Another sleepless night in the Brown household, and I found myself waiting in the bathroom to yawn at 1 a.m
That's when Artemis, the black-ish, gray-ish cat, strolled to my feet to do the three things she does best: play, stalk, and kill. In this case, all at once, as she, eyes wide and paws ready, aimed to end the life of a fly buzzing around these parts.
She got close time and time again, and all I could wonder was what she saw. What does the world look like for a cat?
Turns out scientists have been asking that same question. Recent research shows Artemis sees the world in ways I never imagined. She can spot movement three hundred times faster than me, literally seeing life in slow motion like some feline version of The Matrix. That fly might as well be crawling through honey from her perspective.
They say her eyes gather six times more light than mine, and colors look washed out to her. They’re more like an old Instagram filter than the vibrant world I see. Artemis sees two hundred degrees around her without moving her head. We humans see one hundred eighty. She’s got peripheral vision that would make a security guard jealous.
What really gets me is this: her world is designed for exactly what she was doing at 1 a.m., hunting something small and quick in low light. Every part of her vision traded something away to get something else. Less color for better night sight. Less distance clarity for better movement detection.
Makes me wonder what we humans traded away to see our world the way we do. What did we give up to get our sharp daytime vision and color-rich experience?
Maybe more importantly, in our age of screens and artificial light, are we still seeing what we evolved to see? Or are we cats trying to watch television, missing half the picture because our eyes weren't built for this world we've created?
What do you think we've lost in the way we see the world today? Let me know in the comments and check out more at jamesabrown.net.
On that note, I'm James A. Brown, and as always—be well.
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