Scientists give mice "Predator Vision" with nanoparticles

GoodBoy

GoodBoy

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http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2019/02/28/mice-infrared-vision-nanoparticles

The concept is fairly simple. The scientists used nanoparticles engineered to combine two photons of infrared light into a single photon that mammalian eyes could pick up. The result is that incoming infrared photons with wavelengths (read, energies) of 980 nanometers get translated into photons with wavelengths of 535 nanometers, which sits right around the green part of the visible spectrum.
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Where can I sign up? Can we do some uv too?

If done right the green for ir will be dim enough to be not visible except in very low lighting.

Uv could be set with specifics as well.

Could the nanotechnology be set to only be on under a low level em/rf field allowing it to be turned on and off?
 
That's pretty damned cool.

It will be amazing to see what kind of augmentations we will be able to get in the next 20 years.

I've always joked that we will have actual augmentations before the next installment of the Deus Ex franchise is out.
 
The doubling or halving of lightwaves is a well known phenomenon. Electron pumping or something, incoming photon bumps the electron into a higher orbit, then it drops back down to it's stable orbit and releases the absorbed energy as a photon of a different wavelength.
It's how wickedlasers could make affordable red lasers... they'd use a cheap infrared laser diode, run it thru the material that absorbs it and re-emits at half the wavelength which was in the red spectrum, out comes the red laser.

The article was saying it should be possible with UV as well. That would have to do the reverse, take a really short wavelength and double it. UV is 10nm to 400nm. The lowest visible purple is about 380nm. and the highest visible red is about 700nm. So technically, 190nm to 350nm wavelengths could be doubled and be visible. That would look really weird though.. the way the Predator vision looked in the movie Predator might not be far off...
 
GoodBoy said:
The doubling or halving of lightwaves is a well known phenomenon. Electron pumping or something, incoming photon bumps the electron into a higher orbit, then it drops back down to it's stable orbit and releases the absorbed energy as a photon of a different wavelength.
It's how wickedlasers could make affordable red lasers... they'd use a cheap infrared laser diode, run it thru the material that absorbs it and re-emits at half the wavelength which was in the red spectrum, out comes the red laser.

The article was saying it should be possible with UV as well. That would have to do the reverse, take a really short wavelength and double it. UV is 10nm to 400nm. The lowest visible purple is about 380nm. and the highest visible red is about 700nm. So technically, 190nm to 350nm wavelengths could be doubled and be visible. That would look really weird though.. the way the Predator vision looked in the movie Predator might not be far off...
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It does make me wonder if those nano-particles could just be infused in a lens, goggles, eyeglasses, ..... contacts? IR without needing a power source would be a hell of an accomplishment.
 
Funny how they called the mice "upgraded". That's a bit...hubristic.

Perhaps "modified" would be better when describing these sorts of interventions.
 
lcpiper said:
It does make me wonder if those nano-particles could just be infused in a lens, goggles, eyeglasses, ..... contacts? IR without needing a power source would be a hell of an accomplishment.
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Yeah, they didn't really talk about why it had to be implanted particles.

I believe it was to allow normal light (vision) to be unaffected, and just add the ability to perceive the IR in visible wavelengths. If it was goggles, I think it would work, but that would affect normal light too. This way, its just enough of the implanted material to allow the other spectrum to be seen, while not interfering with normal vision
 
GoodBoy said:
Yeah, they didn't really talk about why it had to be implanted particles.

I believe it was to allow normal light (vision) to be unaffected, and just add the ability to perceive the IR in visible wavelengths. If it was goggles, I think it would work, but that would affect normal light too. This way, its just enough of the implanted material to allow the other spectrum to be seen, while not interfering with normal vision
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Ohhh but I'm not sure that it wouldn't work in the same way. Let's take the contacts for example. Why couldn't they impregnate the lens material with enough of the manoparticles to enable the effect without completely compromising normal vision through the lens? It doesn't need to be a coating, just an infusion of a given density.

What's really cool, this is a conversion of light in a spectrum, that normally does not register in the range of human sensitivity, to light that is normally visible. We would be seeing this light overlaid upon the "normal world".

Start with this IR image;
220px-Ir_girl.png


Now remember that this image is a manipulation of light, (a representation), that is normally not visible to humans. It's being made visible for us to see.

But it's also being presented in the red light ranges as a demonstration. It doesn't mean that this is a representation of what we would see if we were using these nano-particles from the article. Light wavelengths around
980 nanometers get translated into photons with wavelengths of 535 nanometers, which sits right around the green part of the visible spectrum.
Click to expand...

I think the impact on normal daylight vision would be almost imperceptible. But at night or in a closet, it would be similar to good night vision requiring no time to adjust. So soldiers do this, scouts going on night missions used to sit in dark areas or sleep until night time. Their eyes would adjust to the different light and some might be surprised, a person can see pretty well at night if their eyes adjust properly. A person can see well enough at night to walk around just fine and not trip over rocks and branches. The moon and stars and clouds all play a part though. But in the case of these nano-particles, I'm thinking you would need any time for your eyes to adjust. You could just walk into a darkened movie theater and not trip on shit or step on people's feet. And it would only get better from their as your eyes continue to adjust. But I don't see things looking weird, or "predator-ish" except if the object is really hot. I think those waves of heat we see off really hot objects or fires, even in daylight, this would be more pronounced. Things might have a little green tint to them, could effect colors somewhat.

I've used three types of night-vision devices while in the military. Star-Light scopes, IR, and Thermal Imaging. Star-Light scopes were pretty week, better than nothing, but nothing special. IR was strange as that shit was green with tiny white speckles and was hard on the eyes. By hard on the eyes I mean you couldn't use them for a long time without it hurting your eyes, even permanently. Thermal on the other hand was beyond cool. The one I used was on a TOW missile launcher and I was looking at an M113 APC in daylight and I could see the camouflage pattern on the vehicle because the different colors of red, presented by the sight, represented different temperatures on the surface of the armor. Black was the brightest red because it absorbed the most heat from the sun. Then the green paint, and the lightest was the tan paint. Shaded areas underneath the vehicle were pretty black as it was nice and cool under there. The thermal sight didn't hurt my eyes at all and I imagine that I could use it all day without a problem.
 
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