While this sounds cool, the issues it raises are not.
Many people are unaware that the wavelengths of light in certain ranges, which include both the near UV (N-UV, violet/blue zones), and the N-IR have biochemical interactions, and blocking this through use of a contact lens has been linked (afaik) to myopia, which have many different risk factors.
I can only find references to the opposite: that blocking blue light might -- emphasis on "might" -- be help prevent myopia, not that it causes myopia?
The foundational work was done by Fritz Hollwich, a German Opthalmologist in the 1970s. Supplementary work was done by John Nash Ott in the same time period when he had numerous issues with time-lapse displays with plants dying under artificial light. Together they show environmental light greatly impacts both plant kingdoms and animal kingdom species.
Many studies since then have been done, though some are not translated to English.
The high energy near N-UV (370nm and below) from common white LEDs may cause retinopothy. Individuals who received lasik treatments between 2000 and 2009 (iirc) had their lens replaced with a lens that blocked NIR/IR.
Incidents of macular degeneration are higher in such groups, along with myopia.
Prior to 1998 blue-light LEDs were not manufactured, and NIR light leakage weren't issues. There are demographic studies for countries that have high exposure to digital LED-based signage where light pollution is an issue. The incidence rates in school children in those regions are dramatic (~70% iirc); Japan was one such country that studied this.
The unfortunate thing is a lot of this research isn't available to the general public because it is paywalled. Its also not an area that has received a lot of funding compared to other areas.
The TL;DR is there's a biochemical switch in the eye that travels through to the brain which controls metabolic hormones and gene expression based upon the light you are exposed to, and it is turned on or off based on the levels of natural sunlight you are exposed to and the time of day.
There are also a number of chemicals within the eye itself that act as light traps/charge signaling, as well as melatonin based specks which have biochemical reactions with UV, and reflect UV (to a lesser degree).
That should get you started in finding references.
I might be misreading what you are saying but it still sounds like exactly the opposite? (As in, that exposure to blue light is linked with myopia, not that blocking blue light is linked with myopia.)
FWIW, I assume I am simply misunderstanding your use of "linked to" (which I thought is only ever used to establish a correlation, not an anti-correlation; like, "new study shows red meat linked to hear disease" would be awkward wording if one meant "prevents").
You are misreading what was said. Its not either, or.
There are two things mentioned in the context of light mediated pathways, thus two bounds, one from the lower frequency going down, and one on the upper frequency of the visual spectra going up.
The papers from the author's mentioned, specifically Hollwich, showed that when the light pathways are blocked as happened in coma patients, and eye surgeries at the time, it showed up problematically (in outcomes) and in the biochemical tests they had done in those patients, and rapidly corrected once they were exposed to natural light. Incidentally, these studies lay a strong groundwork for a causal link with the underlying biochemistry and light in people, not just correlation.
They controlled for this rigorously, comparing bloodwork for other surgeries, and similar in naturally blind people including those that lacked or didn't have normal photoreceptors. Overall it was consistent in support of light mediated pathways within the eye itself.
The depressed biochemical activity in some cases was so severe over such a length of time that it led to physical deformation of the eye which is common in myopia/macular degeneration/retinopothy, which resolved itself upon sufficient exposure to natural light in most cases. There are two loops that are impacted dramatically by light which ramp up or slow down activity in the pituitary.
Retinopothy is closely associated with spikes of high energy light waves in the Blue-Violet spectrum (phototoxicity). Macular degeneration, and Myopia with lack of Red-NIR-IR light. Hopefully that clarifies.
The papers involved were groundbreaking, and hardly anyone outside of the field of Ophthalmology have heard of these people, there are a lot of people that seek to draw fallacy and discredit because lack of evidence. There is a vested industry that would be impacted as a health hazard (all LED displays). Very little research has been done on these pathways because there hasn't been funding, similar in scope to the same way flouride research in water was done, which took India doing a comprehensive national study to show it lowered IQ in children above a certain threshold in ppm; nonetheless the fact that these pathways do exist is not disputed. There is solid science to support it.
I'm not convinced. You suggest a lot of information is paywalled or in another language. Canadian girlfriend much?
> There are also a number of chemicals within the eye itself that act as light traps/charge signaling, as well as melatonin based specks which have biochemical reactions with UV, and reflect UV (to a lesser degree).
Weak sauce. There are a number of chemicals within the skin itself that act as light traps; it doesn't mean NIR photons are dangerous to our bodies.
> Together they show environmental light greatly impacts both plant kingdoms and animal kingdom species.
Not even weak sauce. This has been known since at least 2,000 B.C.E.
Your entire post is a nothing burger. And you haven't even mentioned the effect contrails have on macular degradation yet.
Unfortunately, not everything can be conveniently handed to someone for review when there has been a coordinated effort to either suppress or make unavailable.
The papers exist, you can look them up, and read them. Some are in German. You didn't bother.
In such cases, its rational and standard practice that statements aren't to be discounted until you actually read the material and verify one way or the other. Judgment is withheld until then. Something you fail to do here.
I pointed to the people who did the most work which is sufficient, especially given the fact that claims were made that there are no resources out there on this. There are, they just aren't generally public.
If you have access to Alumni resources; or are able to read another language, great you can read those papers and get the details. Hollwich is particularly famous for his work on both people and later in animals. The pathways mentioned exists, and were confirmed with proper controls in people.
Your claim that this is a nothing burger is unfounded without rational basis, it amounts to "You didn't hand me everything on a plate so you must be wrong". This is not only a total fallacy, but the same kind of behavior observed in toddlers and people who are disadvantaged from their excessive level of entitlement.
These characteristics naturally exclude people from being researchers and makes any viable discussion dubious at best, based on a lack of credibility from those people.
Given your proclivity to contrails and other conspiracy, I think you may have forgotten to mention other biased beliefs other fantastical things that may be clouding your reasoning; or alternatively if you had meant that sarcastically you should have added /s at the end which is standard netiquette.
Overall your response is based in ad hominem, and thus should be discarded by any discerning reader.
Your statements are easily refuted. They certainly didn't have biochemical testing in 2000 BCE to prove this. The researchers mentioned did use testing to prove this pathway exists, rigorously.
In my estimation of your response, you are the type of person that would believe the earth is flat. Good luck convincing those people of anything.
This is super cool, I've wondered if this wort of thing could be possible and I guess it is. The applications given are funny though. I can't think of any applications either, but "helping people with color-blindness" reads like the ol' search and rescue excuse [1]. I think they're talking about shifting colors around so less color is perceived in the wavelengths they can't see?
It's pretty nifty though because besides changing the wavelength it must also preserve the exact direction of each photon. Without the correct light field you'd see nothing.
Not sure if I'm missing something. These sound like fluorescent dye particles?
Don't such molecules emit light diffusely, i.e. not correlated to the direction of excitation? It also must be doing multi-photon fluorescence in order to bump up to higher (visible) frequencies. What is the point of putting it in a contact lens when it won't really echo the light field arriving at the lens?
I also recall that infrared photography requires a significant adjustment of focus compared to visual light due to chromatic aberration. Would it even be possible for an IR-sensitive eye to accommodate this difference in focus?
On the other hand, an efficient upconverting fluorescent dye could be embedded in an imaging screen with appropriate optics to make passive IR scope?
This is upconverting photons in energy... which requires energy, unlike fluorescence (which downconverts). There's nothing in the article to suggest how these contacts perform this miracle of energy creation, nor even how much of the IR spectrum is involved.
Oh, and it's "Chinese researchers". So... grain of salt. Many are legit, but bunkum is regularly published there.
Upconversion nanoparticles are optical nanomaterials that absorb multiple low-energy photons (like near-infrared light) and emit a single, higher-energy photon (like visible light) through a process called upconversion
I'm not sure how compressing IR photons into a human's existing visual range is supposed to "improve" anything, let alone grant 'super-vision'? We are talking about light that's not particularly useful anyway generating noise and clouding our vision as regular red or green light for...what exactly? This all sounds like hype nonsense.
It was a plastic card that you could place under a light to "charge" and then if you aimed a remote control at it and pressed a button - it would glow red.
It would kick up infrared passively into the visible light spectrum.
Of yeah i remember those. It was great to check if a remote was working.
These days I just use my phone camera. The IR filter isn't perfect and IR leds are tons brighter than visible ones so if you point it right at the camera you can easily see it.
What is most of interest to me in this research is that having a handle on stable and bio-safe chemistry that is reactive in near-visible spectra,
allows for a future wherein that chemistry is baked into additional cones,
allowing for polychromacy,
which might conceivably result in new qualia ("colors as they are perceived by the viewer" as in classic dorm-room arguments about whether one person's blue is another's red).
It'd be nice for our civilization to persist long enough, and to live long enough, to not just be around when that happens but have opportunity to try it out.
Neural implants are going to open up even wider possibilities dramatically.
Given how fast things are changing, one can imagine that digital visual feed implants, providing conscious control of wide spectrum sensitivity, won't be so far off.
Beyond tetrachromacy, think "Kilochromacy". Whatever that would be like! (A few short neural link, and cognitive amplification, generations in.)
How can people publish articles like this and not even show some type of mockup of what it might look like?
My problem with traditional media. It's like they get the basic concept of an article but don't focus on the learning/teaching aspect.
Yes, its frustrating. Just like how they never give links to papers, websites, demos, videos, or anything either.
While this sounds cool, the issues it raises are not.
