Could you get 'Terminator vision' by changing your DIET? Lesser-known Vitamin A2 develops infrared sight, study claims
- Science for the Masses raised $4,000 (£2,400) from public to fund study
- They replaced Vitamin A1 in the diet and replacing it with Vitamin A2
- The supplement causes body to increase its production of porphyropsin
- This is the protein complex that grants near infrared (NIR) vision to fish
- After several weeks, volunteers saw spikes in vision to 950 nanometres
- Infrared falls between about 800nm to 2500nm on the electromagnetic spectrum, meaning the volunteers could pick up some heat signatures
During World War II, the U.S. Navy wanted to boost sailors' night vision so they could spot infrared signal lights.
According to some reports, they fed volunteers supplements made from the livers of walleyed pikes, and over several months, the volunteers’ vision began seeing the infrared region.
While this legendary tale may sound far-fetched, a crowd-funded group of scientists has recreated this experiment and claims to have had successful results.
After several weeks, volunteers using an electroretinogram (ERG) noticed spikes in their vision to 950 nanometres (nm). Infrared falls between about 800nm to 2500nm on the electromagnetic spectrum
Infrared vision helps animals such as snakes see the heat signature of their prey, but without night goggles, humans don’t have this ability.
The latest experiment was designed by Science for the Masses, a US-based group whose vision is to explore ‘non-institutional open source science.’
They claim that by limiting Vitamin A1 in the diet and replacing it with A2, the human body increase its production of something called porphyropsin.
This is the protein complex that grants near infrared (NIR) vision to freshwater fish - and so, they say, can give humans completely natural infrared vision.
Vitamin A1 is commonly found in green and yellow-pigmented vegetables including bell peppers and carrots. Vitamin A2, on the other hand, is derived from fish livers.
Infrared vision helps animals such as snakes see the heat signature of their prey, but without night googles, humans don’t have this ability. The latest experiment was designed by Science for the Masses, a US-based group whose vision is to explore ‘non-institutional open source science’
They claim that by limiting Vitamin A1 in the diet and replacing it with A2, the body increase its production of something called porphyropsin, which can provide infrared vision like that used by the Terminator (pictured)
The project raised its target $4,000 (£2,400) in October on the scientific crowd-funding site Experiment.
After several weeks, four volunteers using an electroretinogram (ERG) noticed spikes in their vision to 950 nanometres (nm).
It is is not known how the volunteers took their high levels of Vitamin A2.
Infrared falls between about 800nm to 2500nm on the electromagnetic spectrum, meaning they could pick up some heat signatures.
However, there has been some scepticism about the results. Retinal neuroscientist Bryan Jones wrote in Petapixel that no matter what we eat, photoreceptors in our eyes simply cannot pick up any wavelengths of light beyond 650nm.
‘These limits in human photoreceptors are based upon molecular structures of photopigments,’ he said.
‘These photopigments can be “tuned” within a narrow window within the red/blue/green spectrum, but getting them to be sensitive to infrared wavelengths is impossible within the limits of physics or biophysics.’
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