell

In an article/letter published in the Journal "Nature" on July 1st, 2015(paywalled), Gregory S. Gavelis, Shiho Hayakawa, Richard A. White III, Takashi Gojobori, Curtis A. Suttle, Patrick J. Keeling & Brian S. Leander explain that they found a single celled eye in the already complex unicellular Warnowiid Dinoflagellate.

If you want to see microorganisms at home with your own microscope, these inexpensive microscopes from Amazon deliver to India. ( https://amzn.to/3giF3wr )

Another option is the smartphone connected digital microscopes which can be plugged in. ( https://amzn.to/2Xqeih4 )

Warnowiid Dinofalgellates are plankton have been previously been studied for their highly elaborate ultrastructural systems: pistons, nematocysts, and ocelloids in a single celled eukaryote. (free full text)

But that is nothing compared to the complexity of an eye. The human eye is very complicated, but the octopus eye is even more so, and more efficient. Come to think of it, Octopi can actually sense light with their skin !

Single celled organism with an EYE (Ocelloid)

This Dinoflagellate Warnowiid is a single-celled sea orgaism that has fashioned itself an eye with a basic lens, cornea and retina. That is incredibly complex for a single cell.

In fact, the ‘ocelloid’ within the planktonic predator looks so much like a complex eye that it was originally mistaken for the eye of an animal that the plankton had eaten.

The warnowiid is found off the coast of Canada and Japan, but only in tiny numbers. Researchers first stumbled across one more than a century ago, but studying the creature proved difficult because it rapidly disintegrates after being taken out of seawater.

To catch his own warnowiid, Gregory S. Gavelis searched seawater samples under a microscope for a year. When he eventually found one he froze it in plastic resin, preserving it like a fly trapped in amber. He then made a 3-D model by taking snapshots of the warnowiid under an electron microscope – and was stunned by what he saw.

While other single-celled creatures can detect light using “eyespots” – simple structures that allow an organism to tell dark from light – the warnowiid seemed to have repurposed its internal organelles to form what resembled the lens, cornea, iris and retina of a complex eye.

The “cornea”, for example – the transparent outer layer at the front of the eye – was made of mitochondria, the bits of the cell normally responsible for energy production. The mitochondria in the warnowiid interlocked to form a sheet-like layer around the lens, curved to concentrate incoming light on to the “retina”.

(Left : Electomicrograph Right :Schematic ) of the Eye of the Warnowiid

The light-sensing “retina” at the back of the eye was made up of plastids, structures normally involved in photosynthesis. The team extracted genetic material from inside the plastids and found it rich in algal DNA. The team suspects that at some point during evolution, a warnowiid ancestor gobbled up some algae and adopted its photosynthetic equipment. When the organism later abandoned photosynthesis for the predatory life, it repurposed its light-capturing plastids into a light-sensing organ.

What is the Warnowiid Eye used for ?

It is not clear how warnowiids use their “eye”, but the authors believe they’re used to hunt. Warnowiids spiral through the water as they swim and Gavelis thinks the eye lets them see flashes of light as it bounces off the single-celled organisms that are their prey. The lens likely concentrates incoming light to increase sensitivity – rather than projecting an image as our own eye does.

Color vision sensitivity test

The following is a fun color sensitivity grading test. If you want a proper color vision test, you are looking for the simple Isihara's chart or the complicated Farnsworth-Munsel 100 hue test. You could see what the color blind actually see.

 Or make or buy a fun gag gift for the color blind to fool them.

Daniel Kish, Ben Underwood are Batman / Daredevil

Some totally blind people learnt to use echolocation to "see" and navigate like a  Bat or Dolphins or a Submarine.

True comic book geeks would know that Daredevil is the comic book superhero who should be mentioned here and not Batman.

Watch a video about why Daredevil should be called Batman, and Ghost Rider should be called Daredevil.

These are a few people who can do this.

• Daniel Kish - the echolocation teacher
• Ben Underwood
• Dr. Lawrence Scadden
• Lucas Murray
• Juan Ruiz
• Tom De Witte - Batman from Belgium
• Kevin Warwick - not blind, but cyborg batman

Here's a research article about human echolocation.

This following video is a documentary about Ben Underwood, whose eyes were removed at 2 years of age due to eye cancer(retinoblastoma). He later passed away at age 16 due to metstasized cancer.

Daniel Kish
Echolocation has been further developed by Daniel Kish, who works with the blind, leading blind teenagers hiking and mountain-biking through the wilderness and teaching them how to navigate new locations safely, with a technique that he calls "FlashSonar", through the non-profit organization World Access for the Blind. Kish had his eyes removed at the age of 13 months due to retinal cancer. He learned to make palatal clicks with his tongue when he was still a child—and now trains other blind people in the use of echolocation and in what he calls "Perceptual Mobility". Though at first resistant to using a cane for mobility, seeing it as a "handicapped" device, and considering himself "not handicapped at all", Kish developed a technique using his white cane combined with echolocation to further expand his mobility.

Kish reports that "The sense of imagery is very rich for an experienced user. One can get a sense of beauty or starkness or whatever - from sound as well as echo". He is able to distinguish a metal fence from a wooden one by the information returned by the echoes on the arrangement of the fence structures; in extremely quiet conditions, he can also hear the warmer and duller quality of the echoes from wood compared to metal.

Ben Underwood
Diagnosed with retinal cancer at the age of two, American Ben Underwood had his eyes removed at the age of three.

He taught himself echolocation at the age of five. He was able to detect the location of objects by making frequent clicking noises with his tongue. This case was explained in 20/20: Medical Mysteries. He used it to accomplish such feats as running, playing basketball, riding a bicycle, rollerblading, playing football, and skateboarding. Underwood's childhood eye doctor claimed that Underwood was one of the most proficient human echolocators.

Underwood died on January 19, 2009 at the age of 16, from the same cancer that took his vision.

The Polish film director Andrzej Jakimowski met Ben and was inspired by him. In 2012, he released the film "Imagine" about Ian, a spatial orientation instructor, who arrives at a world-renowned Lisbon clinic for the visually impaired to work with blind patients. The doctor in charge of the clinic hires Ian, on condition that the patients won’t be exposed to danger as they learn to move around by themselves using the echolocation methods he teaches.


Just another point to note. These people are NOT using Blindsight. That is a different phenomenon in which people who have normal eyes, but damaged vision processing areas in their brain, can see on a subconscious level - even though they don't realize that they can. They are legally blind.

Chinese researchers develop bio-engineered acellular Acornea for corneal transplant

An Eye with a Standard Corneal Transplant - interrupted & continuous sutures visible

One major cause of (semi)permanent blindness is corneal blindness - that means the transparent outer cover of the eye becomes opaque, while the rest of the eye is essentially normal. This was one of the hardest problems to fix, because replacing the opaque cornea meant getting a good quality donor cornea. Even then, sometimes the new cornea does not stay transparent. And getting new good donated corneas is difficult. There have been attempts at artificial corneas ealier, but they are used as a last resort after the donated human corneas are unsuccessful.

A team of Chinese bio-engineers have developed a new bio-engineered artificial cornea which they call "Acornea". It is an acellular corneal stroma product developed mainly by China Regenerative Medicine Int. Ltd. (CRMI) and the Tissue Engineering R & D Center with the Fourth Military Medical University (FMMU). 

Apparently, it was accreddited by China Food and Drug Administration in late April 2015. Clinical trials have been going on since 2010 and the transplants show a good success rate similar to human donated corneas.

Beijing Tongren Hospital and Wuhan Xiehe Hospital, among others, have conducted clinical trials of Acornea since 2010, recording a success rate of 94.44 percent, similar to the results seen with donated human corneas.

Representational image

It is a kind of heterogeneous cornea, is devoid of cells, hybrid proteins, poly-saccharides and other antigens, but retains a natural collagen structure with remarkable bio-compatibility and biological safety, according to Jin Yan, head of the Tissue Engineering R & D Center with FMMU. He says it quickly integrates with the host cornea and does not undergo rejection.

