# もしも日本で大々的に行われたとして、自分も参加しただろうか…
# 日本水産学会春季大会で2008年3月27日に発表したそうな
# ほれ、言わんこっちゃない…ある意味花粉なんかよりよっぽど危険かもよ
# どういうリスクが考えられるのかが分からないまま、単に疑心暗鬼になっている人々を納得させるのは至難の業…
Tsyr-Huei Chiou, Sonja Kleinlogel, Tom Cronin, Roy Caldwell, Birte Loeffler, Afsheen Siddiqi, Alan Goldizen, Justin Marshall.
Current Biology 18, 429-434 (2008) | doi:10.1016/j.cub.2008.02.066
We describe the addition of a fourth visual modality in the animal kingdom, the perception of circular polarized light. Animals are sensitive to various characteristics of light, such as intensity, color, and linear polarization. This latter capability can be used for object identification, contrast enhancement, navigation, and communication through polarizing reflections. Circularly polarized reflections from a few animal species have also been known for some time. Although optically interesting, their signal function or use (if any) was obscure because no visual system was known to detect circularly polarized light. Here, in stomatopod crustaceans, we describe for the first time a visual system capable of detecting and analyzing circularly polarized light. Four lines of evidence―behavior, electrophysiology, optical anatomy, and details of signal design―are presented to describe this new visual function. We suggest that this remarkable ability mediates sexual signaling and mate choice, although other potential functions of circular polarization vision, such as enhanced contrast in turbid environments, are also possible. The ability to differentiate the handedness of circularly polarized light, a visual feat never expected in the animal kingdom, is demonstrated behaviorally here for the first time.# え、円偏光が見えるの？
# そんなにど偉い先生に縁がある人ばかりじゃないけど、本当の意味での自然科学の面白味を教えてくれる人が身近にいることは大事だよね
