Outside, clouds glide across the horizon. A man on the street below seems in a hurry. Two cars and a lorry drive past him. And a sparrow lands on the windowsill. As you get up to see it closer, a pencil rolls off the end of the table and falls to the floor. None of this may seem particularly eventful to you but it does take a very intricate network of cells to process the surrounding information so that you can see it all happening. Most of us take eyesight for granted. Most of us take the perception of movement for granted too. Without all the specialized cells that make up an eye, it would be a very difficult world to move around in, but also to apprehend. What is more, not only is the information of our surroundings relayed and processed in a fraction of a second, but we can effortlessly distinguish between what is moving, and what is not. Even if we are, ourselves, moving. Recently, scientists discovered that the ability to see objects in motion does not use the same system as the one we use to perceive a tree standing still in a park for instance. In fact, the system it uses seems to slow the process of perception down a tad, and is made possible thanks to a protein known as sidekick 2.
展开▼