This might be the answer to the shortage of cornea for transplant and the risk of immune rejection of corneas.

Making auto Stereograms - Magic Eye 3D pictures and games without glasses

Stereograms are pictures that are printed or displayed on 2D surfaces but with a special viewing technique can be visualized in 3D. That includes the technique of combining two images kept side by side to see in 3 D. Here we shall talk about Single Image Stereograms or autostereograms.

The above image has a hidden text in it along with a drawing behind the text. You can view it using the parallel or wall-eyed viewing method.

If you are in India, this paperback book of stereograms will be an excellent gift for a kid.

You should have 2 relatively normal(or corrected with glasses) eyes for stereograms to work.

The trick is to relax your eye muscles so that it focuses beyond the depth of the screen(or printed paper)

Practice so that the two black dots on the top become 4 and then merge the middle 2 to get [3 dots]

Here is a website which will help you to practice that :
http://www.vision3d.com/3views.html
They have various tips and tricks for first timers to get used to parallel-viewing and cross-eyed viewing. Once you get the hang of it once, it should come easily. Like riding a bicycle.

There are also Random Dot Stereograms, Animated Stereograms, ASCII stereograms, and more.
There's also a type of 3D picture called wigglegrams.

This should be easy - a dog made of blocks - like a minecraft dog

This is an instructable to make a quick secret ASCII stereogram message.
There's more :

Daredevil is Batman - or should be, and Ghost Rider is Daredevil

Have you ever wondered why Marvel's "Daredevil" - the blind comic book hero who navigated by sonar, is called Daredevil and NOT Batman. have you felt that Batman would be a more appropriate name for him ? Or even DolphinMan (maybe that is too much, but you get the point)

Buy Daredevil Comic Book here

By the way, Batman is from DC comics, another comic universe.

Ben Affleck played both Batman and Daredevil

Who deserves the name Daredevil ? Ghost Rider. Obviously. He is a former daredevil stunt biker who dared to make a deal with the devil to become - come on say it ... Ghost Rider ?

Here is a hilarious video explaining why their names are all wrong. Enjoy !

Blind as a bat Daredevil

Uses sonar like a bat
 

Why is Marvel's Daredevil called so ?

Creator Stan Lee chose the name Daredevil because it evoked swashbucklers and circus daredevils, and he assigned Bill Everett, the creator of the Sub-Mariner to design and draw Daredevil #1
 Daredevil's nickname is "the Man Without Fear".

Octopus can see with their skin - see what they feel

Scientists have now found that octopuses (or octopi or octopodes - all 3 are correct, but octopuses is most accepted) and other cuttlefish can detect light with their skin. Octopuses and cuttlefish have opsins in their skin. Opsins are proteins normally found in the retinal receptors (including of humans) that help in vision. But instead of producing them in chromatophores, octopuses only make opsins in hairlike nerve endings in the skin.

In 2010, Roger T. Hanlon, a biologist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., and his colleagues reported that cuttlefish make opsins in their skin, as well. This discovery raised the tantalizing possibility that the animals could use their skin to sense light much as their eyes do.

Dr. Hanlon teamed up with Thomas W. Cronin, a visual ecologist at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, and his colleagues to take a closer look at cephalods and their opsins. But they couldn't make much headway with that.

Moving Optical Illusions - Print it out and check

Optical illusions trick your eyes in several ways.

Here are a few optical illusions that will appear to move even though they are not. Trust me, they are NOT GIFs.

Note : Akiyoshi Kitaoka is the leading expert in this field.

And they will work even if you print them out on paper. Trust me, it's true.

Nothing in these images is moving.  Your eyes try to adapt to two different patterns and that makes it seem to move.

Caution: This page just contains works of "anomalous motion illusion", which might make sensitive observers dizzy or sick. Should you feel dizzy, you had better leave this page immediately.

Click Read more to continue :

Oxy-iso vs Enchroma Glasses for colorblindness treatment

There are now 2 major spectacles(glasses) available for the treatment of colourblindness. One of them is called Oxy-Iso by O2Amp, and the other one Enchoma by Enchroma Inc.

