A Matter of Facts About Eyes
More than meets the Eye ;-)
The eye is a truly wonderous design! You use your eyes every waking moment of your life, so we think it’s time that you got to know yours a little better. Here are some interesting must-know facts about your peepers:
Did you know that…
1. You blink your eyes around 12 to 18 times each minute.
2. The average blink lasts for about one tenth of a second - it's how the front of the eye keeps itself moisturised.
3. You blink considerably fewer times when working on a computer, reading a cell phone or any other digital device. This is one of the reasons why many of us suffer from dry-eye syndrome (and digital eye strain... Did you know that this can be alleviated with the correct optical prescription lenses?).
4. Doctors are still working on a way to transplant an eyeball. The optic nerve is so sensitive and complex that reconnecting the eye to the brain is too intricate to be done successfully (yet!). (Corneal transplants have been successfully completed for some time and doctors are currently working on ways to transplant a retina to alleviate certain eye diseases.)
5. Eyes heal very quickly. With the right care, a scratch to the cornea can heal in less than a few days. (It is always advisable to see your optometrist or a doctor if something like this happens.)
6. Most of the muscles in your body require a bit of time to warm up. Your eyes, however, are on high alert and ready to go right from the 'starting line'.
7. Out of all the muscles in your body, the muscles that control your eyes are the most active.
8. Some people are born with two differently coloured eyes (the iris). This condition is called 'heterochromia'.
9. Colour blindness affects approximately one in 12 men (8%) and one in 200 women in the world.
10. Infants cannot produce tears. They may make quite a bit of noise while crying, but the tears don’t actually start flowing until they are over a month old.
11. Seeing requires a great deal of brain work – at least half of the brain is active and processing when we are using our eyes.
12. There are different shaped cells in our eyes that help us to see different things. To see shapes, there are rod-shaped cells and cone-shaped cells that allow us to see colour.
13. Over 55% of the world’s population has brown eyes with less than 2% having green eyes.
14. Your eyes weigh approximately a quarter of an ounce and are about one inch across.
15. Globally, about 39 million people are blind and roughly six times that many have some kind of vision impairment.
16. Where the optic nerve attaches to the back of your eye, there is a small blind spot in the back of the retina. Because your eyes work together to fill in each other’s blind spot you don’t notice the ‘gap’ in your vision.
17. Almost 80% of vision problems worldwide are avoidable or even curable with the proper treatment and early detection.
