Tuesday, July 26, 2005

And in science news ...

Scientists have figured out why we rarely notice our own blinking. Our brains simply miss it, they say. The quest for the new discovery began in the 1980s, when researchers found that visual sensitivity starts decreasing just before we blink. But what goes on in the brain remained a mystery.

In the new study, scientists put fiber-optic lights in the mouths of people. The lights were powerful enough to penetrate the roofs of their mouths and strike their retinas, where light is recorded. They wore goggles to block outside light.