Eyes are the windows to the soul, but they’re also the windows to our health. Eyes are very special as they are responsible for our vision. Eyes allow us to see and help us to learn more about the world. The eyes have many parts that help our vision, including the cornea, retina and pupil. The cornea helps the eye focus as light makes its way through. Meanwhile, the retina takes the light the eye receives and changes it into nerve signals so the brain can understand what the eye is seeing. In addition, there are so many interesting facts about eyes for kids that also make them very special.
Learning more about eye facts for kids will make you understand how important their eyes are. From revealing function behind eyes to some trivia yet also insightful facts, this article will provide them all. So, it’s good to broaden your knowledge with some fun facts about eyes for kids. Let’s get started!
Table of Contents
- 1. Eyes Can Distinguish Million Different Colors
- 2. Two Million Working Parts To Help You See
- 3. Eyeballs Stop Growing At Your 21st Birthday
- 4. Cornea Doesn’t Have Blood Vessels
- 5. Human Eyes Blink Up To 1,200 Times Per Hour
- 6. Shortsightedness Cause Your Eyeball Larger
- 7. Your Eyes Keep Moving While Sleeping
- 8. Brown Is The Most Common Eye Color Worldwide
- 9. A Human Can Have Two Different Eye Colors
- 10. Closing Eyes While Sneezing Is Nerves Instinct
- 11. Strabismus Can Cause Your Eyes Look At Different Directions
- 12. Eyes Contribute To 80% Of Your Total Knowledge
- 13. The Fastest Muscle In The Body
- 14. Only One Sixth Of Your Eyeball Is Exposed To The Outside World
- 15. Iris Has Over 256 Unique Characteristics
1. Eyes Can Distinguish Million Different Colors
Here is the science behind colorful lollipops you can see with your eyes. Most people, according to Pantone researchers, can distinguish between about one million different hues. This is due to the three different types of cone cells that make up a healthy human eye’s ability to distinguish between around a million different color combinations and about 100 different color hues. Of course, this will be different for those who are “colorblind” or have a color impairment.
Furthermore, the human eye can distinguish greater differences between shades of warmer colors than colder ones. This is due to the longer light wavelengths, such as red, orange, and yellow, being processed by almost two thirds of the cones.
2. Two Million Working Parts To Help You See
If you think that you only need a pair of eyeballs to see the world, then this fact will reveal two million working parts that contribute to your vision. The brain is the most complex organ in the body. It has about two million functional parts and is regarded as the second most complex organ. In order to create an image that your brain can comprehend, the inner structures of the eye all work in concert.
They have the capacity to process 36,000 bits of data every hour. Photoreceptors are specialized cells that convert light into electrical signals when it reaches the retina. The optic nerve carries these electrical signals from the retina to the brain. The visuals you see are then created by the brain from the signals.
3. Eyeballs Stop Growing At Your 21st Birthday
With their tiny frames and large eyes, babies are adorable. In fact, our eyes are roughly two-thirds smaller when we are born than when we are adults. The length of a baby’s eyes at birth is around 16.5 millimeters. By the time a person is 20 or 21 years old, their eyes have reached a length of roughly 24 millimeters.
Meanwhile, the weight of the eyes’ lenses continues to increase over time. After birth, eyes expand quickly. After a few months, the development becomes linear, and throughout the course of a lifetime, the lenses gain 1.38 milligrams of weight on average.
4. Cornea Doesn’t Have Blood Vessels
The absence of blood vessels in the cornea is due to transparency being of utmost importance. Blood vessels in the cornea would interfere with our ability to see. So, cornea acquires nutrients through diffusion from the aqueous humor inside and the tear fluid outside. Neurotrophins provided by the nerve fibers that supply it with nutrients are another source for it.
In fact, the only area of the human body without a blood supply is the cornea. It directly absorbs oxygen from the air. Most corneal abrasions will heal within 24 to 36 hours since the cornea is the human body tissue that heals the fastest.
5. Human Eyes Blink Up To 1,200 Times Per Hour
You need to blink for the health of your eyes. It also removes dirt from your eyes so they are clean and oxygenated while remaining moist. There is an average rate for the number of times the majority of people blink in a minute, hour, or day. Not everyone blinks at the same rate. For instance, people blink 66 percent less when using a computer. It’s possible that you’re blinking less when using a computer, which can create dry eyes.
Most people blink 15 to 20 times each minute on average. That means you blink between 900 and 1,200 times every hour, or between 14,400 and 19,200 times per day, while you’re awake. Each blink lasts between 0.1 and 0.4 seconds. According to the average person’s blink rate, this accounts for roughly 10% of your awake time.
6. Shortsightedness Cause Your Eyeball Larger
Our eyeballs enlarge as a result of spending more time focusing on close objects, such as phones, screens, or even paperback books, which stops the eye from bending light as it should. The myopia or nearsightedness that results from this elongation makes distant things appear blurry. As a result, the ocular globe will actually be greater than normal eyeballs in size.
The difference, however, is not visible from the outside. The position of the eyes in the bony orbits, as well as the skin and other tissues that surround the eyes, all play a part in how big someone’s eyes appear to be. Meanwhile, the size of the eyeball will be smaller than normal for people with farsightedness.
