Why animals don't have infrared vision: Source of the visual system's 'false alarms' discovered

Thursday, June 9, 2011 - 15:30 in Physics & Chemistry

On rare occasion, the light-sensing photoreceptor cells in the eye misfire and signal to the brain as if they have captured photons, when in reality they haven't. For years this phenomenon remained a mystery. Neuroscientists have now discovered that a light-capturing pigment molecule in photoreceptors can be triggered by heat, as well, giving rise to these false alarms.

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