I can see you're lying, your ears glow green!
March 5, 2019 3:56 AM Subscribe
Scientists give mice heat vision by covering their retinas with nanoantennae. "A single injection of nanoantennae in the mice’s eyes bestowed infrared vision for up to 10 weeks with minimal side effects, allowing them to see near-infrared light even during the day and with enough specificity to distinguish between different shapes." Full text of paper published in Cell.
I wonder if there's any inspiration here from photosynthesis and the related light-harvesting complexes of green plants, which if I remember correctly contain structures which collect light from a broader span of wavelengths and process it somehow to make the energy usable for narrower photosynthesis mechanisms.
posted by XMLicious at 4:46 AM on March 5, 2019
posted by XMLicious at 4:46 AM on March 5, 2019
So now we can both rejuvenate old mice by transfusion of young blood, and also give them infra-vision. We can also use them to generate human parts... sounds like we’re entering fantasy villain territory. I get this is science but it sure sounds like necromancy.
posted by SaltySalticid at 4:48 AM on March 5, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by SaltySalticid at 4:48 AM on March 5, 2019 [4 favorites]
Nah, it’s just old-fashioned supervillainy. Necromancy required a lot more sigels, chanting, and consorting with the Darkness.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:51 AM on March 5, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:51 AM on March 5, 2019 [1 favorite]
Also, can I say how disappointed I was that this “heat vision” did not involve beams of light shooting out from the mices’ eyes and destroying the lab? Science reporting fails again!
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:53 AM on March 5, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:53 AM on March 5, 2019 [3 favorites]
On the one hand, I'm perfectly aware that when we are talking about heat transfer by radiation, we are talking about the infrared band of the electromagnetic spectrum.
On the other hand, it seems intuitively clear to me that when you say "infrared vision," you mean seeing heat, but when you say "heat vision," you mean this.
On preview, jinx, GenjiandProust.
posted by solotoro at 4:55 AM on March 5, 2019 [2 favorites]
On the other hand, it seems intuitively clear to me that when you say "infrared vision," you mean seeing heat, but when you say "heat vision," you mean this.
On preview, jinx, GenjiandProust.
posted by solotoro at 4:55 AM on March 5, 2019 [2 favorites]
I, for one, welcome our new heat-sensing mouse overlords.
posted by mmoncur at 4:59 AM on March 5, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by mmoncur at 4:59 AM on March 5, 2019 [2 favorites]
This is very interesting news: the bottleneck in perception is mechanical, not cognitive. Now make them grow Ampulae of Lorenzini and see if they can make sense of electromagnetic stimuli, I bet they could.
posted by os tuberoes at 5:08 AM on March 5, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by os tuberoes at 5:08 AM on March 5, 2019 [1 favorite]
Now mice will know when I silently fart on a cold day with two senses.
posted by srboisvert at 5:18 AM on March 5, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by srboisvert at 5:18 AM on March 5, 2019 [3 favorites]
Surely I'm not the only one who would trade bi-monthly eye injections for infrared vision with minimal side effects? This would be great professionally.
posted by Mitheral at 8:17 AM on March 5, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by Mitheral at 8:17 AM on March 5, 2019 [3 favorites]
I mean, I'd take the infrared vision but I'm not sure I want to get more than one injection about it. Can't I just be bitten by one of the experimental mice instead? Not too worried about it either way, professionally and personally it would do nothing for me besides bragging rights.
posted by GoblinHoney at 8:48 AM on March 5, 2019
posted by GoblinHoney at 8:48 AM on March 5, 2019
Is this the point in history that the future will consider the beginning of the end for humanity?
Assuming our mice overlords keep some of us around to contemplate such things.
posted by tommasz at 11:53 AM on March 5, 2019
Assuming our mice overlords keep some of us around to contemplate such things.
posted by tommasz at 11:53 AM on March 5, 2019
Eye injections aren’t that bad, though that may be my repeated exposure to various eye surgeries speaking. A good proportion of people will end up needing eye injections for anti-VEGF therapy (Macular degeneration treatment) anyway, so why not offer this as a bonus?
posted by Maecenas at 1:06 PM on March 5, 2019
posted by Maecenas at 1:06 PM on March 5, 2019
Is this the point in history that the future will consider the beginning of the end for humanity?
Assuming our mice overlords keep some of us around to contemplate such things.
Look, we bring in the dinner-plate sized tarantulas to hunt the heat vision mice. I'm sure nothing will go wrong.
posted by nubs at 2:54 PM on March 5, 2019
Assuming our mice overlords keep some of us around to contemplate such things.
