The Atlantic

An Ingenious Injection Can Create Infrared Vision

Nanotech particles expanded mice’s sense of sight. But would they work in humans?
Source: Egoreichenkov Evgenii / Shutterstock / The Atlantic

The list of animals that can see infrared light, which lies just beyond the red part of the rainbow, is very small. It includes vipers and pythons, whose faces have infrared-detecting pits wired to the visual centers in their brain. It includes a few freshwater fish such as carp and tilapia. It includes salmon, but only when they swim back into rivers from the sea, and only after dramatically retooling the chemistry of their eyes. It includes bullfrogs, but only in the bottom halves of their. It include humans, unless we wear special goggles or are exposed to specific . And it doesn’t include mice.

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