7 ms·

Biologically extending human vision into the near-infrared: Initial success

228 points by irollboozers 12y ago

diziet 12y ago
I'd love to see the ERG readings for more experiments and before vs after at 950nm~
- irollboozers 12y ago
  a lengthy discussion over on reddit about this: http://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/2e5wry/biohackers_declare_initial_success_in/ http://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/2e5wry/biohacker...
JacobAldridge 12y ago
Link to the original Project Page, if (like me) you're playing catch up on the experiment: https://experiment.com/projects/can-we-biologically-extend-the-range-of-human-vision-into-the-near-infrared https://experiment.com/projects/can-we-biologically-extend-t...
- theophrastus 12y ago
  Thank you for that link (it really helped) There is anecdotal evidence that the since the proteins in the human lens become opaque (absorptive) in the near infrared (search: crystallin transmission spectrum); that patients who have had their lenses removed for cataract surgery see beyond both traditional limit ends (as the polymer lens replacement has a different transmission spectrum) ... so [semi-serious-only] perhaps it would be more efficacious to have one lens removed? (no lens over a snake's thermal pits etc)
  - mikeash 12y ago
    Just providing one of those anecdotes: my father's cataract surgery extended his vision into the near ultraviolet. We discovered this when we walked past a window of a room containing a black light, and he remarked at the bright purple glow coming from within, whereas I could barely see it. Fascinating stuff.
sigil 12y ago
What an interesting experiment. Could there be some basis, after all, to the urban legend that eating carrots improves night vision? Carotenes are "partly metabolized into Vitamin A" [1], but this experiment is skipping the precursors and going straight for what I assume are large and exclusive doses of Vitamin A. Can it really be that no one has tried this before? Related and probably equally silly idea: I've always wanted a pair of sunglasses that could tune in to different EM spectra. How far are we from that? Night vision goggles are bulky because they need external power to do the frequency shifting, right? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrot#Nutrition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrot#Nutrition
- wisty 12y ago
  The urban legend was mostly due to its use in WWII, to explain why the allied night fighters were so good. The fighters actually used radar, which was still top secret.
  - dingle_thunk 12y ago
    Yeah it's a consideration, but the mere use of an existing old wive's tale doesn't completely discount the possibility of there being some truth to it anyway...
  - dredmorbius 12y ago
    Source?
    - 27182818284 12y ago
      "Much publicity has been given to the good effects of carrots on night vision and some newspapers have even begun to use the vegetable as a nickname for certain ace pilots. Actually, night-fighter pilots don't eat anymore carrots than day fighters do..." —LIFE June 23, 1941 (Not quite the same, but in a similar vein)
      - dredmorbius 12y ago
Garbledup 12y ago
Through technological enhancement[1] or practice it seems that anyone can make an attempt at monitoring & responding too these frequencies. [1]http://eyewiki.aao.org/Intravitreal_Injections http://eyewiki.aao.org/Intravitreal_Injections
userbinator 12y ago
This is particularly relevant given that there's been a recent trend of interest in thermal imaging cameras... of course, the range of those is in much longer wavelengths.
tylermenezes 12y ago
What's really cool is that this entire project was done for under $5k!
TTPrograms 12y ago
Those plots really need labels.
dedward 12y ago
I seem to recall an article from some years back about someone using welding goggles with multiple layers of a specific blue filter on a very bright day and being able to see near-IR.. or something darn close to it.
- jerf 12y ago
  I think you're thinking of this: http://amasci.com/amateur/irgoggl.html http://amasci.com/amateur/irgoggl.html It did take a bit for me to dig it up... I actually ended up having to use Google image search because I remember the guy talking about how trees looked. Without that I got a series of short uninteresting breathless YouTube videos on the topic and a whole bunch of contentless reblogging of said video that drowned out the original article.
_greim_ 12y ago
> near-infrared So, still red then?
- lutusp 12y ago
  No. "near-infrared" isn't a red color shade, in fact it's not normally visible at all. Near-infrared is what your media remote uses to control your TV and audio system. You really cannot see it.
  - StavrosK 12y ago
    Well, you can see the LED blinking if you look at it straight on, but I guess it may bleed into the visible spectrum.
    - ay 12y ago
      That's pretty fascinating if you can see it. I just tried with three different remotes - and alas, I can't see a thing, no matter how hard I try. All three give very bright flash when viewed via my Mac's camera (just launching Facetime with no call and pointing the remote to it).
      - StavrosK 12y ago
        Huh. No, I can definitely see it. I just looked at my HTC One's IR transmitter for the first time, without knowing where the LED is. It's pretty clearly on the right side of the lock button, just under it.
        ay 12y ago
        I don't have HTC One to make a comparison - but if you have some "vanilla" remotes laying around and can see the IR LEDs blink in all of them when active - then yeah, probably you do see into the IR and I don't!
        StavrosK 12y ago
leoc 12y ago
On the other end of the scale: http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/02/14/165202/followup-ultraviolet-vision-after-cataract-surgery http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/02/14/165202/followup-u...
- irollboozers 12y ago
