Chinese Scientists Give Night Vision To Mice, And May Tweak Humans To See In Dark As Well

Biological research isn't always about curing disease, sometimes researchers are trying to improve the base form of humans.

A team in China may have devised a way to do that, by giving people night vision to make us capable of seeing infrared light.

Reuters

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The breakthrough comes from the University of Science and Technology of China, where a team of researchers were experimenting with mice. They injected nanoparticles into the rodents' eyes that anchor tightly to the photoreceptor cells. These nanoparticles then act as tiny infrared transducers.

With this addition, the mice were able to see infrared light for up to 10 weeks at a time, even during the day, and with enough clarity to make out different shapes. Additionally, the nanoparticles themselves seemed to cause only "minimal" complications.

What's happening in this case is that the nanoparticles anchored to the retina are capturing the IR light and shortening its wavelength. After that, when that modified light hits a nearby rod or cone, it's transmitted to the brain, which is fooled into thinking it's visible light it can see.

AF.mil

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"In our experiment, nanoparticles absorbed infrared light around 980 nm in wavelength and converted it into light peaked at 535 nm," said Jin Bao one of the scientists on the experiment. "Which made the infrared light appear as the color green."

Infrared radiation is light with a wavelength larger than that of visible light, which makes it impossible for us to see. In time, we've learned to bypass this human limitation using infrared cameras and night vision goggles. But you can bet being able to see in the dark without gadgets would have governments clamouring for it for their military and the like.