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Focus on Eye Health - Interesting Eye Facts

Vision and the eye have a long history of evolution and development. We've uncovered some unique eye facts and comparisons, and want to clarify some eye myths that have been passed on seemingly forever.

1. The Chinese invented eyeglasses. Marco Polo reported seeing many pairs worn by the Chinese as early as the year 1275. This was 500 years before lens grinding became an art in the West.
2. "You'll hurt your eyes if you read in the dark". This is a myth-too little light does not damage your eyes, but will make it harder to see the words. As a comparison, a camera is similar in structure and function to the human eye. It is not damaged when taking a picture in the dark, though it will be hard to see objects in the developed picture.
3. Does eating carrots improve eye sight? There is no real evidence that carrots will make you see better, but there is evidence that carrots help to keep the eyes healthy and reduce risk of eye diseases such as macular degeneration.
4. Your iris (coloured part of the eye) and your retina (back of the eye) are individually unique to you and are now used to verify personal identity (such as in airport security screening). There are about 400 identifiers to recognize one's iris compared to just 60 for fingerprint recognition.
5. Transitions or photochromic lenses lighten and darken depending on how much sunlight they are exposed to. They were invented in the 1940's to protect American fighter pilots from the bright lights of fireballs in battle.
6. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
7. Owls have the largest eyes of any species. If human eyes were proportional to that of the owl, they would be the size of grapefruits and weigh five pounds each.

See more Interesting Eye Facts Part II