Many people are unaware that the wavelengths of light in certain ranges, which include both the near UV (N-UV, violet/blue zones), and the N-IR have biochemical interactions, and blocking this through use of a contact lens has been linked (afaik) to myopia, which have many different risk factors.
I can only find references to the opposite: that blocking blue light might -- emphasis on "might" -- be help prevent myopia, not that it causes myopia?
The foundational work was done by Fritz Hollwich, a German Opthalmologist in the 1970s. Supplementary work was done by John Nash Ott in the same time period when he had numerous issues with time-lapse displays with plants dying under artificial light. Together they show environmental light greatly impacts both plant kingdoms and animal kingdom species.
Many studies since then have been done, though some are not translated to English.
The high energy near N-UV (370nm and below) from common white LEDs may cause retinopothy. Individuals who received lasik treatments between 2000 and 2009 (iirc) had their lens replaced with a lens that blocked NIR/IR.
Incidents of macular degeneration are higher in such groups, along with myopia.
Prior to 1998 blue-light LEDs were not manufactured, and NIR light leakage weren't issues. There are demographic studies for countries that have high exposure to digital LED-based signage where light pollution is an issue. The incidence rates in school children in those regions are dramatic (~70% iirc); Japan was one such country that studied this.
The unfortunate thing is a lot of this research isn't available to the general public because it is paywalled. Its also not an area that has received a lot of funding compared to other areas.
The TL;DR is there's a biochemical switch in the eye that travels through to the brain which controls metabolic hormones and gene expression based upon the light you are exposed to, and it is turned on or off based on the levels of natural sunlight you are exposed to and the time of day.
There are also a number of chemicals within the eye itself that act as light traps/charge signaling, as well as melatonin based specks which have biochemical reactions with UV, and reflect UV (to a lesser degree).
That should get you started in finding references.
I might be misreading what you are saying but it still sounds like exactly the opposite? (As in, that exposure to blue light is linked with myopia, not that blocking blue light is linked with myopia.)
FWIW, I assume I am simply misunderstanding your use of "linked to" (which I thought is only ever used to establish a correlation, not an anti-correlation; like, "new study shows red meat linked to hear disease" would be awkward wording if one meant "prevents").
You are misreading what was said. Its not either, or.
There are two things mentioned in the context of light mediated pathways, thus two bounds, one from the lower frequency going down, and one on the upper frequency of the visual spectra going up.
The papers from the author's mentioned, specifically Hollwich, showed that when the light pathways are blocked as happened in coma patients, and eye surgeries at the time, it showed up problematically (in outcomes) and in the biochemical tests they had done in those patients, and rapidly corrected once they were exposed to natural light. Incidentally, these studies lay a strong groundwork for a causal link with the underlying biochemistry and light in people, not just correlation.
They controlled for this rigorously, comparing bloodwork for other surgeries, and similar in naturally blind people including those that lacked or didn't have normal photoreceptors. Overall it was consistent in support of light mediated pathways within the eye itself.
The depressed biochemical activity in some cases was so severe over such a length of time that it led to physical deformation of the eye which is common in myopia/macular degeneration/retinopothy, which resolved itself upon sufficient exposure to natural light in most cases. There are two loops that are impacted dramatically by light which ramp up or slow down activity in the pituitary.
Retinopothy is closely associated with spikes of high energy light waves in the Blue-Violet spectrum (phototoxicity). Macular degeneration, and Myopia with lack of Red-NIR-IR light. Hopefully that clarifies.
The papers involved were groundbreaking, and hardly anyone outside of the field of Ophthalmology have heard of these people, there are a lot of people that seek to draw fallacy and discredit because lack of evidence. There is a vested industry that would be impacted as a health hazard (all LED displays). Very little research has been done on these pathways because there hasn't been funding, similar in scope to the same way flouride research in water was done, which took India doing a comprehensive national study to show it lowered IQ in children above a certain threshold in ppm; nonetheless the fact that these pathways do exist is not disputed. There is solid science to support it.
I'm not convinced. You suggest a lot of information is paywalled or in another language. Canadian girlfriend much?
> There are also a number of chemicals within the eye itself that act as light traps/charge signaling, as well as melatonin based specks which have biochemical reactions with UV, and reflect UV (to a lesser degree).
Weak sauce. There are a number of chemicals within the skin itself that act as light traps; it doesn't mean NIR photons are dangerous to our bodies.
> Together they show environmental light greatly impacts both plant kingdoms and animal kingdom species.
Not even weak sauce. This has been known since at least 2,000 B.C.E.
Your entire post is a nothing burger. And you haven't even mentioned the effect contrails have on macular degradation yet.
Luckily I don't need to convince you.
Unfortunately, not everything can be conveniently handed to someone for review when there has been a coordinated effort to either suppress or make unavailable.
The papers exist, you can look them up, and read them. Some are in German. You didn't bother.
