Nanotechnology Makes It Possible For Mice To See In Infrared (sciencedaily.com) 82
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ScienceDaily: Humans and other mammals are limited to seeing a range of wavelengths of light called visible light, which includes the wavelengths of the rainbow. But infrared radiation, which has a longer wavelength, is all around us. People, animals and objects emit infrared light as they give off heat, and objects can also reflect infrared light. A multidisciplinary group of scientists led by Xue and Jin Bao at the University of Science and Technology of China as well as Gang Han at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, developed the nanotechnology to work with the eye's existing structures.
In this study, the scientists made nanoparticles that can anchor tightly to photoreceptor cells and act as tiny infrared light transducers. When infrared light hits the retina, the nanoparticles capture the longer infrared wavelengths and emit shorter wavelengths within the visible light range. The nearby rod or cone then absorbs the shorter wavelength and sends a normal signal to the brain, as if visible light had hit the retina. "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 color green," said one of the researchers. The researchers tested the nanoparticles in mice, which, like humans, cannot see infrared naturally. Mice that received the injections showed unconscious physical signs that they were detecting infrared light, such as their pupils constricting, while mice injected with only the buffer solution didn't respond to infrared light. The study was published in the journal Cell.
In this study, the scientists made nanoparticles that can anchor tightly to photoreceptor cells and act as tiny infrared light transducers. When infrared light hits the retina, the nanoparticles capture the longer infrared wavelengths and emit shorter wavelengths within the visible light range. The nearby rod or cone then absorbs the shorter wavelength and sends a normal signal to the brain, as if visible light had hit the retina. "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 color green," said one of the researchers. The researchers tested the nanoparticles in mice, which, like humans, cannot see infrared naturally. Mice that received the injections showed unconscious physical signs that they were detecting infrared light, such as their pupils constricting, while mice injected with only the buffer solution didn't respond to infrared light. The study was published in the journal Cell.
Go for it transhumanists! (Score:5, Interesting)
I have to admit, that I am a long way from being ready to inject anything in my eyes.
However, I really really hope that some brave transhumanists chomping at the bit to be able to use this new technique on themselves, are allowed to do so - it would give us invaluable data on how well this worked, and also on any long term side effects so that some day anyone could choose to do this really cool body mod with relative confidence in success and safety.
It sounds like the effect would be really cool, I wonder if normal daytime viewing would appear over-bright though.
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I think we should do an idiotectomy possibly by acidifying this coward...
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I imagine the nanoparticles could be used on a digital camera sensor to simulate the effect. That'd probably be the easiest way to refine it. I'd be worried that everything would look solid green with no depth cues.
Re:Go for it transhumanists! (Score:5, Informative)
You wouldn't be seeing *in* infrared. That would require a whole new color to differentiate. At best refinement would mean shifting the colors to the left or right, or condensing the spectrum so it could be expanded into any range. Recording in standard RGB +UV +IR at the same time, and separable.
Digital sensors and infrared (Score:3)
I imagine the nanoparticles could be used on a digital camera sensor to simulate the effect.
Most digital camera sensors already can see in the infrared spectrum. They just add filters to limit what is recorded to the visual spectrum. Your smartphone can probably do it. Here's how to show it. Turn on your smartphone camera and grab your TV remote control. Point the remote at the camera and start pushing buttons. You should see the (normally invisible) light from your remote on screen.
Fun fact, you can get a modification to your DSLR camera to remove the IR and UV spectrum filters (called a fu [kolarivision.com]
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Sounds like a privacy nightmare.
Cameras that pick up IR are already used to see through people's clothing. I seem to recall that cops were banned from using IR cameras to see into people's homes a while back.
Our world is built around people only being able to see in the visible spectrum. That may inevitably have to change as the tech gets cheaper.
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I have to admit, that I am a long way from being ready to inject anything in my eyes.
I personally know a few people who get injections into their eyes about once a month to prevent their sight from deteriorating. I think this one comes down to what is normal for some people.
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The human body radiates at about 9.5 um, and the article says the mice were able to see at about 980 nm. For a body to radiate at that wavelenght it would have to be at around 3000 K. Hot enough indeed...