  It's funny that most of the jokes tend to revolve around becoming some sort of super hero. The stranger thing is that no one has pondered the potential cons having the ability to see beyond the spectrum. Or maybe I don't read enough comic books?
  - johnchristopher 12y ago
    I read something on imgur or here some days ago from a guy who could "see" some UV. He had to wear polarizing glasses because of headaches and had developed a fascination for violet objects.
    - CGudapati 12y ago
      By any chance, do you have a link to them?
      - johnchristopher 12y ago
        It took some google search terms tweaking[0] but I found it: http://imgur.com/owXEe41 http://imgur.com/owXEe41 (sfw). > I have 20/11 vision with a mutation that causes me to see a lower-band of UV. It overstimulates my ocular processing and causes migraines. I wear amber glass eye glasses with +.02 diopiter lenses to help reduce this problem. Because of this, I have an absolute obsession and facination with purple objects. I remember the original poster participated in the comment section but (sigh) I don't know how to get there. [0] site:imgur.com comment uv glasses headache
    - NickPollard 12y ago
      Apparently the human retina can detect some UV wavelengths, but the UV light is normally blocked by the lens and does not reach the retina. Some patients who have had replacement artificial lenses develop the ability to see some portion of the UV spectrum. My mum now has this - she had lens replacement last year and following that she mentioned that a lot of things appeared more purple in some circumstances - my brother did some research and found out about the UV detection. Wikipedia has some info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphakia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphakia
tdaltonc 12y ago
When is the flash on and when is it off in these plot? What would these plots look like in a control subject? Does the subject have any other indication of when the flashes are occurring? I know that this isn't written to be read critically, but I don't know what the take-away is.
specialp 12y ago
This could certainly be possible. Jay Neitz did experiments on monkeys to cure colorblindness using gene therapy and was successful. [1] He has said that perhaps one day humans can have genes for more color receptors added to be able to see more colors as some birds do. 1. http://www.neitzvision.com/content/genetherapy.html http://www.neitzvision.com/content/genetherapy.html
- jessriedel 12y ago
  That's a completely different mechanism than is being proposed here.
- avz 12y ago
  To see an extra color, i.e. to become tetrachromats, we would need a lot more than a dietary change, so this is an entirely new subject barely related to the original post. To distinguish an extra color we would need a new type of cone cells with a different spectral response to the three types we already have (called L-, M- and S-cones). We could modify a subset of the existing cells or add new cells. If you modify the existing cells, you then need to teach the visual cortex that the signals coming from the modified cones indicate a new color. How would this be done? If you add new cone cells, you then need to add new neural pathway along the optic nerve and plug it into the visual cortex somehow. How would this be done? On the other hand, the original experiment proposed to alter the availability of different types of vitamin A by dietary changes with the intention of modifying the spectral response of the existing photosensitive cells so that light of previously invisible wavelength would become visible. This does not increase the number of colors, but changes the range of wavelength corresponding to each color for the affected individual.
  - wlesieutre 12y ago
    I haven't read it myself, but it's worth pointing out that research has claimed that there already are some humans with four types of cones. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrachromacy#Possibility_of_human_tetrachromats https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrachromacy#Possibility_of_h...
gus_massa 12y ago
Copy of a comment I made in a previous submission, a few hour ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8207152 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8207152 Well, the data is very noisy. The main problem is that this data doesn't have a before/after comparison. Is the 850nm light visible now or it was always visible??? It's also very difficult to make a fair comparison. The room must be the same, the light sources must be the same (a new coffeepot with a small led can ruin the experiment, removing a coffeepot because it has recently broken can ruin the experiment). For a preliminary experiment, the before-after comparison is enough. For a serious experiment you need many voluntaries, compare the before-after signals of them all at the same time in the same experimental conditions, and double blind testing. There is a small possibility that they are measuring "excitement" instead of light. The subject hears that they are now going to test with very near infrared light. He got exited. They measure that. Perhaps the flash makes a slight sound, perhaps the light operator makes a slight sound. (Perhaps the 850nm flash makes a sound that the other flashes don't make?)
- lotsofmangos 12y ago
  If you read the text, it tells you that the 850nm was always visible.
  - gus_massa 12y ago
    I reed the previous version of this URL. IIRC it has the same graphs, but the text was much shorter, and didn't explain that. Replace 850 with 950 in my comment. The article now says that 950nm was not visible, but they don't link to the graph.
qwerta 12y ago
My astronomy friends are into hard-core start gazing. One experiment was in La Palma island with near-perfect night sky at 8 000 feet. One guy could see 8.1 magnitude stars at 80% cases (independent stats). With oxygen and some training he would probably get to 8.5 magnitudes. There are similar stories with sound etc. I think some people can see near infrared, it is just question of finding them.

