The Eyes Have It

In the last year I found a collection of photographs by Suren Manvelyan of animal eyes. These incredible macro shots showed both the incredibly diversity of eyes but more fascinating to me, the structure of the iris. I've always taken for granted that the iris was simply a solid color. But as I looked at the images I realized that there are gaps in the iris, there are color changes. Honestly there is nothing solid about them. 

Chimpanzee eye (very close to a human eye)

Since then I've become fascinated with my eyes. I've started checking out Jeff's eyes. I would be fascinated with other people's eyes but they might find it disconcerting when I get close enough to examine their irises in detail. And although I don't have the skills that Manvelyan has with macro shots, I've taken some images of both Jeff and my irises. 

These are mine. Note the gaps on the left side of the iris. Note the way each strand of iris goes into the dark pupil in the middle. It looks more like a hole than any solid structure.

This is Jeff's eye. Notice the color changes. Jeff has eyes that fluctuate between blue and green (at least in my mind). I love the center green surrounded by the light blue. I didn't do any color touching for this photo. 

This photo was something fun. I took a horrible shot of Jeff's eye. The flash was still on and the photo was too bright to be useful. Until I started playing with it in iPhoto. I changed the contrasts and what I have is more artistic. But even more interesting it really shows those gaps in the iris. They now show up as pure black against the white of the iris. And I love the odd color of the pupil 

Make sure you check out the rest of Suren Manvelyan's gallery here. I promise you these will be some of the most interesting and beautiful photographs that you'll see all week. I guarantee that you've never seen eyes like those photos before. They made me rethink how eyes work. I loved these last two the most (gecko above and llama below). 

Cicadas and struggle

Okay I am officially one of the biggest geeks I know. I spent 25 minutes this afternoon, most of my lunch hour, watching a giant cicada as it crawled its way to the grass. It was way too beautiful a day to be in so I grabbed my book, lunch at Arby's, and headed out to the state capitol to enjoy the view of downtown and the park. I found a good bench in the sun and opened my book to an interesting essay on reinvigorating interest in science through children's books. (Really, I find that kind of thing interesting). 

I was interrupted though by an odd buzzing. I looked up but couldn't tell where it was coming from. The general location seemed to be a rather large leaf on the ground. Until I realized that it wasn't a leaf. It was a giant cicada. These are some cool looking bugs. They're about 3 inches long which is pretty huge (for bugs) with these beautiful clear wings. Well one of this guys wings was damaged. He was trying occasionally to fly only to flop over on his back and have to right himself. So he started crawling. 

It was painful to watch. He could only get an inch or so before stopping. Two of his legs on one side were damaged so he couldn't just walk straight. Now I am a huge anthropomorphist. And I feel sorry for everything. I kept wondering if I should/could help him. If I left him on the sidewalk the birds would get him. If I tried to pick him up he would freak out and may hurt himself more. So I sat and watched and wondered which fate was worse, getting eaten by birds or starving to death. Cheerful huh?

But what I really found myself doing was rooting for him. Here was this little bug that was struggling so valiantly to survive. It was dragging itself inch by painful inch to get to cover and shade. And I thought about how "life finds a way". (yah its a jurassic park quote. I told you I was a geek.) And how the urge to survive is so strong. 

When he finally made it to the grass I silently cheered for him. (Okay maybe I even verbally cheered for him. But no one was around.) Then I went back to reading my chapter and realized how now I was interested in learning about cicadas. I didn't know much about them, particularly their lifecycle. So I went back to the office and spent a bit of time reading up on them. Did you know that cicadas live for four years underground as immature insects, emerge on their fifth year, mate, and then die. Or that they sing in choruses. They are some of the loudest insects on earth. Perhaps we don't need children's books to remind us how interesting science and nature is. Sometimes it just takes a valiant little bug and a little free time. 

For those who don't know, here is a giant cicada. That looks similar to what I saw although mine was probably an inch to an inch and a half smaller. I'm sorry to say I have "borrowed" this picture. It was just such a beautiful shot and showed the size of them perfectly.