Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Chinese Boy Claims To Have Cat-Like Night Vision

Posted by samzenpus on from the all-the-better-to-see-you dept.

Oswald McWeany writes "Reports swirling around the Internet are that a boy in China may have cat-like night vision. The boy with eerie blue-eyes was able to fill out a questionnaire in the dark and his eyes reflect like a cat's when a light is shined on them. No reports yet if he marks his territory or is litter box trained."

8 of 171 comments (clear)

  1. Blue eyes? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Blue eyes? He just uses prescience to find if the answers he's about to write down are correct, much like Paul Muad-Dib the God-Emperor did later in his life. Nothing new here

    1. Re:Blue eyes? by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 5, Funny

      The questionnaire was a Foxconn job application. He's certified to work on the low-light factory floor which is under development so the employees won't really be able to see how bad they have it. /sarcasm

    2. Re:Blue eyes? by durrr · · Score: 5, Funny

      Or it could be unregulated gene manipulation, this being china and all.
      Which would totally fucking awsome.

    3. Re:Blue eyes? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Agreed.

      Where do I get me some freaky blue night-vision eyes?

      First you gotta kill a few people...
      And then you get sent to a prison where they tell you you'll never see daylight again. So you dig up a doctor, pay him twenty menthol Kools to do a surgical shine job on your eyes

  2. And there you were... by Sez+Zero · · Score: 5, Funny

    And there you were complaining about all the toxic waste that cheap manufacturing and lax environment laws in China.

    We could have blue-eyed sightseeing children here in the US, but, OH NO, you had to have cheap iPhones!!

  3. Can't capture on camera? by hawguy · · Score: 5, Informative

    Despite the claims that his eyes have a retroreflective tapetum lucidum, they can't capture it on camera:

    http://www.lifeslittlemysteries.com/2115-china-cat-eyed-boy-night-vision.html

    In the footage, Nong's teacher claims the boy's eyes flash when shined with a flashlight in the dark, but the reporters don't seem to be able to catch the effect on camera. When Nong's eyes are illuminated in the dark, they appear normal. James Reynolds, a pediatric ophthalmologist at State University of New York in Buffalo, noted, "A video could capture [eyeshine] easily, just like in nature films of leopards at night."

    I can't seem to take a flash photo of my dog without seeing her eyes shine back at me, so I don't see why they can't capture the effect in this boy if it exists.

    I think he's just a blue-eyed chinese boy (which is unusual but not unheard of) with exceptionally good low-light vision, but I don't believe he's developed the same low-light vision adaptation that some animals have.

    1. Re:Can't capture on camera? by russotto · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yes, his eyes look like ordinary blue eyes to me. Seems to me his mother really pulled off a fast one on his father. "Ooh, it's a mutation, has nothing to do with my job as a tour guide for Western visitors."

  4. Re:Old hoax by GameboyRMH · · Score: 5, Informative

    I can't find any references to this before January 2012, although maybe the recent news flare-up has drowned the older stuff out. Here's a Snopes thread on it, nobody's calling it a hoax and these guys know their hoaxes:

    http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=78597

    --
    "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel