Do Blue Eyes See Better in the DARK...

Do Lighter Eyes See Better in Low Light Than Darker Eyes?

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:13 Blue Eyes Vs Brown Eyes
1:40 Other Factors and Ancient Egypt
2:55 Mechanism
3:58 Evolutionary Advantages

Do lighter eyes, such as blue and gray, see better in lower light conditions compared to brown eyes, and did this give lighter eyes an evolutionary advantage? Now let’s start by looking at what research has been done on the performance of lighter eyes in low light conditions. Well a really interesting study from January of this year looked at this very topic, with the idea for the study based on the experience of one of the authors, who was originally from Japan.

Dr Kyoko Yamaguchi, who is the Senior Lecturer in Human Genetics at Liverpool John Moores University, was struck by how much dimmer the lighting was in buildings when she moved to Europe from Japan, finding it too dark to read at times. This lead her to wonder if there was a biological basis for this weaker lighting, rather than just a cultural one.

Along with one of her students, she came up with a simple but interesting experiment. They took 40 people of European descent between ages of 18-30 who had either blue or brown eyes, and sat them in darkness for 30 seconds to let their eyes adjust to the darkness. The researchers then gradually increased the level of light in the room so that the participants could read a code of 5 randomly generated capital letters on a wall 3 metres away. They found that those with blue eyes needed a light level of 0.7 lux on average, compared with 0.82 lux for those with brown eyes.

This is pretty fascinating. Now before moving on to look at why this seems to be the case and the evolutionary advantages involved in this, I should note that other factors, as these authors also note themselves, are involved in seeing in low light conditions.

Sources:

Faith Erin Cain, Kyoko Yamaguchi - Effect of iris pigmentation of blue and brown eyed individuals with European ancestry on ability to see in low light conditions after a short-term dark adaption period Effect of iris pigmentation of blue and brown eyed individuals with European ancestry on ability to see in low light conditions after a short-term dark adaption period | bioRxiv

Blue eyed see better in the dark Blue Eyes | Liverpool John Moores University (ljmu.ac.uk)

Kyoko Yamaguchi | Liverpool John Moores University (ljmu.ac.uk)

Al Binali HA. Night blindness and ancient remedy. Heart Views. 2014 Oct-Dec;15(4):136-9. doi: 10.4103/1995-705X.151098. PMID: 25774260; PMCID: PMC4348990. Night Blindness and Ancient Remedy - PMC (nih.gov)

Vitamin A deficiency (who.int)

Vitamin A - Wikipedia

Do Blue Eyes See Better in the Dark Than Brown Eyes? Evolutionary Advantage?

Do Lighter Eyes See Better in the Dark?

Do Lighter Eyes See Better in Low Light Compared to Darker Eyes?

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#blueeyes #eyecolor #europeanhistory