The

Way I
See It
 34
How the World Got
Glasses
The eye-popping history
by Avery Elizabeth Hurt

FEATURES
10 16 18 30 40
The Baffled Camoufleurs What’s Behind A More Accessible Not Actual Size
Brain How optical illusions Your Eyes World Exploring the
Vision shortcuts developed in wartime The wizardry Today’s obstacles and many faces of
are eye-opening by Elizabeth Tracy at work opportunities caricature
by Carl Zimmer by Rani Iyer by Lisa Christensen by Kristina Lyn Heitkamp
 JANUARY 2022
DEPARTMENTS Volume 26, Issue #01
DIRECTOR OF EDITORIAL James M. “Blindspot” O’Connor
2 Parallel U EDITOR Joseph “Lens” Taylor
ASSISTANT EDITOR Emily “Eye Goop” Cambias
by Caanan Grall
ASSISTANT EDITOR Hayley “Iris” Kim
6 Muse News ART DIRECTOR
DESIGNER
Nicole “Retina” Welch
Harrison “Tapetum Lucidum” Hugron
by Elizabeth Preston RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS David “Pupil” Stockdale

21 Do The Math: CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
Kathryn “Astigmatic Cornea” Hulick
Tracy “Aqueous Humor” Vonder Brink
Eye Reflections CARTOONIST Caanan “Optic Nerve” Grall
by Ivars Peterson BOARD OF ADVISORS
ONTARIO INSTITUTE FOR STUDIES IN EDUCATION,
22 Photo-Op: UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
Carl Bereiter
Go-Everywhere Goggles ORIENTAL INSTITUTE, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
by Ellen Ramsey John A. Brinkman
NATIONAL CREATIVITY NETWORK
Photos by Frederick V. Ramsey Dennis W. Cheek
COOPERATIVE CHILDREN’S BOOK CENTER, A LIBRARY
26 Science@Work: OF THE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF
WISCONSIN–MADISON
Geerat Vermeij K. T. Horning

by Emily Cambias FREUDENTHAL INSTITUTE

Jan de Lange

32 Word Corner: FERMILAB

Leon Lederman
Failed Brailles UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Sheilagh C. Ogilvie
44 Your Tech WILLIAMS COLLEGE
Jay M. Pasachoff
by Kathryn Hulick
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

48 Last Slice
Paul Sereno
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 PARALLEL U CAANAN GRALL

2
 Elemental Royalty
Greetings, Muse! I am Queen
Magnesium of the sky blue
and orange rabbits, and this is
Muse Mail

the 999,999,999th time I have

written to you. I absolutely love
Muse and there is a whole library
in my palace dedicated to it. If
you throw this letter in the FMP,
I will send my army of flaming
rabbits, pure-magnesium-robot-
phoenix-people, living pizza
monsters, and Norse Gods to
destroy Muse headquarters, and
you will spend the rest of your
lives as peasants on my planet’s
carrot farms. Also, please make
an issue about genetics.
LETTER
of the
MONTH —QUEEN MAGNESIUM / Opal Palace,
Swamp Planet, Rabbit Warrior Galaxy

Do You Hear the Turtles Sing? P.S. My army will try and stop
the HPBs from attacking Muse
Hello! I am Lily, the very smart and kind queen of musicals, turtles, and math. headquarters if you publish
Muse is AMAZING!!!!!!!!! I love science and math so much and that is what Muse this letter.
is all about! I am so good at math that I skipped kindergarten
and I’m in 8th grade math right now! Algebra is my favorite part of math. I love P.P.S. If you ever travel to the
finding unknown numbers through a series of steps. Swamp Planet, just remember
I also love turtles A LOT. The turtles of my kingdom and I want you to know that yegf9y ejh4ropp means
that the “TurtleCam” article in the January 2020 issue, “Mysteries of the Deep,” hello in our language.
was awesome. They would also like you to know that they are slowly dying,
through light pollution and plastic. Their queen cannot stop it alone, they need
help from EVERYBODY. We all need to help save the Earth!
I also love musicals! Hamilton, RENT, Wicked, Les Misérables, In the Heights,
Mean Girls, Six, Jesus Christ Superstar, West Side Story, and Fiddler on the Roof
are awesome! Theater is so cool, so it should deserve a Muse article or two.
Subjects include how hard it is to write musicals, the science of acting, etc.
My favorite Muse is Cate; I love her infinity glasses and her ability to time
travel. That is the coolest! WARNING: IF YOU DO NOT PUBLISH THIS, I WILL
SEND MY ARMY OF MATHEMATICIANS, ALLIGATOR-SNAPPING TURTLES,
AND MUSICAL CHARACTERS TO SLOWLY RIP APART THE ENTIRE
MNEMOSYNE DIMENSION! Also, this is my second time writing to Muse, so
please, please, please publish this one? Please?°

—QUEEN LILY / Colorado

P.S. I apologize for the length of this letter. :)

Life would be so much more boring without your delightful magazine!
Yegf9y ejh4ropp
to you, Queen
Magnesium! I
If we all work together to protect the turtles’ home, maybe eagerly await
one day there will be a musical about turtles who do math. your army’s help
The choreography might be a bit slow, but I’d still watch it. with HPB security.
—CATE —MS. ACORN

3
Muse Mail
March of the Hot Pink
Penguins, or Pinkguins
Firstly, I am the
emperor of the emperor
penguins, writing from my
secret penguin fortress
in Antarctica. Secondly,
I have been getting Muse
since September 2018, and I
absolutely love it! Thirdly,
the rest of the emperor
penguins and I have a big
problem down here in
Antarctica. All of the ice is
melting! For this reason, I
would like you to do an issue
on climate change and what
those pesky humans can do
to stop it. Fourthly, I would
also like you to publish a
magazine on the multi-deity
mythologies of the past
(Greek, Roman, Egyptian,
Mayan, etc.). Lastly, if you
put this letter in the FMP
(aside from being deeply
disappointed), I will send my
specially trained group of
HPB/penguin hybrids, who
4
were bred specifically to
attack and destroy Muse HQ.
—THE EMPEROR OF THE
EMPEROR PENGUINS / age
11 / Secret Penguin Fortress in
Antarctica
P.S. I like all the Muses, but
my favorite is O because
he has no special ability,
except for smarts, and still
fits into the group.
P.P.S. It would also be great
if you could do an interview
with Rick Riordan (if he’s not
at Camp Half-Blood).
Thank you being
a noble emperor
and sharing this
important issue
with us. We all
have the special ability
to help protect the planet for
both people and penguins.
—O
Attack of the Rainbow
Bunnies?!
Dear Muse, I want more colors
of hot pink bunnies because it’s
getting boring just seeing one
color of bunnies. I have some
suggestions: maybe dark green
bunnies, sky blue bunnies, light
orange bunnies, and most of all,
rainbow bunnies!!!! If you put this
in the FMP, I will personally go to
Muse headquarters and dump all
my sister’s stuffed animals and all
my books on it.
—PETER / age 8 / Maryland
P.S. Can you please do an issue on
exoplanets?
P.P.S. I have a lot of books and my
sister has a lot of stuffed animals.
Those different
colored bunnies
sound pretty cool!
Still, I can’t help
but wonder how
the HPBs would feel
about dyeing their fur. For articles
about exoplanets—or worlds
outside our solar system—check
out the March 2021 issue of Muse!
—WHATSI
Curious Cures
I love Muse most ARDENTLY!!!! It’s really a
remarkable magazine for teenagers like me. I’m
Chinese, age 14, and Cricket was recommended by
my English teacher. It’s a shame that I didn’t find
it earlier. I really like “Features” and “Muse News.”
It’s marvelous to know more about our body and
the world.
Well, I wonder if you could do an issue on the
temperature (just like the difference between day
and night, forests and lawn, land and sea, etc. And
also, differences among years or centuries. And
what creates the differences.) I’m looking forward
to that!!!
I have just read an article today about the
horrible cures! It said that ancient Egyptians used
to leave a dead MOUSE in their mouth for hours to
cure toothache!!! INCREDIBLE!!! New Era Acronym
In ancient Greece, the cure for backache was Dear Muse, First it was STEM. Then it
also HORRIBLE! They tied the patient to a ladder, was STEAM. But there was still something
pulled the ladder up high, and then let it fall to the missing…
ground. BANG. The vertebrae went back into place I puzzled over the acronym. Then it came
(well, just in their opinion). Those are two of the to me in all its biological glory: STAMEN.
worst. I’m happy that there are doctors near me. Science, Technology, Art, Math,
I hope that more and more children could read Engineering, and (drumroll, please) Nature.
this magazine! It’s FABULOUS!!! I’ve included a drawing of how it could be
displayed.
—BEGONIA YAN / age 14 / a Muse lover from China
—SPARROW AKA CLARA

Goddess Greetings
Greetings, Musers! This is the almighty queen
of battle and wisdom, Athena! Hi, Muse! So, can
you little Musers do an article on Greek history?
Your wisdom of this almighty subject awaits me.
Paperback Writer
I love books. Sooooo much. I think books
are better than social media because they
almost speak to me while I read. It’s like I
become part of the book. Do you think you
can do an article on how great books are?
Also, I really love Muse. I think it is the best
magazine in the world!
—SHANTI / age 11 / New York

—ATHENA
I love the way books can
P.S. Hey Aarti, are you in any way related to Cate? transport me to other times
If you are, can you ask her to bring me Apollo’s and places. I don’t even need
lyre? He plays that thing horrendously and he to know how to time travel!
won’t stop. Thanks! —WHATSI

Cate and I aren’t related, just

great friends!
Something to say?
—AARTI Send letters to Muse Mail,
1 East Erie Street, Suite 525,
Correction: “Art Space: Sticks, Stones, and Broken Bones” in PMB4136, Chicago, IL 60611,
the November/December issue of Muse contained inaccurate or email them to
information in the “Red” entry. The cochineal is a scale insect muse@cricketmedia.com.
whose body contains red carminic acid, which repels predators.

5
 BY ELIZABETH PRESTON
Muse News

One of
these stories
is FALSE. Can you
text © 2021 by Elizabeth Preston

spot which one?

The answer is on
page 46.

