Scientists Give Night Vision To Mice, The Technology Might Be Available For Humans Soon

While studying science at school, I felt like shooting myself in the foot because that seemed much more interesting than listening to the teachers droning on about gravity, the periodic table or the nervous system. But as soon as the pressure of scoring marks vanished, the subject began to appear more bearable as it constantly revealed what’s next for humans. And by “what’s next” I mean night vision.

According to Science Daily, scientists from China have discovered a way to allow mammals to see infrared light. And since human subjects are never the first choice when it comes to experiments, they tried it on mice. Tian Xue of the University of Science and Technology of China said,

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“The visible light that can be perceived by human’s natural vision occupies just a very small fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum. Electromagnetic waves longer or shorter than visible light carry lots of information.”

If you paid attention in your Biology class, you’ll know that humans (and other mammals) can only see visible light. And even though infrared radiation is all around us, we can’t witness it. So, a group of scientists led by Xue and Jin Bao (from the Uni. of Science and Technology of China), and Gang Han (from Uni. of Massachusetts Medical School) decided to work on it with the help of nanotechnology.

Han said,

“When light enters the eye and hits the retina, the rods and cones — or photoreceptor cells — absorb the photons with visible light wavelengths and send corresponding electric signals to the brain. Because infrared wavelengths are too long to be absorbed by photoreceptors, we are not able to perceive them.”

So, in the study, the scientists made nanoparticles that could anchor tightly to photoreceptor cells and act as infrared light transducers. Bao said,

“In our experiment, nanoparticles absorbed infrared light around 980 nm in wavelength and converted it into light peaked at 535 nm, which made the infrared light appear as the colour green.”

When infrared light hit the retina, the nanoparticles captured the longer infrared wavelengths and emitted shorter wavelengths within the visible light range. Then the nearby rod or cone absorbed the shorter wavelength and sent a normal signal to the brain that it’s perceiving visible light.

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The mice who were tested upon showed “unconscious physical signs” of detecting infrared light, such as their pupils constricted. However, those who were injected with only the buffer solution didn’t respond. The mice who could sense infrared light were put in maze tasks to see if they function in daylight conditions. And apart from some rare cases of cloudy corneas (which disappeared within less than a week), they worked perfectly.

Xue said,

“In our study, we have shown that both rods and cones bind these nanoparticles and were activated by the near-infrared light. So we believe this technology will also work in human eyes, not only for generating supervision but also for therapeutic solutions in human red colour vision deficits.”

Right now our infrared technology is limited to detectors and cameras that depend on ambient daylight or outside power sources. But researches believe that the bio-integrated nanoparticles can change that. Han said,

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“In the future, we think there may be room to improve the technology with a new version of organic-based nanoparticles, made of FDA-approved compounds, that appear to result in even brighter infrared vision.”

The nanoparticles will obviously need some more fine tuning so that they suit our eyes. But if it works, we will able to see infrared light without those wonky goggles.

Xue added,

“This is an exciting subject because the technology we made possible here could eventually enable human beings to see beyond our natural capabilities.”

Natural human evolution has brought us this far and now it’s time to go further with the help of science. But what are your thoughts on the use of nanoparticles? Do you think it’s unethical or dangerous? Or do you think we need to harness the powers of science as much as we can? Let us know in the comments.

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