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Claim CB921.1:

What use is half an eye?


Paley, Richard, 2000. The eye.


  1. Half an eye is useful for vision. Many organisms have eyes that lack some features of human eyes. Examples include the following:
    Visual prosthetics (bionic eyes) with as few as 16 pixels are found to be very useful by people who had become blind (Wickelgren 2006, Fildes 2007).

  2. Humans themselves have far from perfect vision:

    If you want to know what use is half an eye, ask yourself how you survive with much less than half of what eyes are capable of.


Bahar, Sonya, 2002. Evolution of the eye: Lessons from freshman physics and Richard Dawkins. The Biological Physicist 2(2): 2-5.


  1. Fildes, Jonathan. 2007. Trials for 'bionic' eye implants. BBC News, 2/16/2007.
  2. Gislén, A. et al., 2003. Superior underwater vision in a human population of sea gypsies. Current Biology 13: 833-836. See also Pilcher, Helen R., 2003. How to see shells on the sea floor,
  3. Kreimer, Georg, 1999. Reflective properties of different eyespot types in dinoflagellates. Protist 150: 311-323.
  4. Wickelgren, Ingrid. 2006. A vision for the blind. Science 312: 1124-1126.
  5. Zimmer, Carl, 1996. The light at the bottom of the sea. Discover (Nov.): 62-66,71-73.
  6. Zorpette, Glenn, 2000. Looking for Madam Tetrachromat. Red Herring (4 Dec.), (registration required)


created 2003-8-13, modified 2007-2-18