TECH DESK

Power Right at Your Fingertips

E
lectronics that people people with diabetes are healthy. But Technology within each patch can
wear on their bodies all these devices need batteries. convert a chemical in the sweat into
can do various jobs. Researchers are working on a new electricity. The patches can also
There are simple watches way to power electronics. They built collect energy from a person
that tell time and smart small square patches that stick to a squeezing two fingertips together.
watches that deliver person’s fingertips. While the person Eventually, this technology could
emails. There are Fitbits that count sleeps, the patches collect tiny drops power new kinds of wearable
steps and monitors that make sure of sweat from the fingertip skin. electronics—no batteries required.

6
 ANTHROPOLOGY

Meet the Dragon Man (Maybe)

DECADES AGO, A WORKER
BUILDING A BRIDGE IN
CHINA DUG UP A WEIRD-
LOOKING HUMAN SKULL.
To keep it safe, he hid it in a
well. Eighty-five years later,
the man’s family recovered the
secret skull, which they
handed over to scientists.
The skull is more than
140,000 years old. Researchers
think it belonged to an ancient
relative of humans that’s
never been discovered before.
They named this relative
Homo longi, or “Dragon Man.”
Other scientists aren’t so
sure about Dragon Man.
They think the skull might
have come from a different
human relative called a
Denisovan. Either way, they’re
all glad the ancient head came
out of hiding.

MOOOOO

How the Cow

Lost Its Brain
COWS ARE DOMESTIC ANIMALS. Like dogs, cows
were bred and evolved over many, many years of
living and working with humans. The ancestors of
dogs were wild wolves. The ancestors of cows were
shaggy wild cattle called aurochs. But compared to
aurochs, today’s cattle have peabrains.
There are no wild aurochs living today, but
scientists measured auroch skulls in museums to
figure out how big their brains were. Compared to
the size of their bodies, aurochs had larger brains
than cows today. The scientists also found that the
tamest types of cattle, like dairy cows, have the
smallest brains of all.

7
Muse News

BUGS

This Bug Has

an Unusual
Way to Walk
FISH USUALLY SWIM IN
THE WATER; BIRDS FLY
ABOVE IT. Insects called
water striders skate on top
of the water, where surface
tension holds up their
lightweight bodies. But at
least one bug travels in a
totally different way:
It walks on the underside of
the water’s surface!
A scientist spotted the
unusual insect while doing
research in an Australian
pond. The beetle was
upside-down, walking
below the water with its
belly facing up. Researchers
aren’t sure how the beetle
manages its trick, though a
bubble of water stuck to its
abdomen might help.

ANIMAL BEHAVIOR

Birds vs. Bins

IN AUSTRALIA, A HOT NEW TREND
IS SWEEPING THE BIRD WORLD.
IT’S...EATING OUT OF THE TRASH.
Parrots called sulfur-crested
cockatoos have learned how to open
the lids of garbage bins so they can eat
the food inside. First, a cockatoo bites
the front of a lid and lifts it up. Holding
the edge of the lid in its beak, it shuffles
along the rim of the garbage can
toward the back hinge. This pushes the
lid up wide enough to flip open.
Scientists found that this habit has
been spreading between cockatoos in
the suburbs of Sydney. The birds learn
it from watching one another. This is a
kind of bird culture, the researchers say.
(Maybe next they’ll start teaching each
other TikTok dances.)

8
 Lookin’
cool, dude!

MARINE BIOLOGY

The Coolest Dolphins

OFF THE COAST OF SOUTH AFRICA, a dolphin’s eyes. Scientists think the
DOLPHINS ARE DOING SOMETHING dolphins do this on purpose by swimming
SCIENTISTS HAVE NEVER SEEN BEFORE: straight through patches of seaweed.
THEY’RE WEARING A TYPE OF If a strand gets stuck, they
SUNGLASSES. leave it in place. This may
The first time a scientist spotted a bottle- shield their eyes from the
nosed dolphin swimming with a piece of bright sun as they swim
That’s the news!
seaweed stuck across its face, she thought it at the ocean’s surface. Go to page 46 to
was an accident. Maybe the dolphin had It’s not the first time see if you spotted
gotten tangled in some kelp and couldn’t dolphins have been seen the false story.
shake it off. But then researchers discovered using tools. Some
that many dolphins in a certain area of the Australian dolphins carry
ocean swim with seaweed on their faces. sponges in their mouths to
Usually, the seaweed is partially covering help them hunt.

9
 I
n the sci-fi movie The Matrix,
people lie motionless in pods
of nutrients while they
“dream” that they are living
normal lives in the year 1999.
Their version of reality is being
fed into their brains by
advanced computers to keep
them passive slaves of a
malevolent cyber-intelligence.
They see what their brains are
stimulated to see, not what is
there.

10

Look around you. What do
you see? Perhaps a cat sitting
in a comfortable chair. But are
you sure the cat is really there?
Okay, we’re teasing you. You’re
probably not lying in a plastic
pod 200 floors up in some alien
power station. On the other
Images from the 1999 hand, The Matrix isn’t all fantasy.
movie The Matrix
Given sufficient knowledge of the
by Carl Zimmer
human brain, it would be possible
to make people see whatever you
wanted them to see, rather than
what was in front of their eyes.
That’s because we see with our
brains, not with our eyes. Make
the right nerve cells fire in the
right order, and we can’t tell the
difference between a real cat and
one that exists only in our minds.
11

ON EDGE
Here are three circles with little
wedges taken out of them and
three Vs. Yet when you look at this
drawing, you can’t help but see a
triangle. It even seems brighter
than the surrounding paper. But
the triangle does not exist. If you
put your fingertips over the circles,
the triangle vanishes.
The Italian artist and
psychologist Gaetano Kanizsa
discovered this amazing illusion
in 1955. There are many variations
on it, but what they all have in
common is the illusion of a shape
created by just a few surrounding
elements. Scientists are fascinated
by the Kanizsa triangle because
it reveals a crucial step in our
identification of objects.
Your brain identifies objects in
part by picking out edges, which
are sharp transitions in brightness
or between different patches of
color. It needs only a few edges to
recognize an entire shape, and it
will even construct the perception
of that shape without bothering to
check it out completely. That’s why
the Kanizsa triangle looks like a
real triangle.
The brain is sometimes compared
to a computer that processes input
from two cameras (our eyes). In fact,
it is a mass of grayish jelly weighing
about a kilogram and a half with
stalk-like extensions called eyes. You
could call it a bio-computer—and
it’s a powerful one at that. Your bio-
computer whips through vision tasks
with tremendous speed.
The latest Mars rover,
Perseverance, touched down in tricky
terrain on Mars in February 2021. For
the first time, video cameras were
12
OPTICAL ILLUSIONS
ARE LIKE ONIONS
Do you see gray dots jumping around
the intersections of this grid? You can’t
help but “see” the dots; at the same time,
you’re pretty sure they aren’t really there.
This optical illusion is called a scintillating
grid illusion. M. Schrauf of Heinrich Heine
University Düsseldorf described it in 1997.
It is a modification of the Hermann grid, a
simpler version that was discovered in the
mid-1800s.
What is going on? The standard
explanation is that nerve cells in the back of
your eye create this illusion before the image
ever gets to your brain. Those nerve cells treat a point surrounded by a light region as
darker than a point surrounded by a dark region. The points at the intersections of this
grid are surrounded by lighter regions, so the nerve cells make the points look gray.
But some scientists are not convinced this explanation is correct. They point out that
a distorted grid or one at an angle of 45 degrees doesn’t create the illusion. Why can
the illusion be manipulated in this way if the explanation is as simple as a special type
of nerve cell turning on or off? The answer is probably that optical illusions are like
onions (and ogres): They’ve got layers. And scientists have only begun to peel some of
the layers off this illusion—as well as the others in this article.
used to help a spacecraft navigate a you’re looking at the natural
landing. Like human eyes, its cameras world. Scientists suspect that
allowed it to understand its position this is because the brain’s skills
during descent and quickly identify have been perfected by millions
features on the planet’s surface. of years of natural selection.
Due to an 11-minute time lag in Brains that quickly recognize a
communicating messages to mission hole in the ground allow people to
control on Earth, it had to maneuver survive and pass on their genes to
on its own. Its computer “brain” the next generation. Brains that
compared the information from the need an hour to make the same
cameras with examples of surface identification leave people at the
features that mission team members bottom of the hole.
had uploaded ahead of time. This new Although it is usually right,
navigation system allowed it to avoid the brain is still taking shortcuts.
the most dangerous spots and land And this means it can be tricked.
safely, making possible a mission to A strong cue (one the brain pays
search for possible signs of ancient attention to) may make you
microbial life on another planet. see something that isn’t there.
Your brain is even better than this Weak cues that don’t “fit the
impressive technology. That’s because it picture” may be overlooked even
takes lots of clever shortcuts. It doesn’t though they are inconsistent with
analyze every bit of light that enters your everything else. Conflicting clues
eyes. Instead it makes hypotheses about may leave your brain stuck
what you’re seeing, using just a small between two different hypotheses
fraction of the available information. and flipping between them. These
You could think of it as a hyperactive brain bafflers are called optical
scientist whose job is to make many, illusions because they fool your
many guesses very, very fast. visual system.
Your brain’s hypotheses are almost Optical illusions are fun, but
always good enough to let you do they are much more than that.
what you need to do, especially when They’re also scientific tools. For
 MOTION SICKNESS
If you stare at these wheels,
chances are good they’ll seem to
spin. No, it’s not some new print
version of a GIF, or moving image;
nothing is really moving. It’s just
another example of how the short-
SAME OR DIFFERENT? cuts our brains use can sometimes
Look at the photo on the top. Now look at the photo underneath it. Now look back create illusions.
at the first photo. Go back and forth between the two photos, and decide whether Such shortcuts can help us to
they are the same. If they’re different, what’s different about them? quickly detect moving objects. We
These photos are different, in many ways—11, to be exact. In the photo on the need quick ways to detect motion to
bottom, the helmet on the person to the left has changed to green and a motor navigate crossing an intersection, for
has been added to the white boat in the foreground. (For the remaining nine instance. Scientists have discovered
differences, see the photo on page 46.) Some people manage to pick out a couple that the nerve cells in one patch
differences very quickly, but most people don’t. Psychologists call this inability of your brain are sensitive only to
to spot change “change blindness.” Studies show that when we look at a scene, motion. The brain combines signals to
we easily form a representation of it in our minds, but we have a difficult time perceive whether an object is moving.
comparing that representation to one of the same scene a moment later. Only Your brain also has to keep track
if we are paying close attention to something particular—the boat’s motor, for of the motion of your eyes. That’s
example—can we detect the change immediately. Otherwise, our brains simply go because your eyes are always making
on thinking that nothing has changed. tiny movements, known as saccades.
Of all visual illusions, change blindness may be the most important to our They’re doing it right now as you read
everyday lives. Most drivers believe that if someone walks into the street, they will and check out this page.
automatically notice in time to stop the car. But because of change blindness, the This illusion, called “The Rotating
drivers may actually be blind to pedestrians even when they are in plain view. Snake,” was created in 2003 by
Akiyoshi Kitaoka of Ritsumeikan
University in Kyoto, Japan. Scientists
suspect it produces the illusion of
movement by means of saccades.
about 200 years, scientists have Carl Zimmer is an award-winning New York
Each time your eyes jump, you get a
used them to discover how the brain Times columnist and the author of 14 books fresh look at the picture. The bright
works. Seeing is like breathing, about science. His newest book is Life’s Edge: stripes in the wheels are now in a
so automatic we almost never The Search for What It Means to Be Alive. He new position. For some reason,
think about it. Optical illusions was mesmerized by the rotating-snake your brain interprets this change
momentarily draw back the curtain, illusion and sat there staring at it on the in position as real motion. And the
exposing our brains at work. screen until his dog bit him on the shin. wheels begin to spin.

13

ARTISTS USE
OPTICAL
ILLUSIONS
TO WIN
WARS AND
SAVE LIVES.
I
by Elizabeth Tracy
n the spring of 1918, strange things
were afoot in New York City’s Van
Cortland Park. Rocks and trees
were moving and calling out across
the landscape. “I stumbled over a
hump of grass, which squealed when I
stepped on it, and rose before me,” wrote
journalist Elene Foster in the New York
Tribune. Foster wasn’t hallucinating. She
was witnessing a specialized military
unit in action. They were developing new
techniques to protect American troops in
World War I.
14
And
˜ e talking trees were
members of the Women’s
Reserve Camouflage Corps,
volunteer camoufleurs trained in
the new military science
of camouflage. These words
come from the French word
camoufleur, which means to
disguise. The women had learned
camouflage techniques from
Lieutenant H. Ledyard Towle, a
U.S. Army officer and artist, and
were testing outfits designed to
trick the eye. The camoufleurs
included working artists like
painters, sculptors,
photographers, and woodcarvers.
At a time when women weren’t
allowed in the armed forces,
or even to vote, working in the
military was unheard of. But as
men went to fight at the front,
women assumed crucial roles in
the war effort.
the Art of War

World War I and Early

Camouflage
Camouflage aims to conceal—or
confuse. Roy R. Behrens is a
camouflage expert who has taught
graphic design at the University of
Northern Iowa and other schools.
He writes and produces YouTube
videos, and runs a blog called
“Camoupedia.” He separates
camouflage into two categories: By World War II, camouflage
had become an established
high-similarity and high-difference. strategy of many countries,
Behrens says camouflage works including Slovakia.
because our brains have a natural
tendency to group things together
when they appear similar, near Abbott H. Thayer studied protective As WWI progressed, however,
to, or in alignment with one coloration in animals. During World camouflage came into its own. New
text © 2021 by Elizabeth Tracy

another. “These built-in biases of
the brain are quintessential tools
of the trade when designing
camouflage,” he says.
Early ideas about military
camouflage sprang from the
natural world. Artist and naturalist
War I, Thayer urged the allied
British and American armed forces
to adopt various camouflage
methods, and he was backed by
other artists and scientists. At first,
the military commanders dismissed
such bold ideas.
military technologies and techniques
such as machine guns, trench
warfare, and aerial reconnaissance
revealed a need to hide ground troops
and equipment from the enemy.
The brightly colored uniforms of the
past were being replaced with

15

Women were pivotal
in introducing various
camouflage technique
during World War I.
Colorized images
of dazzle ships
from World War I
solid-colored earth tones. Yet troops
remained vulnerable. Guns and
vehicles were easy targets, too. High-
similarity techniques were adopted
to help equipment and men blend
into the landscape and hide from
enemy eyes. Women wove camouflage
nets designed to look like foliage to
cover equipment and helped build
observation posts in the shape of tree
trunks to watch enemy lines.
Razzle-Dazzle Takes
to the Sea
German U-boat submarines were
sinking British and American ships
left and right. Slow-moving supply
ships were left exposed. Between
March and December 1917, 925
British ships were sunk, costing
thousands of lives and tons of
important cargo. But how can
you hide a giant vessel out on
the open sea?
Lieutenant Commander Norman
Wilkinson was an artist who
16
Dazzle camouflage was
recently reintroduced
by the British Royal
Navy to pay homage
to its history.
convinced the British Royal Navy to
try disruptive camouflage. Rather than
attempt to conceal ships, Wilkinson
proposed switching to a bold colorful
painting scheme with sharp angles
and odd features like fake bow waves.
This illusion could confuse the enemy,
making ships harder to find—and hit.
A torpedo gunner had to know a
target’s location, speed, and direction
to calculate his aim. If U-boat
operators could be misled about a
ship’s location and direction, they
might miss it altogether and waste
valuable weapons.
The Americans also adopted this
scheme, which came to be called dazzle
camouflage, dazzle-painting, or razzle-
dazzle. Many people were skeptical, but
the Women’s Reserve Camouflage
Corps changed some minds. They
snuck out one night and painted dazzle
designs on the USS Recruit, a ship-
shaped recruiting center in New York’s
Union Square. The public loved it! In the
end, this flashy stunt seemed to work
Ultimately, more than 1,250 U.S. ships
were camouflaged. Between Marc
and November 1918, 96 large American
ships were sunk—but only 11 that had
been torpedoed were dazzle-painted,
according to Behrens.
World War II and
Big Deceptions
World War II brought more new
technologies and more ways to
use camouflage. “Camouflage was
imperative during WWII,” says Jennifer
Swanson, author of the middle-grade
book Spies, Lies and Disguise: The
Daring Tricks and Deeds that Won
World War II. Disguise and mimicry
returned on a gigantic scale. The Unite
States managed to hide entire airplane
factories. “The military looked to artists
set designers, and painters from movie
NATURE’S CAMOUFLEURS The cuttlefish is adep
at blending into its
Animals have evolved to be excellent camoufleurs and can teach us surroundings.
lots of tricks. Whether for protection or to sneak up on prey, they hide
themselves in various ways:

Concealing coloration resembles an animal’s natural habitat or

background. For example, white-tailed deer have brownish coats that
blend in well with fields and woodlands
Disruptive coloration is typically a pattern (like spots or stripes) that
visually “breaks up” an animal’s figure, making it difficult o see as just one
thing. It can be useful to both predators (like leopards) or prey (zebras).
Mimicry is when an animal has coloring very similar to a different,
dangerous animal. Many harmless butterflies look almost exactly like bad
tasting poisonous butterflies Or they have spots on their wings that look
like a predator’s eyes.
Disguise is when an animal takes on the appearance of something
uninteresting to a predator. Praying mantises resemble leaves while stick
bugs look like, well, sticks. Their disguises work well if they can keep very
still. But one false move and… they’re lunch!
Disruptive coloration

studios, including
Disney, Paramount and
20th Century Fox, for
help,” she says. “Thes
artists turned an aircraft
production plant and
airport into a [typical]
town with a farm, and
yes, even chickens
and cows.”
In perhaps the
biggest deception of all,
an entire ghost army was put together
to deceive the enemy. In one effort,
they created inflatable tanks and
trucks to build a make-believe force in
England before the invasion of France.
The Allied nations placed this fake
equipment in an area the Germans
believed an invasion would originate
from, so they would concentrate their
own forces there. The ghost army kept
the Germans guessing about the true
invasion site and helped ensure the
success of allied forces on D-Day.
Camouflage
Branches Out
After WWII, the interest in camouflage
printed uniforms in the military took
off. Jungle, desert, woodland, snow
and urban patterns became popular.
Pixelated and digital patterns are now
common.Traditional camouflage hide
objects visible to the human eye. Multi-
spectral camouflage was develope
to hide objects from non-visual
detection methods like infrared—light
invisible to the human eye—and
radar. Meanwhile, high-tech military
camoufleurs are still inspired by
the natural world. The U.S. military
is developing color-changing
adaptive camouflage that simulate
cuttlefish skin.
Fashion designers embraced
camouflage from the very beginning.
In 1919, dazzle-inspired swimsuits
made their way onto Coney Island
beaches, and the Chelsea Arts
Club in London held an elaborate
Dazzle Ball. In the 1960s and ‘70s,
camouflage clothing became a sign
of anti-war protest. Artists have
continued to use camouflage. In
the 1980s, Andy Warhol created a
series of camouflage paintings. Some
incorporated bright pinks, yellows,
and blues.
Today, camouflage is everywhere.
You might have a camo clothes
Today camouflage
inspired fashion
can be found in a
variety of forms.
item in your closet. Tim Newark, an
historian and artist who writes about
camouflage says, “They’re simply
highly attractive, colorful, nature-
inspired patterns that look good
on almost any item of clothing.” He
thinks every neighborhood should
have its own camo. “It’s a fun exercise
anyone can do—make a camo for your
local town.” Go ahead; try it. What
colors and patterns fit best in your
neighborhood?
Elizabeth Tracy is an author and journalist
who likes to hide away and write, against the
bustling background of New York City. She
admires the many amazing women in
STEAM (science, technology, engineering,
arts, and math)—including her mother-in-
law, Maxine Tracy, who was an aircraft
engineer during World War II.

17
What’s
Behind

Your
Ey by Rani Iyer
 O
ur eyes act like a
camera. They capture
images from the world
around us. The images
can be individual

d
objects or the features of the setting
we are located in. Our eyes also
help us to identify the vivid color of
an object—a rose or an apple, for
instance—from the surrounding
background. Looking at the rose, we
can guess how far it is from us. Our
eyes can also discern the texture and
other features of the flower. We do all
this automatically, without thinking
about it.
More Than a Camera
But a neuroscientist will explain that
a human eye is more than a camera.
It not only captures images but also
transmits and interprets these images.
An eye is a complicated organ with a
deceptively simple structure. Some
organisms possess light-sensitive cells
clustered together, known as “simple
eyes.” Such eyes can distinguish light
and dark, but they can’t detect objects
or images. Even simple eyes, however,
require an extremely complex
mechanism to support vision.
Behind the Scenes
The process of vision begins when
photons are first sensed by a
specialized molecule in the eyes called
11-cis-retinal. Just as ice changes when
exposed to heat, the molecule that
c
s
n
a
o
The rhodopsin, found
in the retina, is the
primary photoreceptor
of vision.
to change the shape and structure of
the rhodopsin into a new molecule.
The new shape and structure is called
metarhodopsin II. This shape is a
perfect fit, like a piece in a jigsaw
puzzle, for a gap in a giant protein.
Next, this protein picks up several
other molecules and becomes a long
chain. This long chain is composed of
living molecules that are constantly
reacting with one another. A series
of chemical reactions in this chain
causes an electric current to be sent to
the brain. When the brain interprets
this current, it results in vision. All
these chemical reactions take place
at tremendous speed. It also requires
a lot of energy. It is metabolically very
expensive to maintain vision.
The Eye-Brain Connection
When we watch television or movies,
we see images moving continuously

THE
SCIENCE
OF
SIGHT
Anatomy of the Eye
When the optic nerve is resetting,
images are not registered as separate
objects. Because of this, when we view
objects in rapid succession, the eye
identifies fixed images as moving and
continuous.
The retina, a sheath of specialized
cells at the back of the eye, is basically
a part of the brain. It can transmit
about 10 million bits of information
per second to the visual cortex region
in the brain. The optic nerve pauses
between the images, causing a small
gap between them. The brain fills in
the gaps by using the information
received just fractions of seconds
before. These images could be from a
different distance or angle. Our eyes
and brain function together to fill the
gap in the information received. This
compensation enables the impression
of a smooth movie-like stream.
Reading the Images
When we use binoculars, we
sometimes see two slightly different
images of the scene from each
eyepiece. In a similar way, eyes record
two different aspects of images. When
we focus the binoculars, the separate
20
purpose. Because the images are not
really perfect replicas of each other,
it helps the brain gauge the depth of
any scene. This perception of depth is
called stereopsis. Light, shade,
shadows, color, and relative sizes of
objects all add to perception of depth.
By manipulating any of these factors,
moviemakers enrich the viewer’s
experience.
What About 3D Movies?
Both 2D and 3D movies are projected on
a flat screen. But they are made and
projected differently. A 3D movie is
recorded using two different cameras,
placed side by side, to capture slightly
e for the
orizontally
ht that comes
e images for
n vertically
movie on the
ultaneously
r the left
ight eye.
ages are
posed on
n.
rain puts
es together.
of the
display,
es on the
re blurred.
ng special
the left eye
zed light, the
mension to
ey have a
engths except
the red-light spectrum for the left eye.
Likewise, 3D glasses have a cyan (blue)
filter for the right eye. The images for
the left eye are projected horizontally,
while the images for the right eye are
projected vertically. This is similar to
weaving cloth using threads in both
the horizontal and vertical plane.
The glasses with polarizing filters help
our eyes “to see” and our brain
“to experience” the different objects
projected on the screen.
Three-dimensional movies may be
fun, but they’re not perfect. Some
viewers experience headaches,
nausea, or even convulsions while
watching them. Scientists and
moviemakers are working to improve
our movie-going experience by
learning more about the eye-brain
connection.
Rani Iyer loves to write about science,
nature, and culture. Until she was 12, she
could never watch a movie without having
severe adverse reaction to the moving
images. The first time she watched a 3D
movie, she was a terrible mess. Today, she
can watch 2D and 3D movies without
reactions. Yay!
 BY IVARS PETERSON
Do the Math
EYE
REFLECTIONS
Ever caught someone staring out
into space and wondered what the
heck they were looking at? To find
out, you might follow their gaze,
study their expression, or hey, just
ask them, right? But now there’s
an even better, more precise way:
Observe what is being reflected on
the surface of their eyes.
Here’s how to try this out: Get
close and look right into a friend’s
eyes. You’ll see a curved reflection
of your face, a nearby window, a
bench, a tree, or whatever else
might be in view. Among the many
important things they do, eyes can
act like little mirrors that reflect
exactly what a person is looking at.
So, you can learn a lot about what
a person is looking at and what
their surroundings are like just by
studying these reflections.
Interestingly, the curved
panorama that you see reflected in
an eye is broader than the image
that falls on the retina at the back
of the eye, which converts light
into electrical impulses that go to
the brain and tell you what you are
seeing. This means that the wide-
angle reflection shows more of the
surroundings than the viewer (the
person whose eyes are doing the
looking) would actually detect at
any given moment.
You can observe these
reflections in a detailed, high-
resolution photograph of a
person’s eye. If you look closely
at the enlarged image, you
might even catch a glimpse of
the photographer who took
the picture. A digital image of
the reflection in the eye at that
moment would also show what the
viewer might have seen if they had
gazed in another direction.
Two computer scientists from
Columbia University, Ko Nishino
and Shree K. Nayar, have developed
a system for gleaning information
from these refl ected images. They
use a digital camera to snap close-
ups of people’s faces. A computer
then processes the resulting images,
letting the researchers reconstruct
the views. By studying the
reflections, they can even work out
exactly what a person in any photo
is actually looking at. There goes
the “I just didn’t notice” excuse!
In one recent application, photo
buffs enlarged images of eyes in
black-and-white portraits taken
more than 150 years ago. Though
fuzzy, the resulting light-and-dark
patterns provided tantalizing
glimpses of the places where the
pictures were taken.
And, if you’re like James Bond in
the movie Goldfinger, a reflection in
a villain’s eye might save your life
when you glimpse the villain’s
accomplice trying to sneak up
behind you.
Ivars Peterson works for the Mathemat-
ical Association of America and likes
looking for math in surprising places. He
now sees all kinds of uses for his new
digital camera.
21
 BY ELLEN L. RAMSEY PHOTOS BY FREDERICK V. RAMSEY

Osprey
Photo Op

GO-EVERYWHERE when the membranes are closed.

“Nictitating” comes from the Latin

GOGGLES
word nictare, which means “to blink.”
The blinking of the membrane happens
so fast it takes a high-speed camera
to capture the moment when the
BIRDS HAVE PROTECTIVE membrane covers the eye.
Most birds have keen eyesight—from

SEE-THROUGH EYELIDS! two to eight times better than humans.

Their sharp vision helps them search
for food and watch for predators. So,
Goggles are great for protecting eyes. When people need eye protecting their eyes is critical. In
protection, we can grab goggles, but birds have built-in, go- the “blink of an eye,” the nictitating
everywhere goggles called nictitating membranes. The animals have membrane functions as safety goggles, a
upper and lower eyelids that open and close vertically, but their windshield, or a diving mask to protect
nictitating membranes open and close horizontally. These birds’ eyes from the hazards they
membranes, a kind of third eyelid, are translucent so birds can still see encounter every day.

22
 MEET THE
PHOTOGRAPHER
Frederick V. Ramsey is a
biostatistical analyst and
environmental engineer.
He has been an avid bird watcher
since he was six years old. “It’s
an exciting time to be a bird
photographer,” he says. “Digital
cameras, long lens, and fast
shutter speeds offer glimpses
into the amazing life of birds that
we would otherwise never see.”
Ramsey took the bird
photographs for this article from
Protection from Flying 2016 to 2020 in coastal New
Debris Downy woodpecker Jersey, Florida, southeastern
Some birds search for food in soil, Pennsylvania, and at the
sand, or tree bark. National Aviary in Pittsburgh. His
When a sandhill crane plunges its beak into the ground to find seeds, photographs and graphics have
insects, or worms, the membrane protects the eye from soil particles. previously appeared in Muse and
Woodpeckers are hammering pros. The nictitating membrane other children’s magazines.
protects their eyes from flying wood chips while they pound at tree bark
to search for insects.

Protection from Water

White ibis Splashes and Sand
Particles
Humans wear goggles or face
masks while swimming, diving,
or snorkeling. For sea birds, the
nictitating membrane provides
eye protection in water.
White ibis probe shallow
water searching for fish, snails,
and crayfish. When an ibis
plunges its beak into the water,
the membrane protects its eyes
from water splashes and sand
particles.
When an osprey spots a fish, it
dives at great speed and plunges
into the water. The membrane
protects its eyes from the huge
splash as it enters the water to
catch a fish.
The membrane provides eye protection to cormorants when
they dive underwater to catch a flailing spiny fish.

23
 Protection from Wind and
Dense Vegetation
The nictitating membrane protects the
eye from wind; it also works like
Photo Op

windshield wipers to keep the eye moist

and free from dust and other particles.
This membrane protects the eyes of
birds that live and forage in a variety of
habitats. Toucans forage in the dense
vegetation of tropical rain forests.
Grackles forage in forests, marshes,
and wetlands. In these
habitats, branches, twigs,
leaves, or reeds could
scratch the eye.

Toucan

Bald Eagle

The membrane is especially

important to birds of prey like
eagles and hawks that fly at high
speeds and depend on their
excellent eyesight to spot prey
from great distances.
Bald eagles can dive at
Hawk
speeds up to 100 miles
(161 km) per hour, and
some hawks as fast as
150 miles (241 km) per
hour. At these speeds,
they really need a
“windshield.”

24
 Yellow-crowned night heron chicks

Sandhill Crane

Protection from Beaks and Claws of

Other Birds
The nictating membrane also protects the eyes of
birds from the claws of struggling prey. And it
helps protect bird parents from the beaks of over-
eager chicks reaching to grab food.
As yellow-crowned night heron chicks “joust”
with each other, the membrane protects their
eyes from accidental injury.

Go-Everywhere Goggles Are Great Eye

Protection!
Several other animal species have nictitating membranes. For
polar bears, the membranes protect them from the glare of the
Arctic sun on snow and prevent snow blindness. For sharks, the
membranes protect their eyes as they swim underwater and
grapple with struggling prey. Even domestic animals like dogs
and cats have these membranes. But we humans don’t have go-
everywhere goggles.
So grab your goggles or your sunglasses the next time you go
text © 2021 by Ellen L. Ramsey

swimming, biking, use tools, or work or play outside. Remember

them too if you happen to go up in a hot-air balloon, paragliding,
or parasailing. You’ll be in high-flying company!

Like other humans, Ellen L. Ramsey doesn’t have nictitating membranes,

but she loves to use her eyes to watch birds. She works as a technical editor
for an environmental firm. As a fiction and nonfiction author, she loves to
write about things that begin with the letter “B,” like birds, bees, and
butterflies—and books.

25
Science@Work

By Emily Cambias

GEERAT VERMEIJ
PROFESSOR OF GEOBIOLOGY AND PALEOBIOLOGY
Geerat Vermeij is an accomplished scientist who studies
shells and mollusks. He uses his findings to explain concepts
of biology, evolution, and even human history. He’s an esteemed
professor of geobiology—the study of life and earth sciences—and
paleobiology—the study of fossils and plants—at the University
of California, Davis. He’s also the author of six books. Vermeij
lost his sight at the age of three, so he uses his sense of touch to
investigate the shapes and features of the shells he loves.

26
 A mollusk’s ridges are like tree rings,
marking the years of its life.

WHAT WAS IT ABOUT SHELLS AND BIOLOGY THAT

GRABBED YOU FROM THE BEGINNING?
Nature is better than people, to me. And then shells in
particular were naturally wonderful to me. They’re beautiful,
elegant. When I was older and learned more about them, I
learned they were mathematically elegant, as well. They have
this regular structure that builds outward, and they have these
wonderful contrasts between the inside and outside in terms
of texture, all these lovely shapes and feels. They also fired my
imagination. What would it be like to go to a tropical island, to
go to the beach and find these beautiful things? I wondered.

HOW DO YOU EXAMINE SHELLS?

First, I use my whole hand or the span of my fingers to
immediately figure out what the basic shape of the shell is.
Then I start feeling around with my fingers for the details. I
examine the textures of the inside and outside and the patterns
of weathering on the outside. What are the ribs or spines or
lobes, and how many of them are there? If I need to know
more details, particularly about the inside of the snail shells, I
might use a pin or needle to count the number of ridges inside
or feel other features that I can’t immediately reach with my
WHEN DID YOU BECOME fingertips. And the amazing thing is that I can handle a shell
INTERESTED IN SCIENCE? multiple times and still find something new about it.
From the earliest age, I was
interested in nature. I started
collecting shells quite early on. I
think the idea of spending my life in
science happened in fourth grade. I
told everyone. At first, I wanted to
be somebody who studies shells, a
conchologist. That quickly changed
into malacologist—someone
studying mollusks, the creatures
that actually make the shells. And
then I said, “I’m going to be a
biologist.” And that’s what
happened, in fairly short order. Of
course, I added paleontology to that Moon snails’ favorite food is
later—but not that much later. other snails. They dig into their
prey’s shells using a mild acid.

27
Science@Work

attacked but the animal inside

Predators such as crabs, with their powerful
claws, are key to the evolution of shelled
mollusks, Vermeij has determined.
had survived and repaired the
damage. I realized that was
a perfect indication of how
important predators actually
are to the evolution of shelled
mollusks.

WHAT HAVE YOU

DISCOVERED ABOUT THE
EVOLUTION OF SHELLS?
I’m probably best known for
having identified a long-term
increase in shell armor, by which
I mean the resistance defenses
that shells have. Today, in the
tropics, a lot of the common
shallow-water marine shells will
WHAT DO YOU STUDY? have a narrow opening or an
I look at how organisms work, how they make a living, what sort opening that is partly sealed by
of challenges they face, and how they have changed over time. teeth and ridges and so on. On
I quickly got to the importance of predators as agents of selection the outside, the shell is generally
and how they influence mollusks and shell shape. I rapidly came either very long, indicating that
to understand that predators were really key to understanding the the soft parts [of the animal’s
shapes I was seeing in fossils and living mollusks. That grew body] can withdraw really far, or
steadily over the years into all kinds of things, such as studying the shell is kind of spherical and
extinctions. chunky, which means it’s very
difficult to get a hold of.
HOW DID YOU BECOME INTERESTED IN PREDATORS? If you go back far enough in
When I was still a graduate student, about 22 years old, I was on time, shells aren’t built this way.
the wonderful island of Guam with a close friend of mine. We They’re built much more simply:
were on this reef flat, and he picked up a broken shell and showed
it to me. I said, “It’s a broken shell, who needs it?” He said, “But
you know, we have crabs at home in the aquarium that do this
exact kind of stuff to shells. That’s interesting.” And so, that
observation got me to thinking that these crabs are actually an
important part of these shells’ existence. Then I started to realize
that I was finding shells on the coast belonging to still-living
animals that had noticeable repair scars on them, meaning they
had been
28
Geerat Vermeij uses his hands and
sometimes pins to examine various
shells and unlock their secrets.
They have openings that are
broad, without any spikes or
ridges. It’s much easier for
a predator to get a hold of
them. You don’t find long,
slender shells. You also don’t
get shells that were obviously
made for burrowing in sand.
They all lived on rocks, or on
top of the sand. What shells
tell me is that firstly, many of
them become more armored
over long stretches of time.
Secondly, they’ve expanded to
places they didn’t used to live,
like under the sand. It’s all an
arms race, and given that there
are so many types of mollusks,
they don’t all choose the same
solution. Some go for armor,
others for speed, others for
toxins, and so on.
They’re reacting to
predators that have developed
very powerful jaws or claws or
venoms— increasingly forceful
ways of dispatching with prey.
Organisms overall have
increased in power on all
kinds of levels all through
geological history.
DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE PLACE THAT YOU’VE BEEN?
I’ve been to a lot of places, but a few of them do stand out. The Palau
Islands in the southwest Pacific, sort of north of Guinea, have to
be some of the loveliest places ever. Just astonishingly beautiful.
It’s the kind of place where you have these whole islands in a
lagoon, and they’re forested so you can explore a pristine coral
reef while listening to birds singing overhead. The smells of the
forest are just incredible.
YOU’VE HAD TO BUILD YOUR OWN PERSONAL
BRAILLE LIBRARY, MOSTLY BY HAND. HOW DOES
THAT WORK?
I have built up this vast, and I mean vast braille library of all the
scientific papers, books, and so forth that I’ve read over the years.
There are probably about 30,000 texts by now. I read every day, or
just about every day. I keep up with the scientific journals. As a
consequence, all my works have many references. What happens is
that people read to me all the time. My wife, Edith, has always done a
lot of reading aloud to me. I’ve also had assistants, and still have one,
to help me and read me things. As they read, I transcribe the words
into braille on a braille typewriter.
A braille typewriter has
keys that correspond
to the six dots used in
braille and punch raised
type on paper.
WHAT ARE SOME THINGS YOUNG PEOPLE
INTERESTED IN BIOLOGY MIGHT FOCUS ON?
I would say exposure to the real world is the way to go. It’s very well
to watch films or whatever it is, but there’s simply no alternative to
actually looking at and carefully observing things in nature.
Beyond that, of course, if one is at all curious, you’d want to read
everything—as I did. Which was hard when I was young, because
there was nothing in braille to speak of—and there still isn’t—and
that’s why my mother and brother, Oliver, read to me constantly.
Reading or just finding information is important, but I would say
the most important thing of all is to hone that observational skill
and practice it. The ability to observe carefully with your senses, no
matter what they are, is absolutely essential in science.
Emily Cambias is an assistant editor for Muse. Her favorite mollusk is the
cuttlefish, which hides its shell inside.
29
 A
More
sible
orld by Lisa Christensen

W
hat do
you
think
about
when
you wait at a crosswalk?
What about browsing
the internet? Chances
are, if you’re not visually
impaired, you don’t think
much about these everyday
activities as you’re doing them.
But for blind and low-vision
people, these sorts of things
can be dif cult if the people
text © 2021 by Lisa Christensen
of scenes in TV shows and movies
also let blind people enjoy the latest
streaming hit and blockbuster.
Some Surprising Obstacles
In stores and restaurants, automatic
kiosks are convenient options for many
people, but can make life more difficult
for blind people if they’re not designed
with accessibility in mind. Those kiosks
often use a touch screen, which is
harder for blind people to use than
something with tactile buttons.
Delivery apps can be inconvenient,
too, says Everette Bacon, president
of the Utah chapter of the National

