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People Emit Visible Light
An Anonymous Reader writes "The human body literally glows, emitting a visible light in extremely small quantities at levels that rise and fall with the day, scientists now reveal. Japanese researchers have shown that the body emits visible light, 1,000 times less intense than the levels to which our naked eyes are sensitive. In fact, virtually all living creatures emit very weak light, which is thought to be a byproduct of biochemical reactions involving free radicals."
Shouldn't that be invisible light?
Er. Your argument is that because something emits enough photons, then some are bound to be inside the visible spectrum?
That is not how light works. If you want a different wavelength, you need photons with different energy, and you need a different process.
Just to be pedantic, you'd have to move it into a colder room or it won't be distinguishable from the background emissions of everything else. The only things that could possibly be distinguishable would be things that produce their own heat, whether electrically or chemically.
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So, since this light is directly related to biological processes, that means in theory it should be tied to mood. For instance, clinical depression is tied to a general depression of all physiological processes. So, it would stand to reason that if you're down, you would emit less light. Someone who is euphoric should look (relatively) like a lightbulb in comparison. I know in the article it says that the amount and color of light varies, I wonder if this would lead towards a mood-ring style ability to read emotions. For instance, someone who is emitting a "pensive" light spectrum, along with other biological cues like sweat, and fidgiting may be a good suspect for scrutiny.
I'm not sure halos are even part of Christian canon.
So what process creates the other half of the bell-curve, the photons at a lower energy than infra-red radiation?
/me checks electromagnetic spectrum
Looks like extremely low-energy photons are radio.
Assuming it actually is a bell curve.
Anybody that's ever taken LSD could have told you that!
it's entirely possible that extremely sensitive individuals can see the light coming off the extremely bright individuals.
If there are people who have vision that is 1,000 times normal, then they must get blinded by the sun really easily...
There may be something to metabolism ... which could easily generate 10 or 100 x the intensity observed in this study, and thus be observable by many people.
Conversely, the 'brights' (don't tell Dawkins about this!) would be producing lots more free-radicals than normal. I sure hope they also have more efficient repair mechanisms in place to mop them up.
While most cows aren't spherical in real life, within a species the height of cows, their mass, horn length, volume of milk production, girth, colour, etc. all vary within known ranges, with most members of the population being distributed about the middle. It's also possible that the luminescence phenomena is mostly quantized--cows have a whole number of legs and not 3.6 +/- 0.4 legs, nor 1.1 +/- 0.1 brains--but the fact that luminescence appears to vary within each day (at least within their sample) in individuals of a species with a lifespan of 10e5 days suggests that it's not a binary or quantized trait.
So, this isn't assuming a spherical cow as much as assuming (until we have better evidence) for this discussion that this instance of a previously unobserved kind of animal (new physiological trait or process) fits into the same pattern in which the vast majority of all other known traits also fit. Scientists have been wrong in the past on this kind of confirmation bias assumption (see ring species, for example) but we always have to start with what we know and can show from available evidence.
If you have evidence that we need a new sub-field of biochemistry or physiology or genetics to deal with dimly glowing human faces which offers a more robust model of the intensity of glowing faces and/or ocular light sensitivity than we have in this discussion (for which we have really big piles of circumstantial evidence from many different circumstances and models which seem to have worked for the last few decades at least) please present it so that we may discuss your new model instead. Otherwise, your attempted counterpoint amounts to a claim without evidence that much of what we know about evolutionary biology is wrong (possible, but you didn't specify why you think that).
There are 1.1... kinds of people.
That's great. If you're right and halos are completely explained by historical pragmatic industrial design, glowing faces doesn't tell us much that's new. However, if there could be a physiological basis for some of the spiritual things for which we don't yet have a fully satisfying explanation--potentially individuals like shamans, diviners, etc.--we'll have gained some important insights into the human religions which have shaped so much of our world. We might also learn more about how we sense and perceive other people, which would be useful for such things as clinical and behavioral psychology, the treatment of mental illness, and the performance arts industries.
While your old tech explanation is cool, I'd get more new tech toys out of understanding if and why human faces glow (and also, what else glows?).
There are 1.1... kinds of people.
1. The rods of the human retina can react to a single photon. However, to be consciously perceived between 5 and 10 photons must be detected within 100 milliseconds. To pick up light that's 'visible', but "1,000 times less intense than the levels to which our naked eyes are sensitive" ('Which is, of course, impossible. -- Hitchhiker's Guide) the researchers in TFA are claiming to detect small fractions of a photon (repeat HHG assertion here).
As stated, the above applies to conscious perception. A normally non-conscious perception via an alternate visual channel has been proven to exist. This 'blindsight' has been discussed here previously http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/24/2330245 . It has been shown to not only exist in the sighted, but can be trained in them so to become functional. There was a school for this in New Mexico that was written up in Co-Evolution Quarterly almost 20 years ago. In the discussion thread here, more than one person admitted to having developed or noticed having this ability.
2. The spirit of we two legged can become attuned to the spirit of the four legged, and so the hunter can find prey in darkness, and one can also avoid becoming hunted. Likewise, we can feel the spirit of the standing people (trees) and so find our way between them with surprising speed. Although it works as though it were sight, because it is a working of the spirit, the impressions received are not detected as visual images to the mind, but only to the spirit.
I've got a lot of academic training in #1. I've got some training, and have ancestors with a lot more in #2. They may be incompatible, but since no viewpoint perfectly and completely describes reality, none can be said to be the only truth. In any case, learning to use dark sight doesn't require believing either.
Still, there ain't no such as pieces of photons.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
No, what I'm saying is that the proposition, "People Emit Visible Light", is a crock. I take words seriously. When they say "visible", I take it to mean "VISIBLE". If they meant to say, "people emit light in the visible part of the spectrum", then they should have said exactly that. Words have meanings.
especially when referring to a qualitative attribute such as visibility; what's visible to one person may not be visible to another
Right. That's why the definition of "visible light" should rely more on some species-wide feature than on some feature that varies wildly from one person to another.
It would be accurate to say people emit some light within the wavelength range that is normally visible. It would be inaccurate to say people emit visible light.
This statement is exactly what I wanted to hear when I posted my first reply. :-)
Visible light, just means light within the visible spectrum. Even if everyone closes their eyes, and nobody actually sees it, visible light is still visible light (as distinct form Infra-red, Xrays, radio, etc.)
There are no tiger attacks in my area and it's all because this rock I'm holding keeps the tigers away.