7. Your Eyes Keep Moving While Sleeping
Rapid eye movement (REM) and non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep are the two main stages of our sleep that can be distinguished. When we are in REM sleep, our eyes move around. We are also most likely to dream during this phase of sleep. Our eyes move because of certain brain activity that is typical of this stage of sleep.
According to Sciencefocus, we might be able to switch between scenarios in our dreams by moving our eyes. When people are given or requested to recall an image when they are awake, neuronal activity that follows their eye movements during REM sleep resembles that observed in those situations, according to research.
8. Brown Is The Most Common Eye Color Worldwide
Between 55 and 79 percent of people in the world have brown eyes. People who live in warmer climates are much more likely to have brown eyes. This is so that the eyes can be shielded from sunlight by the extra melanin that gives the iris its brown hues. This indicates that brown eyes are more prevalent in societies close to the equator because warmer climates tend to have more sunshine.
On the other side, less melanin in the iris results in blue, green, and hazel eyes. People who reside in colder climates are more likely to exhibit this trait since they may not receive as much sunshine. In addition, brown-eyed people are less prone to acquire age-related macular degeneration and other eye conditions.
9. A Human Can Have Two Different Eye Colors
When someone has heterochromia, their eyes are either distinct colors or include many colors. It usually doesn’t result in any issues. Often, it’s merely a genetic oddity brought on by your parents’ genes or by something that happened as your eyes were developing. It might, in exceptional circumstances, be a sign of a health issue.
While uncommon in humans, heterochromia is frequent in several animals. Less than 200,000 Americans are affected by it. Congenital heterochromia is the term used to describe having different-colored eyes from birth. Acquired heterochromia is the term for when your eye color changes when you’re a baby.
10. Closing Eyes While Sneezing Is Nerves Instinct
Sneezing causes a significant amount of muscle contraction and nerve transmission throughout the body. It triggers uncontrollable movements in a variety of organs, including the eyes, throat, nasal cavities, sphincter, and gut. Because of this, it is challenging for the body to fight the urge to close its eyes before sneezing.
Furthermore, the brain’s neurological system is involved. When you sneeze, your brain instructs your nose to expel foreign matter. This movement stimulates your nerves, which then inadvertently instructs your eyes to blink. Others have proposed that when we sneeze, we close our eyes to protect them from whatever we’ve just expelled.
11. Strabismus Can Cause Your Eyes Look At Different Directions
Strabismus may be brought on by nerve damage or abnormalities in the eye muscles. Your eyes will turn in various directions if you have this condition. Your eye muscles do not cooperate to govern how your eyes move. This ailment might only show up occasionally or it might be constant.
This could be brought on by an issue with your brain, your nerves, or the muscles around your eye. Your brain only processes the image from one eye when your eyes are not working together to focus on an object, ignoring the image from the other eye. You might eventually lose some of your vision in one eye.
12. Eyes Contribute To 80% Of Your Total Knowledge
Our eyes are the primary source of about 80% of the environmental data that enters our brains. The principal area of the brain that receives, combines, and interprets visual information transmitted by the retina of the eye is the visual cortex, which is situated at the back of the head. The amygdala and visual cortex have a strong link, to enter knowledge to your brain
By receiving information from the senses, the amygdala plays a critical role in processing emotions, memories, and motivation. After processing this, the amygdala will instruct the body to respond in a suitable manner. For instance, if someone gives you a gift, you might respond by expressing your admiration, love, and affection for them. Without our eyes, it would be extremely hard for our brains to interpret information automatically and respond with the appropriate emotion.
13. The Fastest Muscle In The Body
The eye is the body’s quickest muscle. Because it can move in all directions in a split second, the eye is regarded as the organ with the fastest movement. It has the ability to respond faster than any other muscle and to activate other muscles. For instance, depending on how rapidly someone’s eyes caught sight of an object moving in their direction, they might raise their hands to prevent it.
Because so many of its motions are unintentional, the eye is regarded as the body’s quickest organ. It just needs.01 percent of a second to respond to directives from the brain and to external activity! Six muscles around your eye are in charge of this movement; they contract and expand with precise coordination for quick, fluid eye control.
14. Only One Sixth Of Your Eyeball Is Exposed To The Outside World
Whether you have big eyes or small eyes, you only can see one sixth of your eyeball from outside. The diameter of an adult eye is roughly one inch. It is located in a chamber in the skull known as the orbit. On a person’s face, just one-sixth of the eye’s surface is exposed and discernible. Strong light and foreign objects are kept out of this exposed area by the eyelids, eyelashes, and eyebrows.
When you see the exposed eyeball, it may refer to corna. The cornea, which makes up one-sixth of the outer layer of your eye, is the transparent front window. The cornea’s main job is to direct light onto the retina and transmit it there.
15. Iris Has Over 256 Unique Characteristics
Your eye’s iris, which is colored, contains 256 unique characteristics. As a prominent forensic tool for establishing identity and solving crimes, your fingerprint contains only 40 distinctive features. Retinal scans are around 20,000 times more accurate than fingerprint-based identification techniques and about 70 times more accurate than iris scans. In other words, the most distinctive feature of your body is your eye!
Because of this, retinal scans are being employed more frequently for security purposes. An infrared retinal scanner can map the distinct arrangement of blood vessels on a person’s retina. Even identical twins do not have the same arrangement because this pattern is so complicated.