designing them don’t take Federation of the Blind. “Delivery

steps to make them accessible. is something you would think blind
people would welcome and we do, but
f people who are a lot of the delivery applications were
me sight—they very inaccessible and they also weren’t
mount of light or thought of with us in mind at all,”
vision isn’t good he says.
to interact with To be more accessible, those apps
ways as seeing need tools like descriptions of an
e a seeing-eye item or dish rather than relying on a
et around, or picture to do the trick. Pictures on apps
lp them access and websites can create barriers for
io descriptions those who are visually impaired. Text
For a science experiment, a
girl with low vision uses a
Sci-Voice Talking LabQuest
to get data announced in
real time and other helpful
information.
readers can audibly deliver text and
describe pictures—but only if the site
or app developer followed accessibility
standards such as the Web Content
Accessibility Guidelines. Unfortunately,
those guidelines aren’t always followed.
Don’t Make Assumptions
One big problem blind people
persistently face is the assumptions
of sighted people about what they can
and can’t do. Bacon says more than
once he’s had a stranger grab his elbow,
thinking he needs help.
“It’s impressions about blindness
that are far more threatening to blind
people than the blindness itself,” says
Daniel Kish, president of World Access
for the Blind.
Assumptions about capability
contribute to a low number of blind
and low-vision people working in or
studying STEM (science, technology,
engineering, and math) fields. People
with low or no vision have a lot to other
in these fields. They are just as capable
as anyone else at experimenting and
making new discoveries. They just need
accessible ways to interact with data
and scientific equipment.
One device helping give those students
that experience is the Sci-Voice Talking
LabQuest 2, a tool that reads aloud data
from over 70 sensors commonly used
in science experiments. Cary Supalo
invented this device to help students
experience hands-on science learning. He
is the founder of Independence Science
and has been blind since the age of
seven. “For kids who are blind or vision
impaired, before this technology existed,
they had to be told what happened,”
he says.
How You Can Help
Making the world more accessible
isn’t limited to inventing a cool new
piece of technology, though. If you’re
posting a picture or meme on social
media, adding a specific description of
what’s happening in the picture,
called alt text, can help blind people
understand your post without having
to rely on sight. If you’re building a
website, or know someone who is,
follow accessibility guidelines.
And if you see something that
could be inaccessible to blind
people—in a store, at school, online—
contacting someone in charge and
asking them to make it more readily
available to others can go a long way,
says Bacon. Understanding how blind
and vision-impaired people navigate
the world can be a first step in helping
to make it more accessible for them.
Lisa Christensen is a long-time Muse reader
who grew up to be a writer. She is considered
severely nearsighted, but her vision is
corrected with glasses and contacts so she’s
not legally blind. She has worn glasses since
the age of 13. Lisa lives in Salt Lake City with
her husband, a dog, and a cat.
SCIENCE
WITHOUT SIGHT
In October, a group of blind teens
gathered in Salt Lake City to make
some thermite reactions—that
is, some fireballs! They measured
ingredients and assembled three
aluminum cans for the experiment.
A device called Sci-Voice Talking
LabQuest 2 helped them audibly keep
track of their measurements.
Then—outside, under the
supervision of several scientists—they
set off three fireballs on different
surfaces: concrete, a steel plate, and
a pile of sand. Instruments measured
the heat transfer the fireballs sent
through each surface and read the
rising temperatures aloud. That
data was embossed on paper so
the students could feel the graph
to notice how dramatically each
experiment affected the temperature
of each surface. Students could also
feel the residual heat and touch the
cooled-down stony waste, called
slag. By examining the results of the
experiment and hypothesizing about
how the differences between the
three fireballs could have changed
the results, the teens participated in
the scientific process. “Most blind kids
in public schools are given very little
science learning,” says Ned Lindholm,
a chemist and professor at Salt Lake
Community College who is blind.
“Hands-on learning is vital in science.
That’s being kept away from most
blind kids.”
Ashley Neybert, a curriculum
designer for Independence Science
who is blind and also helped with the
event, says she’s hoping devices like
the Sci-Voice Talking LabQuest used
in this experiment can fix that. “We
don’t want students of the future to
struggle like we did.”
31
 WORD CORNER

FAILED BRAILLES
Louis Braille lost his sight at the
age of five. By 1824, when he was James Gall thought embossed alphabets should resemble
only 15, he had invented braille, an Roman letters and please the eye—despite the fact that they
alphabet of raised dots that made it were intended for the blind. But although his rune-like Gall
possible for the visually impaired to Type looks nice, it isn’t so easy to read by touch. Also, books
read by touch. printed in Roman alphabets like Gall were impractically large
and expensive to
Braille learned night writing in
school but found it too complicated.
He wanted a less demanding system,
so he set out to create one himself.
He simplified Charles Barbier’s
system (see below right), cutting
the number of dots in half. He also
chose to represent letters instead
of phonemes. This greatly reduced
the total number of characters, as
there are more individual sounds in
a language like French than there
are letters in the Roman alphabet.
Barbier’s night writing had symbols
for 36 individual phonemes; the
Roman alphabet has only 26 letters.
After inventing braille, Louis Braille created Decapoint, another
Readers embraced braille in part system based on Roman letters. He thought Decapoint would
because it was easier to recognize help blind people communicate with sighted people who
dots by touch than dashes or Roman couldn’t read braille. But it took forever to punch all those little
letters. Or maybe there’s just holes, even with the typewriter-like machine he helped invent.
something special about braille—
something you can’t quite put your
finger on. Braille, though, wasn’t the
only way you could read with your
fingers. Many other tactile alphabets
came and went before educators
made braille the standard English
type for the blind in 1932. Here are
some embossed alphabets that never
caught on—the brailles that failed.

Charles Barbier, a captain in Napoleon’s army, is said to have

created Sonography, a.k.a. night writing, so that his fellow
soldiers could communicate silently at night. Speaking aloud or
reading by lamplight would give away their position, but reading
by touch would not. Night writing characters don’t represent
i o u in on un letters of the alphabet. Instead, each series of dots stands for a
different phoneme, or sound, in the French language.

32
 Thomas Lucas based his Lucas Type on stenography, or shorthand,
which is still used by court reporters today. It bears little resemblance
to Roman letters. Instead, it uses arbitrary lines and dots that sort of
look like macaroni and cheese. These characters are easier to recognize
by touch than Roman letters. However, because they are random, they
can be difficult to memorize.

Moon Type may look like an alien language, but it’s actually
named after its creator, the Reverend William Moon.
Most of Moon’s characters are based on Roman letters,
but he chopped 12 characters up into simpler
shapes and replaced six characters with entirely new
forms. Moon claimed his system could be easily learned
“by persons whose fingers are hardened by work.”
Work-hardened fingers, however, still can’t recognize
Roman-like alphabets as easily as dots.

Today, braille can be found not only

embossed on paper in books and
reading materials but alongside
computers. Readers use a
refreshable braille display. This
display translates the written
text on the screen into braille by
raising and lowering small pins for
the reader to feel as they scroll.
Even as technology evolves,
braille prevails.

33
 How the
World
Got
Glasses
34
T
he invention of spectacles
brought the world into
focus, but the story of
specs is not as clear
as you might expect.
Eyeglasses developed over time, and
their origin story holds some surprises.
What are the greatest
breakthroughs humans have made
since inventing the wheel? In 2013, The
Atlantic magazine posed this question
to a panel of experts, including
scientists, entrepreneurs, engineers,
and historians. When the publication’s
editors combined their answers into
a master list, eyeglasses came in at
number five, behind only modern
electronics, penicillin, electricity, and
the printing press.
35
 Medieval reading stones were
If you disagree with that ranking, like large, round—and heavy—
try this quick experiment: Rub a magnifying glasses.
bit of soap on a piece of glass and
hold the glass in front of your eyes.
Or if you wear glasses or contacts,
remove them. Now keep reading. Oh,
wait—you can’t, because you can’t see
clearly enough. As anyone who needs
corrective lenses will tell you, being
able to see clearly is hugely important,
whether you’re trying to put together
a Lego set, see a text message while
holding your phone under your desk,
or read a magazine article about
glasses. If anything, that number-five
ranking may be too low.
When you include all forms of
vision problems (nearsightedness,
farsightedness, focusing difficulties),
most of the people in the world need particularly common in kids. to find a solution to the problem, like
at least some help getting a clear view So you might think that with all scientists did in recent years to search
of it. This isn’t just a problem for older these people groping around, unable for the Higgs boson particle. But that
l h bl l l h d f ’ ll h h d

36

called reading stones and were
b bly the first simple corrective
As far as we know, they weren’t
pful or popular.
ne knows who came up
technique of shaping glass
particular kinds of curves
ng images into better focus
of just making them bigger),
unting the lenses in frames
n front of your face. Whoever
onsible was probably a
an. Some historians think
ctacles were discovered by
t, or perhaps developed out
ration. After all, if your job
make things out of glass—
panes, for instance—and it
ing harder and harder to see
e-up work you did, you would
ot of motivation to tinker
se curved pieces and try to
your magnifier.
likely, several anonymous
akers developed the
logy by trial and error, and
ea and technique gradually
ht on and spread. Even
ugh we don’t know exactly
ho first came up with the
ea for making lenses that
corrected vision problems,
we do have an idea of
where they lived. It is
This 15th century painting
of Saint Matthew gives him
glasses to help him read.
The 16th-century Eng-
lish king Henry VIII was
famously near-sighted.
This strange armor was
a present from another
monarch—was it poking
fun at Henry?
By the 16th century,
noblemen like Luis
de Velasco could get
spectacles to help
them see—or just
look fashionable.
pretty much agreed that corrective
lenses first appeared in Italy around
the year 1286.
Vasco Ronchi, a 20th-century
physicist known for his work in optics,
once said, “When it is all summed
up, the fact remains that this world
has found lenses on its nose without
knowing whom to thank.”
We Can, But Should We?
One possible reason that it took
corrective lenses so long to appear—
and that whomever we have to thank
seems to have skittered under a
rock—is, oddly enough, a religious
one. It’s hard to imagine now, but in
medieval Europe the idea of corrective
lenses to help people see was
controversial.
From a medieval Christian point
of view, light was special and not
something to be tinkered with. The
first thing God does in the biblical
story of the world’s creation is to say,
“Let there be light.” In his book The
Discoverers, historian Daniel Boorstin
explains that in the Middle Ages many
people believed that God gave us eyes
so we could see how things really
were. Based on this logic, spectacles
seemed like tools for deceiving us.
Boorstin summed it up: “Why had
eyes been given to men if not to know
the true shape, size, and color of
objects in the external world? Then
were not mirrors, prisms, and lenses
devices for making visual lies?”
By modern thinking, this is just
weird. Glasses help us to better see
how things really are in the world. But
since the “If God had wanted you to
see clearly he would have given you
better vision” argument was widely
accepted, it makes sense that few
people were willing to make tools
37
 to adjust their vision. And if they
did stumble on a technology that
helped them see more clearly, they
weren’t too eager to have statues built
honoring them for that achievement.
Good ideas tend to find a way,
however. Once spectacles were
available, people got over any moral
objections, and the technology caught
on quickly. There was another, more
practical problem to overcome,
though, and it was a big one.