Edit : Valspar Paint Corporation only made an ad/video featuring EnChroma and was not involved in the production apparently.

EnChroma Glasses - what you see through them

EnChroma was released by Enchroma corporation. It was released in around 2014 and seem to be much better at preserving natural colors while helping the colorblind differentiate the difficult colors. They cost around $350/- . There are multiple models including one called Enchroma Cx Receptor which you can wear over your prescription glasses.

Oxy-iso glasses - what you see through them

Buy The Book "Island of the Colorblind"

Oxy-Iso was the older one(released in around 2012), and looked very purple. Though it did help the colorblind, it gave a purple hue to everything they saw. That was not very comfortable for all.
A pair of Oxy-Iso glasses cost around $300/-

By the way Oxy-Iso is not to be confused with Oxy-View glasses. OXy-View glasses are glasses with a nasal prongs embedded for those who need supllemental medical oxygen and want the nasal prongs to be hidden.

The clear winner for the colorblind in my opinion is the EnChroma Glasses. They are not perfect, but they are much better than what Oxy-iso could offer. Also there are many different models available including separate ones for indoor and outdoor use, kids, sports, and to wear over prescription glasses.

Actual Photo taken Without and WIth Enchroma glasses - Those with ColorBlindness(Protanopes and Deuteranopes) can see a major difference in the colors. EnChroma says the glasses work better than what the photo shows and it can't be shown on a camera.

Anyway treatment of colourblindness is a relatively new area, so expect more advances soon.

Seeing a 100 million colors, 5 tetrachromats who see 100 times more color than you

Most humans have three types of cones in the retina of their eye, which help them to see a million colors by mixing and matching.

These are Red, Green and Blue Cones (RGB), like you use in your color hex codes. Each cone is most sensitive to a particular wavelength of light.

Women see more colors than men

Those who have three cones are called trichromats

Some people are deficient in one of their color cones, making them color blind bichromats.

• Protanopes (Defective red)
• Deuteranopes(Defective Green)
• Tritanopes(Defective Blue)

But some people are now found to have four types of cones - making them tetrachromats.

Now, several species of birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles and insects are also known to have 4 types of cones. But among humans, this is so rare. And to test this is also quite difficult without specialised equipment.

Since 2012, a few tetrachromats have been found and studied. Since this extra cone is from one of the mutated X chromosome cone genes, it is seen only in women.

One of the tetrachromats is an artist called Concetta Antico.

When Concetta Antico looks at a leaf, she sees much more than just green. “Around the edge I’ll see orange or red or purple in the shadow; you might see dark green but I’ll see violet, turquoise, blue,” she said. “It’s like a mosaic of color.”

Based on Antico's genes, scientists have determined that Antico's fourth cone absorbs wavelengths that are "reddish-orangey-yellow"


There are tests for color blindness that you can take online, but a test for tetrachromacy is not that easy. The following image is supposed to show some characters in the colored circles for a tetrachromat, but I don't have access to a tetrachromat who can verify that.

Tetrachromacy test - what do you see in the circles ?

Tetrachomacy apparently does not get passed down to children, as only one X chromosome is given by the mother to the child. In fact, there is a risk of a child having color blindness, because the fourth cone gene is not a normal cone gene.

The above artist has a colorblind daughter.

Another tetrachromat is codenamed cDa29 to protect her privacy. She is a doctor in England and was the first of the terachromats to be discovered.

Also, Maureen Seaberg, (a synesthete) claimed to test positive for tetrachromacy in her genes, but further phenotypic testing results are not mentioned.

Interior designers Megan Arquette of Los Angeles and Susan Hogan of Pittsburgh are also thought to be tetrachromats.

So that makes 5 known tetrachromats in a world of 7 billion people.

If there are any tetrachromats out there, please do leave a comment. (And tell me what you see in the Red, Orange and Green circles)

Scientists publish study on TheDress that made us ColorBlind

Do you remember #TheDress ? If you don't, then good. Well, here it is again.

