Seeing starts in the rods and cones, two different types of sensory cells in the retina of the eye. The rods are responsible for dark vision and are particularly sensitive to light as a result. A ...

The more scientists learn about how our genes build our bodies, the better they get at hacking this process. Right now, they're already adept enough to restore vision to blind mice. Gene therapy is ...

A new, ultrafast raman spectroscopy method has given researchers a glimpse of the early stages of the vision process. Vision is jump-started by the isomerization of the retinal chromophore in ...

This image shows the structure of rhodopsin embedded in a membrane. The red structure in the middle is the retinal chromophore responsible for absorbing visible light. (Image credit: Kiser et al., ...

For your eyes to read these words, they need to detect light. When light hits your retina, it initiates a cascade of signals and changes that connect your eye to the brain. A team of researchers in ...

Two new compounds may be able to treat retinitis pigmentosa, a group of inherited eye diseases that cause blindness. The compounds were identified using a virtual screening approach. Two new compounds ...

Melanopsin pigment in the eye could be more light sensitive than the pigment that allows for night vision, rhodopsin. A two-year study using supercomputer clusters has shown that melapnopsin, a ...

Less a function of fear than bewilderment; simply put, deer freeze in headlights because they can’t see. The eyes of deer and people share a number of features, but they also have a few significant ...