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At some point, the military will wake up to this, and then the Special Forces guys will be using it (well, okay, it'll be tested on them), followed in a decade or three by "it's part of Boot Camp to have your vision augmented to include IR"
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At some point, the military will wake up to this, and then the Special Forces guys will be using it (well, okay, it'll be tested on them), followed in a decade or three by "it's part of Boot Camp to have your vision augmented to include IR"
It's not really augmented though- it's modified. From the summary Infra-red shows up as green for the mice; so presumably the mice lost colour depth perception as a result of the IR- or at least lowered green light sensitivity.
It would be really cool to have IR ability- but not at the expense of becoming colour-blind. Having some troops with IR ability mixed with some troops without might maximize all benefits. You wouldn't want your entire army being colourblind though.
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Nope. Of course, it's not going to be used on the troops till those little...issues...are worked out. But if they reach the point where they can extend visual range into IR without significantly (note that word - it may not mean what you think it does to the Arm
Don't think they lost anything (Score:2)
From the summary Infra-red shows up as green for the mice; so presumably the mice lost colour depth perception
The rest of the colors should be visible normally - all that happens is that some infra-red wavelengths are transformed into green light the eye can see. Normal wavelengths would not be altered.
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From the summary Infra-red shows up as green for the mice; so presumably the mice lost colour depth perception
The rest of the colors should be visible normally - all that happens is that some infra-red wavelengths are transformed into green light the eye can see. Normal wavelengths would not be altered.
But. If infra red is shown as green, warm things show as more green than non-warm things. You lose the ability to determine if something is green (or has green mixed in), or hot. If an object is hot it will all look green.
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I think it would fun for them to make it so eye glowed like flashlight as that fellow in Ghostbusters II....very handy. Short of that, I go for simply making my eyes glow, I'd be a hit a parties and at Halloween I could scare the kneebiters.
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I could go for the idea of being able to see infrared as a new color, but I don’t see the point of transducing IR to an existing color. When you see green, how do you know whether you’re seeing 535 nm or the new wavelength?
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t I donâ(TM)t see the point of transducing IR to an existing color.
Yes that is an issue, so you wouldn't exactly know... but you could probably tell by overall vision going green. It seems like the view would be similar to what we already see in very light sensitive gear like scopes, so it wouldn't even be too strange to process.
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Only augment one eye. Your brain would adjust.
This wouldn't work in one case. I only have one eye.
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EDIT: "...work in my case."
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While it's not possible to see a new colour....
I wouldn't assume that. If our visual range were extended, might we not see new colors? It could be like being a tetrachromat.
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I think transhumanists should also do this for the purpose of Darwinification.
Future Furians? (Score:2)
So, the mice got a "shine job". Did they pay for the surgery in cigarettes?
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Vin Diesel is just edgy enough he might entice them to make him the first human candidate.
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No this doesn't change the sensitivity in low light conditions. I'd think it'll be much harder to create a reflective layer behind the photoreceptors?
Damnit. (Score:5, Funny)
Stop giving the animals super powers you fools!!!
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Re:Damnit. (Score:4, Insightful)
Stop giving the animals super powers you fools!!!
Its probably better than our present habit of making stupid people famous.
Re:Damnit. (Score:4, Funny)
Its probably better than our present habit of making stupid people famous.
I'm still unknown! :(
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Its probably better than our present habit of making stupid people famous.
I'm still unknown! :(
We'll probably become famous about the same time
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I, for one, welcome are new dark and cheesy overlords . . . :)
hawk
Nanomachines, son! (Score:2)
ITAR restricted eyeballs, getting the green light (Score:3)
This nanotech treatment could make your eyeballs ITAR restricted items:
https://www.flir.com/support-c... [flir.com]
This would increase your eye's IR sensitivity in any light condition for objects warmer or cooler than ambient.
Hot things would look green, cold things would look... less green.
Pilots looking at a primary flight display would hate this. Tritium reticles might also get hard to see.
Uniformed personnel, despite all looking identical from a few hundred yards away, sweat very differently based on gender, mostly due to undergarments beneath the uniform. IR reveals things that would be impossible to notice with visible light, in bright daylight or in the dark.
I would never get this nanotech treatment. I'd get distracted and walk into a light pole.
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This would increase your eye's IR sensitivity in any light condition for objects warmer or cooler than ambient.