This may look like an innocent, but badly lit photo of a dress, but the fact is, this photo nearly broke the internet one day with the amount of netizens talking, tweeting, facebooking, pinteresting, and what not about it - all arguing about the color of TheDress.

Now, it is your turn.

Simple question :
What color is this dress ?

After you answer, ask a couple of your friends the same thing. No tricks - use the same mobile or laptop or tab or whatever, same lighting, same position, same everything  - different person.

Ask them, "What is the color of this dress ?"
There is a 50-50 chance that they answer the same as you. If they do, continue to the next person.
Soon, you will find a bunch of people who say it is "Blue and Black". And another bunch of people who say "White and Gold".

Some may say "Brown and White"

And some may change from one group to the other after a few hours,not believing that it is the same picture.

And, no, it is not because they are color blind.

And none of them refuse to believe what the other group says.

A perfect optical illusion.

Most optical color illusions work the same for everyone. But this was the first one(that I know of) that worked different for different people.

This above stripe, stripped of lighting cues and other distractors, still appears white and gold to me.

What does it look like for you ?

Learn to write Braille - punctuations, alphabets, shorthand words, music in Braille

Braille is a system of raised dots developed by Louis Braille to replace the system of raised, embossed letters that blind people had tried using before Braille was invented.

Reading Braille is much less confusing, and much much faster (for someone who learns it) than trying to identify raised letters.

Braille letters embossed on a paper under the respective english letters

But Braille is not only for the individual letters and punctuations. There is some single character Braille for commonly used Braille too - for speed reading.

In fact, there is Braille for reading music too. Here is a certified Braille music transcriber


Do you want to quickly type something in Braille. Well, here is a bunch of free websites that have Text to Braille convertors. Some of them accept text copy pasted in a form on their site. Others allow you to upload an entire word or pdf document and get it transcribed.

Is there a cure or treatment for color blindness ? Enchroma glasses vs Oxy Iso glasses

Colorblindness has no permanent cure as of now. But a sort of treatment or workaround is now available in the form of certain special glasses. These glasses change the colors viewed slightly so that the color blind person is able to make out the difference between the different colors. Note that the extent of it effect is dependent on the type of colorblindness.

Update : Comparison of what you see through Oxy-Iso and EnChroma glasses

There was one type of spectacle called Oxy-iso released in 2013, but that was not very effective.

Now, a US based company called Enchroma has released another one which seems to be better than the first one.

Note that they will not work for everyone and also that you may not be able to pass the Isihara test with that(though some people claim a major improvement)

Also, they are very expensive for what its principle is. So, if it works well enough, I'm expecting cheaper variants to be coming in the market soon.

Will Enchoma glasses work for me ?

You can take this particular online color test to find out !

http://enchroma.com/test/instructions/

Answer the questions truthfully to get a proper answer.

Oxy-iso vs Enchroma Valspar glasses - which is better ?

 Adam Fenton standing with a painting he made without Oxy-Iso glasses (left) and with the glasses (right). Credit: Adam Fenton

 The newer one is EnChroma and from a cursory glance I feel the Enchoma is better. But whether it is worth the price is doubtful.

What do colorblind people actually see ?

Colorblindness is a disorder of the cones in the retina of the eye that causes the affected person to have difficulty in distinguishing colors. It can vary in type and severity.

Red-green colorblindness is inherited by X- linked recessive mechanism and is thus found in males. It is very very rare in females.

Are you color blind ?
Find out here :

http://www.archimedes-lab.org/colorblindnesstest.html

http://enchroma.com/test/

http://colormax.org/colorblind-test.htm

http://www.colormax.org/

What does a color blind person actually see ?
Let me show you, in pictures.

If you have a friend who is colorblind, show them these photos - and ask them what the difference between the pictures is !

Flowers - Normal vision

Flowers - Protanopia

Flowers - Deuteranopia

Flowers - Tritanopia

The above images show what a normal person sees vs what a color blind person sees. If you ask a colorblind person what the difference in color between the pictures is, they may not be able to make out any difference.

Here are a few more examples to show the difference  - colorpencils, traffic lights, 

Pencils - Normal Vision

Pencils - Deuteranopia