In such cases, its rational and standard practice that statements aren't to be discounted until you actually read the material and verify one way or the other. Judgment is withheld until then. Something you fail to do here.
I pointed to the people who did the most work which is sufficient, especially given the fact that claims were made that there are no resources out there on this. There are, they just aren't generally public.
If you have access to Alumni resources; or are able to read another language, great you can read those papers and get the details. Hollwich is particularly famous for his work on both people and later in animals. The pathways mentioned exists, and were confirmed with proper controls in people.
Your claim that this is a nothing burger is unfounded without rational basis, it amounts to "You didn't hand me everything on a plate so you must be wrong". This is not only a total fallacy, but the same kind of behavior observed in toddlers and people who are disadvantaged from their excessive level of entitlement.
These characteristics naturally exclude people from being researchers and makes any viable discussion dubious at best, based on a lack of credibility from those people.
Given your proclivity to contrails and other conspiracy, I think you may have forgotten to mention other biased beliefs other fantastical things that may be clouding your reasoning; or alternatively if you had meant that sarcastically you should have added /s at the end which is standard netiquette.
Overall your response is based in ad hominem, and thus should be discarded by any discerning reader.
Your statements are easily refuted. They certainly didn't have biochemical testing in 2000 BCE to prove this. The researchers mentioned did use testing to prove this pathway exists, rigorously.
In my estimation of your response, you are the type of person that would believe the earth is flat. Good luck convincing those people of anything.
This is super cool, I've wondered if this wort of thing could be possible and I guess it is. The applications given are funny though. I can't think of any applications either, but "helping people with color-blindness" reads like the ol' search and rescue excuse [1]. I think they're talking about shifting colors around so less color is perceived in the wavelengths they can't see?
[1] https://xkcd.com/2128/
It's pretty nifty though because besides changing the wavelength it must also preserve the exact direction of each photon. Without the correct light field you'd see nothing.
Not sure if I'm missing something. These sound like fluorescent dye particles?
Don't such molecules emit light diffusely, i.e. not correlated to the direction of excitation? It also must be doing multi-photon fluorescence in order to bump up to higher (visible) frequencies. What is the point of putting it in a contact lens when it won't really echo the light field arriving at the lens?
I also recall that infrared photography requires a significant adjustment of focus compared to visual light due to chromatic aberration. Would it even be possible for an IR-sensitive eye to accommodate this difference in focus?
On the other hand, an efficient upconverting fluorescent dye could be embedded in an imaging screen with appropriate optics to make passive IR scope?
That's exactly what it does, the article states that
> When worn, people could see Morse code-like signals flashed from an infrared LED and tell what direction infrared light came from.
So wearers aren't really resolving an image in infrared, although it does appear to at least be a bit directional.
This is upconverting photons in energy... which requires energy, unlike fluorescence (which downconverts). There's nothing in the article to suggest how these contacts perform this miracle of energy creation, nor even how much of the IR spectrum is involved.
Oh, and it's "Chinese researchers". So... grain of salt. Many are legit, but bunkum is regularly published there.
Upconversion nanoparticles are optical nanomaterials that absorb multiple low-energy photons (like near-infrared light) and emit a single, higher-energy photon (like visible light) through a process called upconversion
I'm not sure how compressing IR photons into a human's existing visual range is supposed to "improve" anything, let alone grant 'super-vision'? We are talking about light that's not particularly useful anyway generating noise and clouding our vision as regular red or green light for...what exactly? This all sounds like hype nonsense.
I think of the Radio Shack passive infrared card.
It was a plastic card that you could place under a light to "charge" and then if you aimed a remote control at it and pressed a button - it would glow red.
It would kick up infrared passively into the visible light spectrum.
Of yeah i remember those. It was great to check if a remote was working.
These days I just use my phone camera. The IR filter isn't perfect and IR leds are tons brighter than visible ones so if you point it right at the camera you can easily see it.
Is there any reason this needs to be in contact lenses rather than glasses? I assume it's very dim if not in direct contact with your eye.
Three month old article.
What is most of interest to me in this research is that having a handle on stable and bio-safe chemistry that is reactive in near-visible spectra,
allows for a future wherein that chemistry is baked into additional cones,
allowing for polychromacy,
which might conceivably result in new qualia ("colors as they are perceived by the viewer" as in classic dorm-room arguments about whether one person's blue is another's red).
It'd be nice for our civilization to persist long enough, and to live long enough, to not just be around when that happens but have opportunity to try it out.
Neural implants are going to open up even wider possibilities dramatically.
Given how fast things are changing, one can imagine that digital visual feed implants, providing conscious control of wide spectrum sensitivity, won't be so far off.
Beyond tetrachromacy, think "Kilochromacy". Whatever that would be like! (A few short neural link, and cognitive amplification, generations in.)