228 points by irollboozers 12y ago

diziet 12y ago

I'd love to see the ERG readings for more experiments and before vs after at 950nm~

irollboozers 12y ago
a lengthy discussion over on reddit about this: http://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/2e5wry/biohackers_declare_initial_success_in/ http://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/2e5wry/biohacker...

JacobAldridge 12y ago

Link to the original Project Page, if (like me) you're playing catch up on the experiment: https://experiment.com/projects/can-we-biologically-extend-the-range-of-human-vision-into-the-near-infrared https://experiment.com/projects/can-we-biologically-extend-t...

theophrastus 12y ago
Thank you for that link (it really helped) There is anecdotal evidence that the since the proteins in the human lens become opaque (absorptive) in the near infrared (search: crystallin transmission spectrum); that patients who have had their lenses removed for cataract surgery see beyond both traditional limit ends (as the polymer lens replacement has a different transmission spectrum) ... so [semi-serious-only] perhaps it would be more efficacious to have one lens removed? (no lens over a snake's thermal pits etc)
- mikeash 12y ago
  Just providing one of those anecdotes: my father's cataract surgery extended his vision into the near ultraviolet. We discovered this when we walked past a window of a room containing a black light, and he remarked at the bright purple glow coming from within, whereas I could barely see it. Fascinating stuff.