So How Do These
Glasses have changed a lot over the past 700 years. These pairs are mostly from the 1800s,
Things Work? after side stems were devised.
Early versions of spectacles were little
more than two magnifiers placed in Renaissance shoppers could buy
frames and attached to one another. lenses from specialty shops. This lens
The technology progressed pretty seller might want to get some him-
self—one of his customers is stealing
quickly, though. By the middle of the from him!
15th century, lenses were available for
specific levels of vision problems,
much like drugstore reading glasses
today. Also, like today’s reading
glasses, these lenses were cheap and
plentiful. They could be bought at
town markets or from street vendors.
They were helpful for all sorts of
up-close work, such as sewing or
sorting seeds. Craftspeople found
them especially useful, and they were
cheap enough that masons, cobblers,
or woodcarvers could afford to buy
several pairs.
Just like so many popular
accessories today, spectacles became
a kind of fad. People thought glasses
made them look intelligent or improve people’s vision without
sophisticated. The dukes of Milan offending God. It was becoming easier
gave glasses away as gifts to their for the vision-impaired to read. But
courtiers. They were popular items, reading while eating often meant
even among those who didn’t spectacles in the soup.
particularly need them. People made many attempts to
But soon another invention came overcome these problems, some
along that greatly increased the need crazier than others. Spectacles were
for spectacles. In the 15th century, held on the face by tying thread or
Johannes Gutenberg invented the And they were discovering how handy a bit of thin rope to the frames and
printing press. Books eventually glasses could be for doing it. looping that over the ears.
became plentiful and relatively The problem was that spectacles Weights were sometimes tied to
inexpensive—and not just Bibles, but weren’t all that handy at first. the ends of the threads to counter-
classics such as Aesop’s Fables and the Though the quality of the lenses was balance the weight of the glasses and
works of Aristotle and love stories by improving rapidly, getting them to keep them from slipping off. Some
the Italian poet Boccaccio. With so stay on the face—much less sit there people used threads or wires to hook
many good books around, more and comfortably—was an even greater their glasses to the brims of hats so
more people were learning to read. challenge than figuring out how to they dangled just in front of the eyes.

38
Others attached them to straps tied
around the forehead or threaded
them into their hair (an idea that
seems like it could catch on today).
Still other designs simply perched
on the bridge of the nose—but as
you can imagine, they didn’t perch
there for long. Later models worked
a bit better (and wearers no doubt
looked less silly trying to keep them
on) by having the frame of the lenses
slightly pinch the nose. These stayed
on the face longer, but must have Modern optometrists
(eye doctors) work
been quite uncomfortable. with opticians (lens
It’s hard to imagine why it took makers) to make
so long to come up with the idea. the perfect pair of
glasses for each pair
But side stems that fit over the ears, of eyes.
somewhat like the spectacles we
wear today, weren’t invented until
the 18th century. Even then, the first matter of trial and error. Today we
side stems were short and designed wear reasonably comfortable glasses Avery Elizabeth Hurt is a journalist
to clamp against the temples (ouch). and don’t have to hold them on with living in Alabama who has written
Like inventing the lenses hat hooks or counterweights—though previously for Muse. She is still trying to
themselves, coming up with designs again, we find ourselves not knowing figure out why she needs trifocals, as she
that were easy to use was mostly a exactly whom to thank. only has two eyes.

What
YOU ’re
lookin
at? g

39
by Kristina Lyn Heitkamp

T
Artist
Salvador
Dali

Physicist
Albert
Einstein

I
Z
Exploring the
Faces of Caric
Artist
Frida
Kahlo
A
painter, a
psychologist,
and a
policeman
all walk into
a carnival. They ask the
cotton-candy man where
they should go for a good
laugh. He looks to the
ring toss and then the
fun house and shakes his
head. Finally, he points to
the caricaturist creating a
portrait showing a woman
with abnormally gigantic
front teeth, chomping on
a carrot.
Caricatures
are drawings that
make someone look
funny or foolish
by exaggerating
their appearance or
character. The word
caricature comes
from the Italian
word caricare, which Leonardo da Vinci drew “monstrous” looking people he
means “to load,” but cartoon versions of interesting faces
it can also indicate
he saw around town.
exaggeration. These
visual jokes on a page became popular
in the 16th and 17th centuries, but
examples of caricatures can be found
as far back as ancient Egyptian art.
Today, the uncanny portraits
appear on magazine covers and
postage stamps. They turn up on
oceanfront boardwalks and in art
galleries. Caricatures incite a giggle
or a blush, but the funny faces have a
rich history. And they’re being used in
cool—and unexpected—new ways.
A FACE ONLY
AN ARTIST
COULD LOVE
Painter, inventor, and
scientist Leonardo da
Vinci loved to study
the human form. He
especially treasured
the most curious-
saw on the streets
of Italian cities in
the 15th and 16th
centuries. If he saw an interesting
face, whether young and beardless
or hairy and old, he might follow
the person around all day long,
memorizing their features. With
the images tucked inside his brain,
he would return home to turn what
he’d seen into “monstrous faces”—
the phrase he used to describe his
collection of caricatures.
Another artist, Claude Monet,
also created a series of caricatures.

41

Monet drew
this caricature
of a well-
dressed Scots-
man in 1857.
In 1855, at 15 years old, Monet
sketched charcoal portraits of the
locals of his coastal town of Le
Havre in France. He charged 10 to
20 francs per picture. Artists have
also played with the power and
influence of visual jokes. In the
19th century, caricatures took on
politics and social commentary.
THE PEN IS MIGHTIER
THAN THE SWORD
President Abraham Lincoln
reportedly called Thomas Nast
the best recruiting agent for
the Union when his sketches
roused citizens to join the Civil
War. Often called “the father of
American cartoons,” Nast used
caricature to critique slavery and
political corruption. His parodies
were a powerful communication
tool during a time when some of
society could not read.
On the lighter side of his
career, Nast created today’s
popular American image of
Santa Claus. The white-bearded,
plump-bellied, red-nosed man
was first portrayed in Nast’s
illustration, published in Harper’s
Weekly in December 1866. Before
Nast’s jolly portrait, artists had
depicted Santa in different ways,
including as a beardless man
whose sleigh was pulled by a
turkey. (Rumor is that Nast had
insider knowledge.)
42
Étienne Carjat
was a well-known experiment, they
French journal- simulated AMD
ist and artist in
the 1800s. This vision by showing
rumpled man blurry faces to test
he drew might subjects. As the
be Louis Méry, a
French author. researchers expected,
the subjects were
horrible at recognizing the unclear
images. But then the researchers
caricatured faces with computer
software that exaggerated key facial
shapes. Study subjects were more
likely to recognize these fuzzy faces.
“This is exciting because it suggests
that caricaturing might allow some
people with mild AMD to be just as
good at recognizing faces as people
with normal vision,” Irons says.
She wonders whether caricatures
A SIGHT FOR SORE EYES can assist with other vision
Caricatures have also jumped off problems. “We are researching
the page and into the research lab. whether it will help improve face
While Leonardo da Vinci saw wild recognition for people with a ‘bionic
exaggerations of human faces, Dr. eye’—an artificial eye that ca
Jessica Irons, an experimental health restore some vision to blind people,”
psychologist, sees caricatures as a way she says.
to help people with vision disorders.
Age-related macular degeneration FLYING INTO THE
(AMD) is the leading cause of vision FACE OF DANGER
loss in the United States. Because Charlie Frowd once sat for a hand-
people are living longer, the estimated drawn caricature by a London
number of adults with AMD is artist, and he loved it. As a forensic
expected to more than double by 2050. psychologist at the University of
“The one thing people with AMD Central Lancashire in the United
miss most is being able to recognize Kingdom, Frowd thought maybe
people, especially their family. We the fun could be put to work to help
think that caricaturing will help,” fight crime
says Irons. So she and her team put Following a crime, victims and
the funny faces to the test. In their eyewitnesses may try to describe
Political cartoons have long
used caricature to poke fun
at politicians, as this one by
Thomas Nast did in 1871.
what an offender looked sequence was
like to a sketch artist. the best trigger
The artist’s sketch is to recognize the
called a facial composite. composite,” he
Police use the composite says. These results
to help identify suspects. helped Frowd to
Building a single face develop software
composite this way called EvoFIT for
doesn’t always work well. police stations
It can be hard to recall a around the world.
face glimpsed for only a EvoFIT allows
few minutes or seconds. witnesses and
Frowd and Blurring faces makes them hard-
victims of crime
his project team er to recognize, as the images to select whole
investigated caricatures below show. But exaggerating faces from many
features—as the images above
and their eff ect on facial do—helps people recognize faces options, combine
recognition. even when they’re a little blurry! their choices,
Test subjects viewed and “evolve” a
caricatured images of celebrities. composite over time. Once the
Frowd’s team tested various levels of digital face is assembled, the
caricature—from a little exaggeration software caricatures it and creates
to a lot of exaggeration—and a short animation to alert the
asked subjects to try to identify the public. “It’s all about trying to catch
faces. They discovered there wasn’t criminals and keep the streets safer.
one specific “most helpful” level; It is such good fun to be involved in
sometimes a little bit of caricature this aspect of forensic psychology
helped and sometimes a lot did. with the police,” he says.
“The surprising result was that
showing someone an animated WRITTEN ALL OVER
YOUR FUNNY FACE
The many faces of caricatures
have reached far and wide
through the arts, politics,
and science. Caricaturing is
helping people recognize and
recall faces—be it a bionic eye
recognizing a sister, or a crime
victim recalling a perpetrator.
Where will funny faces take
us next?
Kristina Lyn Heitkamp is a
Montana-based writer, researcher,
and environmental journalist.
Hoping to hone her stick-figure
skills, she signed up for a caricature
drawing class. Her family and friends
had been warned.
GETTING THE
SHORT END OF
THE STICK
Sometimes visual
jokesters conjure images
that we just can’t shake.
English caricaturist
James Gillray had a knack
for creating lively and
influential caricatures of
political figures during
the French Revolution.
His main target: Napoléon
Bonaparte. Gillray drew
Napoléon many times,
often caricaturing
the French general as
extremely short and
hotheaded. The most
famous of his works,
“Plumb-Pudding in
Danger,” shows England’s
prim and proper prime
minister, William Pitt,
dining with a stunted and
sloppy Napoléon. The two
men are carving up a globe
that represents a dessert
called plum pudding.
Another one of Gillray’s
caricatures shows King
George III scrutinizing a
pint-size Napoléon and
declaring him among the
most “pernicious, little-
odious-reptiles that nature
ever suffer’d to crawl upon
the surface of the Earth.”
In reality, Napoléon’s
height was average for the
time, around 5’6” or 5’7”.
But Gillray’s images have
stuck, and we often think
of Napoléon as unusually
short and aggressive.
43
 BY KATHRYN HULICK

not going to be vision like

you and I have, where we
see colors and shapes and
images,” says Jennifer Lim,
Your Tech

an eye doctor at University of

Illinois Health. “It’s more of
a pixelated type vision that
they see, but it’s really a great
scientific advancement.”
This type of implant only
works if a person’s retina still
functions. In some forms of
blindness, that isn’t the case.
So, some researchers are
working on implants that
would go onto a person’s
brain instead. Brain surgery is
riskier than eye surgery. But
the risks seemed worth it for
the volunteers testing these
new implants.