Not really. 980 nm is near IR, which really doesn't vary much by temperature and is easily blocked. FLIR cameras see medium/far IR (3K nm and up), which punches through obstructions like fog, and is what you need to see something warmer/cooler stand out.
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All correct and I'd mod you up if I could.
Let's hope these nano particles can be tuned.
If realized, this tech is somewhere between a Geordi La Forge visor and a dystopian Neal Stephenson sub plot.
..., getting the green light (Score:2)
Hot things would look green, cold things would look... less green.
Could that also mean that some green things no longer stand out, so you would become a bit colour blind?
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I would never get this nanotech treatment.
I certainly wouldn't "as-is" either, but I can't help but wonder the extent this could be a component in a more complex and useful system.
The bulk atom construction of these particular particles likely makes them somewhat fixed in their light converting range, which is fine for in the lab and all, but I wonder what types of ranges are possible.
Just how far can particles of this size stretch or squish a light wave? What wavelengths can be brought up or down into the visible range?
After perfecting the effect
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Waiting for 'potion of infravision' to show up on shelves next to monster and NOS.
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Where the hell can I get eyes like that? (Score:1)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8n6RJsFj3M [youtube.com]
Jack: Where the hell can I get eyes like that?
Riddick: Gotta kill a few people.
Jack: 'Kay, I can do it.
Riddick: Then you got to get sent to a slam, where they tell you you'll never see daylight again. You dig up a doctor, and you pay him 20 menthol Kools to do a surgical shine job on your eyeballs.
Jack: So you can see who's sneaking up on you in the dark?
Riddick: Exactly.
Little problem (Score:2)
If you do that, you never have dark again, because you effectively cannot close your eyes.
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'In this study, the scientists made nanoparticles that can anchor tightly to photoreceptor cells and act as tiny infrared light transducers. When infrared light hits the retina, the nanoparticles capture the longer infrared wavelengths and emit shorter wavelengths within the visible light range. '
This is basically a converter. It won't increase perception, but instead flood existing perception with more information.
Meaning its limited.
The main engineering achievement is the converting process, but without
Gee, Brain, what do you want to do tonight? (Score:4, Funny)
The same thing we do every night, Pinky - try to take out the target at 250 yards from a protected location.
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Yes you can. Green lasers, the cheap ones you can easily buy, usually work by frequency doubling, using a non-linear crystal that converts two 1064 nm photons into a 532 nm photon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Almost pointless right now (Score:5, Insightful)
I work in a highly related field. All the time I get asked about extending the sensitivity of our visual system in cool, biotech-y ways.
My standard response is: buy the appropriate glasses / goggles / binoculars / telescope / microscope / filter and leave your biology intact. We're much, much better at designing desk-sized microscopes than we are at making ones that fit inside your eye somehow. We are much, much better at designing low-vision assistance devices that can read signs out loud (like your cell phone) than we are at making implants to restore sight (at least for now). And, for this case, we're much, much better at making night-vision scopes that make you look cool when you wear them than we are at injecting nanoparticles into your eyes in a procedure that has a non-trivial chance of rendering you blind.
Pure electro-mechanical technology in the form of a wearable or external device of some sort is far, far more advanced than biotechnology right now. And it, generally speaking, is reversible, something none of the current generation of biological approaches have.
Should we continue research on this sort of thing? Oh, yes, definitely! But don't think about using it, yet. Not for a long while.
It all boils down to the observation: just because you CAN do something (create IR-sensitive vision by injecting nanoparticles in your eyes) does not mean you SHOULD do it, and that there are not any vastly better alternatives.
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Have you looked at the prices for FLIR products? (Score:2)
I took a look at some of FLIR's offerings (for operating a boat at night). A passive IR camera with an 80x60 pix
expectations (Score:1)
Near IR, not far IR (Score:3)
Near infra-red makes it to the retina, but far infra-red doesn't make it through the cornea. With this tech, you could see in the dark with in IR light source, but you won't see thermal IR.
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Heat vision requires far-infrared which wouldn't get through the cornea anyway.
If you want to see what enhanced viewing looks like with near-infrared, just look though your cellphone camera.
The sensors they use can see near-infrared quite well.