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Bonds Are a 'Safe' Investment: A Big Lie Gets Even BiggerWill shrimp's eyes help create a better DVD? The answer is yes. Researchers at the University of Bristol, England, who are studying the shrimp's eye have found a way to create a better DVD.
How is this possible? Scientists discovered that the Mantis shrimp, found off the coast of Australia, can see in 12 primary colors, four times that of humans. The shrimp's eye can detect different kinds of light polarization which is the direction of oscillation in light waves.
The man-made devices that we are using only work well for one color, while the shrimp's eye can see across the whole spectrum of light from infra red to ultraviolet. Researcher, Nicholas Roberts told Reuters that: "The mechanism that we have found in this eye is unknown to human synthetic devices. It works much, much better than any attempts that we've made to construct a device."
He believes that the "beautifully simple" eye system of the Mantis could be mimicked in the lab using liquid crystals. The result would be a machine that could handle far more information than a conventional one.
What is so fascinating about this study is that often the answer to a complex scientific discovery is already there in nature. All we needed to do was look for it.
For those of you who want further information, details of the study are published in the journal Nature Photonics.
It is unknown why the shrimp has such a rarefied eyesight. Researchers are guessing that it is associated with food or sex.
Can you name any other scientific discoveries that were found in nature?
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