Look, we bring in the dinner-plate sized tarantulas to hunt the heat vision mice. I'm sure nothing will go wrong.
posted by nubs at 2:54 PM on March 5, 2019
This is pretty cool from a nanotech and bioengineering perspective, but maybe not that remarkable from a neuroscience perspective.
Basically, they've conjugated a device directly onto the cone cells of mice that transduces near infrared (NIR) light into green light. The retina and the rest of the nervous system of the mouse then treats it exactly the way it would treat any other green light. They did a nice set of experiments to show that the mice can behaviorally and physiologically respond to NIR just as with normal visible light, and that their normal visible light visual behavior is also unimpaired (within the relatively limited parameters they tested). However, they also found that the mice responded to NIR and visible patterns in exactly the same way, without apparently discriminating between them, which is consistent with the cone cells being stimulated similarly by both green and NIR light.
So as for what it's "like" to have this kind of heat vision, it's probably like all NIR emitters are glowing green. A warm object radiating in the NIR and a cool green light source will look pretty much the same.
However, it is actually possible to extend a mouse's color vision abilities directly. Mice normally are dichromats, meaning they are effectively red-green color blind. In an experiment a few years ago, though, mice that had been genetically engineered to express a third opsin were found to be able to discriminate three primary colors, like non-color-blind humans do. This was without any additional genetic alterations that would have changed the rest of the nervous system, so the presence of a new cone type was itself sufficient to allow the visual system to organize a new color percept. As far as I know it's unclear how far this can be pushed (could you do 4 cone types? 5? more?), but one could imagine combining the techniques to produce a mouse with a retinal pigment that conjugates to a NIR-nanoantenna, giving a mouse with a true NIR primary color percept.
I'm not sure why you'd want to, though. If the goal is to extend human visual capabilities, you'd need something that could transfect adult tissue, not a germ-line alteration. Unless we're talking about genetically engineering human embryos, which, yeah, let's not do that.
posted by biogeo at 4:41 PM on March 5, 2019 [6 favorites]
Basically, they've conjugated a device directly onto the cone cells of mice that transduces near infrared (NIR) light into green light. The retina and the rest of the nervous system of the mouse then treats it exactly the way it would treat any other green light. They did a nice set of experiments to show that the mice can behaviorally and physiologically respond to NIR just as with normal visible light, and that their normal visible light visual behavior is also unimpaired (within the relatively limited parameters they tested). However, they also found that the mice responded to NIR and visible patterns in exactly the same way, without apparently discriminating between them, which is consistent with the cone cells being stimulated similarly by both green and NIR light.
So as for what it's "like" to have this kind of heat vision, it's probably like all NIR emitters are glowing green. A warm object radiating in the NIR and a cool green light source will look pretty much the same.
However, it is actually possible to extend a mouse's color vision abilities directly. Mice normally are dichromats, meaning they are effectively red-green color blind. In an experiment a few years ago, though, mice that had been genetically engineered to express a third opsin were found to be able to discriminate three primary colors, like non-color-blind humans do. This was without any additional genetic alterations that would have changed the rest of the nervous system, so the presence of a new cone type was itself sufficient to allow the visual system to organize a new color percept. As far as I know it's unclear how far this can be pushed (could you do 4 cone types? 5? more?), but one could imagine combining the techniques to produce a mouse with a retinal pigment that conjugates to a NIR-nanoantenna, giving a mouse with a true NIR primary color percept.
I'm not sure why you'd want to, though. If the goal is to extend human visual capabilities, you'd need something that could transfect adult tissue, not a germ-line alteration. Unless we're talking about genetically engineering human embryos, which, yeah, let's not do that.
posted by biogeo at 4:41 PM on March 5, 2019 [6 favorites]
Also, I think these guys were scooped already by Shadowrun.
posted by biogeo at 4:42 PM on March 5, 2019
posted by biogeo at 4:42 PM on March 5, 2019
As far as I know it's unclear how far this can be pushed (could you do 4 cone types?...
The gene for seeing red wavelengths is on the X chromosome... since biological females have two Xs, a significant number of them are likely tetrachromats.
posted by logicpunk at 6:12 PM on March 5, 2019
The gene for seeing red wavelengths is on the X chromosome... since biological females have two Xs, a significant number of them are likely tetrachromats.
posted by logicpunk at 6:12 PM on March 5, 2019
Now mice will know when I silently fart on a cold day with two senses.
More like four or five.
posted by furtive at 7:37 PM on March 5, 2019
More like four or five.
posted by furtive at 7:37 PM on March 5, 2019
« Older That's not a spider. THIS is a spider. | We don't have enough money to do that, sorry Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by kyrademon at 4:23 AM on March 5, 2019 [4 favorites]