Creating Light-
Sensitive Cells
In 2021, a 58-year-old
man who was totally blind
looked through a pair of
special goggles and saw a
large notebook, a small box,
drinking glasses, and more.
This man had been blind
because the light-sensitive
IS A CURE FOR BLINDNESS cells in his eyes had stopped

REALLY A MIRACLE?
working. It’s a condition called
Retinitis Pigmentosa.
Researchers couldn’t fix these
MOST PEOPLE WHO SEE FEEL LOST AND HELPLESS WHEN cells. But they modified other
EVERYTHING IS DARK. They would want their vision back cells in his eyes using a
if they ever lost it. In many fables and stories, a blind person technique called optogenetics.
miraculously sees the world again, or for the first time. In real life, This technique makes cells
could this miracle actually happen? sensitive to light.
Several new technologies can treat or reverse certain forms of The modified cells could
vision loss. But none of these technologies is perfect. Most come only detect amber-colored
with risks and restore only glimpses of light and shadow. How do light. The special goggles
they work? And how do people with vision loss feel about these turned all colors of typical
so-called “cures”? light into amber light. This
activated the cells, which sent
Bionic Eyes signals to the brain. After a
As of 2002, people with vision loss can get an implant that hacks training period lasting seven
their visual system. The device captures sights and sends them months, the man’s brain had
to the brain. During surgery, a doctor puts a very tiny set of figured out how to turn these
electrodes onto the retina at the back of the patient’s eye. Then, the new signals into images.
patient has to wear a pair of glasses that contains a camera and His vision was still severely
computer chip. The camera captures visual information and the impaired. But he reported that
computer chip sends signals to the electrodes. The electrodes his daily life had improved
provide the brain with some very basic visual information. “It’s thanks to the treatment.

44
Healthy Genes or Stem Cells a bionic eye at age 50. Now, she
Some forms of blindness happen says that the world looks like
because of mistakes in a person’s ˝ ashes and shimmers. She was
genes. Gene therapy fixes overjoyed to have some sight
the mistakes. One way to returned, but she usually leaves
do this is to modify a her bionic eye turned off.
virus so that it delivers In a 2019 study, researchers
healthy genes to the talked to people with vision
cells in a person’s loss or blindness about their
eye. In 2017, the feelings about using gene
FDA approved a gene editing to alter their condition.
therapy to treat a form Volunteers who saw blindness
of vision loss that typically as a defect or who had become
begins in childhood and blind later in life were more
worsens over time. There are hundreds likely to be interested in
of different genetic disorders that may lead to blindness, trying new treatments. One
however. Researchers must carefully develop and test gene said, “I can’t think of any area
therapies for every single one. where my visual impairment
Stem cell therapy could replace eye cells that have stopped doesn’t impact my life. [With
working with new, healthy cells. Stem cells are like shape- treatment] life sure would be a
shifters. They have the potential to become any type of cell. little easier. Okay, a lot easier.”
Doctors already know how to make stem cells from an adult’s But other volunteers saw
regular cells. Researchers are working on methods to turn these their condition as a positive
stem cells into different types of eye cells. This technique isn’t or neutral part of their lives.
ready for human use yet, though. Those who had been blind
since childhood weren’t as
Does Blindness Need Fixing? likely to want treatment. One
Fixing the eyes doesn’t necessarily end blindness. The brain volunteer told the researchers,
creates most of what we see. So, if a person has been blind since “I see blindness as a difference
birth or early childhood, that person’s brain has no idea what rather than as a detriment.”
to do with visual information. Even if the person gets a perfect That same person said, “I think
new eye, they would have to learn how to see from scratch. a diverse society is a good
That’s not what everyone with blindness wants. thing.” “Curing” blindness
Rhian Lewis had been blind since childhood when she got potentially means eliminating a
form of diversity, and that may
seem like a slippery slope.
Could it lead to attempts to
eliminate other human
differences? Could it increase
the amount of harassment that
people who are different face?
Clearly, people who want
better vision should have
treatment options available.
But perhaps we should all
change the way we think and
talk about blindness and
supposed “miracle cures.” What
do you think?

Kathryn Hulick’s new book,

A prosthetic eye, shown here,
replaces an eye but can’t see.
A bionic eye implant gets added
to an impaired eye. Some new
implants connect to the brain!
Welcome to the Future, delves into
the ethics of new technology,
including enhancements to sight or
hearing, robots, Mars settlements,
pet dinosaurs, and more.

45
 CONTEST

NEW CONTEST
Super-Peepers:
What’s Your Eye Power?
Some animals have eyes with extra
abilities you might be envious of.
(Nictitating membranes, anyone?)
Our eyes can help us see well, but if
you could, what enhancements
would you add to your eyes? Would
they shoot lasers? Never blink? See
in the dark or underwater? Send us
a picture of your eyes’ extra
enhancements and all the things
they can do, and we’ll look ‘em over
and pick our favorites. More power
to you!
. / 14 / Virginia
—ELLA T
CONTEST RULES
1. Your contest entry must be your
very own original work. Ideas and ANNOUNCING
words should not be copied.
CONTEST WINNERS!
2. Be sure to include your name,
age, and full address on your entry. In July, we asked you to
3. Only one entry per person, write a story using the
please. words magic, eigh
4. If you want your work returned, Paul. Your writing
enclose a self-addressed, stamped
envelope.
us away—but well
5. All entries must be signed by a
already knew it wo
parent or legal guardian, saying Aren’t these winne
that this is your own work and terrific? Eight thou
no help was given and granting
permission to publish. For detailed times, yes!
information about our compliance
with the Children’s Online Privacy
Protection Act, visit the policy page
at cricketmedia.com/privacy.
6. Your entry must be received by
January 31, 2022. We will publish
winning entries in the May 2022
issue of Muse.
7. Send entries to Muse Contest,
1 East Erie Street, Suite 525,
PMB4136, Chicago, IL 60611 or via
email to muse@cricketmedia.com.
If entering a digital photo
or scan, please send at 300 dpi.

ANSWERS

PAGES 6-9 M
The false stor
“The Coolest

PAGE 13 BAF
The differenc
“Same or Diff
shown in the
right. How did

46
 BY LIZZIE WADE
Q:
Why does
Q&A
your snot
start
dripping in
the cold?
—Maia K., age 10
Inside your
A nose, it’s always
: summertime—
warm and very
humid, says
Andrew Lane. He’s an ear,
nose, and throat doctor and
the director of the Sinus
Center at Johns Hopkins
University. Even in winter, the
air passing from your lungs
to your nostrils is toasty and
packed with moisture, like a
cloud that’s about to shower
thing in the universe, quickly
you with rain. But things
change when that air meets
cold weather. In cold, dry air,
your nose makes more snot
just to stay comfortably wet.
But there’s another reason for
the drip. Cold air can’t hold
as much moisture as warm
air. So as your exhaled breath
cools down, it has to let go of
some of the water it’s been
carrying.
Some of that moisture ends
up forming the cloud you see
when you breathe out on cold
days. But some of it turns to
liquid just inside the tip of
your nostril. That’s what gives
you a runny nose, says Lane.
“It’s really water, it’s not even
mucus.” On cold days, it’s not
just snot that’s dripping. It’s
your breath itself.
—Lizzie
one is smaller, a quark or an
Q:
electron.
For help, I called Lauren
Tompkins, a physicist at
What is the smallest Stanford University—and
realized I had it all
wrong. She told me that
how big is it, and quarks, electrons, and all other
what does it do? subatomic particles don’t
—Diego A., age 10.5, Washington actually have a size. They’re
“point-like,” meaning that they
“don’t take up any space,” she
When I started explains. What gives an atom
A researching this its size is not the vanishingly
: question, I thought small particles inside it. “What
it would be easy. takes up the space is the energy
All we have to do is that binds the different particles
zoom in, right? People, planets, together,” Tompkins says. It
stars, and everything else in the takes a lot of energy to hold an
universe is made out of atoms. atom together, and that energy
Atoms are really small, but needs a bit of wiggle room.
they are still made out of other, Without it, none of us would be
even smaller, pieces: electrons, any bigger than a point.
protons, and neutrons. —Lizzie
Protons and neutrons are
made up of even smaller
particles called quarks. Have any questions?
Send them to Muse Q&A,
Electrons, meanwhile, don’t 1 East Erie Street, Suite 525,
contain any building blocks. PMB4136, Chicago, IL 60611,
Okay then, I thought. All we or email them to
have to do is figure out which muse@cricketmedia.com.
47
 BY LUKE OUT

THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

L
Last Slice

—It’s a rabbit.
ngs?
—No, it’s a duck flying. See the win
d
—That is very clearly a snail-eyed
alien from Greeb.

—It’s a dog!
—IIt’s not a dog. It’s a kangaroo.
roo
Lo
ook at its snout, it’s obvious.
—It’s a side view of a snail-eyed Greebian.

—That’s definitely a moose.

—It’s a spider holding on to an old branch!
—Hmm… another Greebian. This is getting a litttle
s some kind
worrying. Is this k of warning?

—
—Would you please stop rambling about
aliens from Greeb?
—Yeah, where do you get this st—Ahhh!
What’s that?!
—I hate to tell you guys: I told you so…
48
 and writing From home or sc
An online reading of all ages and le
hool, kids
s 1:1
program that build learn Mandarin
vels can
lationships and explore
eMentor/mentee re
Chinese culture.
in the classroom.

HAPPY
NE W Y E A R!
Award-winning magazines
for all ages and interests!

On with
the Show

Great

Visit CricketMedia.com to learn more.

 January 2022 Volume 26 Number 01 cricketmedia.com $6.95

The ability
to observe
carefully with
your senses,
no matter
what they are,
is absolutely
essential in
science.
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