[Cyborg] magnetic sense in birds

[Robert Picone]

On Sat, Jul 10, 2010 at 8:56 PM, Eric Boyd <mrericboyd at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Wow, that's an awesome article you attached.  I especially love the
> conclusion:
>
> <<
> People unaware of these intriguing findings often ask me, “What does
> ultraviolet vision do for birds?” The question seems to imply that
> sensitivity to UV must be a peculiarity or even a feature that
> self-respecting birds should be able to live happily without. We are so
> locked into the world of our own senses that, although we readily understand
> and fear a loss of vision, we cannot conjure a picture of a visual world
> beyond our own. It is humbling to realize that evolutionary perfection is a
> will-o’-the-wisp and that the world is not quite what we imagine it to be
> when we measure it through a lens of human self-importance.
> >>
>
> I am also fascinated by the idea that our third cone cell is merely a
> mutated clone of the second cone cell that birds have, you can see this in
> the spacing of the cones:
>
> Birds:  370  445  508  565
> Humans:     424    530 560
>
> Clearly the vision of birds is not only better for being tetra-chromatic,
> but also better because "red" and "green" are spaced further apart!
>
> I hope someone is researching gene therapy to give humans the vision of
> birds, cause damn, sign me up!
>
> Eric
>
>
Current therapies don't seem so far from being able to give the color bits
of bird vision to us, there's been a successful gene therapy in adding a
color channel to squirrel monkeys

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/colortherapy/

Williams, however, was quicker to speculate. “Ultimately we might be able to
do all kinds of interesting manipulations of the retina,” he said. “Not only
might we be able to cure disease, but we might engineer eyes with remarkable
capabilities. You can imagine conferring enhanced night vision in normal
eyes, or engineering genes that make photopigments with spectral properties
for whatever you want your eye to see.”

I personally think I'd take Near Infrared over UV any day though, it just
seems like a richer colorspace.

PS:  Hi btw, I'm sort of new here.



On 7/10/10 8:32 PM, kristinneidlinger wrote:
> >     ps. i am currently working on a UV fur.
> >     does anyone know about UV?
> >     do you have any good paint or reflective surface suggestions?
> >     i am experimenting with this glow powder and it is not very strong.
> >
> >     thanks!
>
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