sigil 12y ago

What an interesting experiment. Could there be some basis, after all, to the urban legend that eating carrots improves night vision? Carotenes are "partly metabolized into Vitamin A" [1], but this experiment is skipping the precursors and going straight for what I assume are large and exclusive doses of Vitamin A. Can it really be that no one has tried this before? Related and probably equally silly idea: I've always wanted a pair of sunglasses that could tune in to different EM spectra. How far are we from that? Night vision goggles are bulky because they need external power to do the frequency shifting, right? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrot#Nutrition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrot#Nutrition

wisty 12y ago
The urban legend was mostly due to its use in WWII, to explain why the allied night fighters were so good. The fighters actually used radar, which was still top secret.
- dingle_thunk 12y ago
  Yeah it's a consideration, but the mere use of an existing old wive's tale doesn't completely discount the possibility of there being some truth to it anyway...
- dredmorbius 12y ago
  Source?
  - 27182818284 12y ago
    "Much publicity has been given to the good effects of carrots on night vision and some newspapers have even begun to use the vegetable as a nickname for certain ace pilots. Actually, night-fighter pilots don't eat anymore carrots than day fighters do..." —LIFE June 23, 1941 (Not quite the same, but in a similar vein)
    - dredmorbius 12y ago

Garbledup 12y ago

Through technological enhancement[1] or practice it seems that anyone can make an attempt at monitoring & responding too these frequencies. [1]http://eyewiki.aao.org/Intravitreal_Injections http://eyewiki.aao.org/Intravitreal_Injections

userbinator 12y ago

This is particularly relevant given that there's been a recent trend of interest in thermal imaging cameras... of course, the range of those is in much longer wavelengths.

tylermenezes 12y ago

What's really cool is that this entire project was done for under $5k!

TTPrograms 12y ago

Those plots really need labels.

dedward 12y ago

I seem to recall an article from some years back about someone using welding goggles with multiple layers of a specific blue filter on a very bright day and being able to see near-IR.. or something darn close to it.

jerf 12y ago
I think you're thinking of this: http://amasci.com/amateur/irgoggl.html http://amasci.com/amateur/irgoggl.html It did take a bit for me to dig it up... I actually ended up having to use Google image search because I remember the guy talking about how trees looked. Without that I got a series of short uninteresting breathless YouTube videos on the topic and a whole bunch of contentless reblogging of said video that drowned out the original article.

_greim_ 12y ago

> near-infrared So, still red then?

lutusp 12y ago
No. "near-infrared" isn't a red color shade, in fact it's not normally visible at all. Near-infrared is what your media remote uses to control your TV and audio system. You really cannot see it.
- StavrosK 12y ago
  Well, you can see the LED blinking if you look at it straight on, but I guess it may bleed into the visible spectrum.
  - ay 12y ago
    That's pretty fascinating if you can see it. I just tried with three different remotes - and alas, I can't see a thing, no matter how hard I try. All three give very bright flash when viewed via my Mac's camera (just launching Facetime with no call and pointing the remote to it).
    - StavrosK 12y ago
      Huh. No, I can definitely see it. I just looked at my HTC One's IR transmitter for the first time, without knowing where the LED is. It's pretty clearly on the right side of the lock button, just under it.
      - ay 12y ago
        I don't have HTC One to make a comparison - but if you have some "vanilla" remotes laying around and can see the IR LEDs blink in all of them when active - then yeah, probably you do see into the IR and I don't!
        StavrosK 12y ago

leoc 12y ago

On the other end of the scale: http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/02/14/165202/followup-ultraviolet-vision-after-cataract-surgery http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/02/14/165202/followup-u...

irollboozers 12y ago
It's funny that most of the jokes tend to revolve around becoming some sort of super hero. The stranger thing is that no one has pondered the potential cons having the ability to see beyond the spectrum. Or maybe I don't read enough comic books?
- johnchristopher 12y ago
  I read something on imgur or here some days ago from a guy who could "see" some UV. He had to wear polarizing glasses because of headaches and had developed a fascination for violet objects.
  - CGudapati 12y ago
    By any chance, do you have a link to them?
    - johnchristopher 12y ago
      It took some google search terms tweaking[0] but I found it: http://imgur.com/owXEe41 http://imgur.com/owXEe41 (sfw). > I have 20/11 vision with a mutation that causes me to see a lower-band of UV. It overstimulates my ocular processing and causes migraines. I wear amber glass eye glasses with +.02 diopiter lenses to help reduce this problem. Because of this, I have an absolute obsession and facination with purple objects. I remember the original poster participated in the comment section but (sigh) I don't know how to get there. [0] site:imgur.com comment uv glasses headache
  - NickPollard 12y ago
    Apparently the human retina can detect some UV wavelengths, but the UV light is normally blocked by the lens and does not reach the retina. Some patients who have had replacement artificial lenses develop the ability to see some portion of the UV spectrum. My mum now has this - she had lens replacement last year and following that she mentioned that a lot of things appeared more purple in some circumstances - my brother did some research and found out about the UV detection. Wikipedia has some info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphakia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphakia

tdaltonc 12y ago

When is the flash on and when is it off in these plot? What would these plots look like in a control subject? Does the subject have any other indication of when the flashes are occurring? I know that this isn't written to be read critically, but I don't know what the take-away is.

specialp 12y ago

This could certainly be possible. Jay Neitz did experiments on monkeys to cure colorblindness using gene therapy and was successful. [1] He has said that perhaps one day humans can have genes for more color receptors added to be able to see more colors as some birds do. 1. http://www.neitzvision.com/content/genetherapy.html http://www.neitzvision.com/content/genetherapy.html

jessriedel 12y ago
That's a completely different mechanism than is being proposed here.
avz 12y ago
To see an extra color, i.e. to become tetrachromats, we would need a lot more than a dietary change, so this is an entirely new subject barely related to the original post. To distinguish an extra color we would need a new type of cone cells with a different spectral response to the three types we already have (called L-, M- and S-cones). We could modify a subset of the existing cells or add new cells. If you modify the existing cells, you then need to teach the visual cortex that the signals coming from the modified cones indicate a new color. How would this be done? If you add new cone cells, you then need to add new neural pathway along the optic nerve and plug it into the visual cortex somehow. How would this be done? On the other hand, the original experiment proposed to alter the availability of different types of vitamin A by dietary changes with the intention of modifying the spectral response of the existing photosensitive cells so that light of previously invisible wavelength would become visible. This does not increase the number of colors, but changes the range of wavelength corresponding to each color for the affected individual.
- wlesieutre 12y ago
  I haven't read it myself, but it's worth pointing out that research has claimed that there already are some humans with four types of cones. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrachromacy#Possibility_of_human_tetrachromats https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrachromacy#Possibility_of_h...

gus_massa 12y ago

Copy of a comment I made in a previous submission, a few hour ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8207152 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8207152 Well, the data is very noisy. The main problem is that this data doesn't have a before/after comparison. Is the 850nm light visible now or it was always visible??? It's also very difficult to make a fair comparison. The room must be the same, the light sources must be the same (a new coffeepot with a small led can ruin the experiment, removing a coffeepot because it has recently broken can ruin the experiment). For a preliminary experiment, the before-after comparison is enough. For a serious experiment you need many voluntaries, compare the before-after signals of them all at the same time in the same experimental conditions, and double blind testing. There is a small possibility that they are measuring "excitement" instead of light. The subject hears that they are now going to test with very near infrared light. He got exited. They measure that. Perhaps the flash makes a slight sound, perhaps the light operator makes a slight sound. (Perhaps the 850nm flash makes a sound that the other flashes don't make?)

lotsofmangos 12y ago
If you read the text, it tells you that the 850nm was always visible.
- gus_massa 12y ago
  I reed the previous version of this URL. IIRC it has the same graphs, but the text was much shorter, and didn't explain that. Replace 850 with 950 in my comment. The article now says that 950nm was not visible, but they don't link to the graph.

qwerta 12y ago

My astronomy friends are into hard-core start gazing. One experiment was in La Palma island with near-perfect night sky at 8 000 feet. One guy could see 8.1 magnitude stars at 80% cases (independent stats). With oxygen and some training he would probably get to 8.5 magnitudes. There are similar stories with sound etc. I think some people can see near infrared, it is just question of finding them.