Seeing Without Eyes – The Unexpected World of Nonvisual Photoreception

Thomas Cronin, University of Maryland, Baltimore County We humans are uncommonly visual creatures. And those of us endowed with normal sight are used to thinking of our eyes as vital to how we experience the world. Vision is an advanced form of photoreception – that is, light sensing. But we also experience other more rudimentary forms of photoreception in our daily lives. We all know, for instance, the delight of perceiving the warm sun on our skin, in this case using heat as a substitute for light. No eyes or even special photoreceptor cells are necessary. But scientists have discovered… Continue Reading Seeing Without Eyes – The Unexpected World of Nonvisual Photoreception