Oh my.
Have you done something
different with your peepers?
Like maybe swapped them out for a pair
of freakishly oversized fly eyes?
It's an understatement to say
a fly's eyes
are a little different from yours.
These insects have two compound eyes.
That's like having a bunch of little eyes
that allow them
to see movement
from many different directions.
Your human eyes are structured
more like a camera.
There’s an iris that controls
the amount of light
each eye lets in,
a lens that forms the image
and a retina that then detects
that image.
Compare that to the compound
eyes of a fly,
which are made up
of to 4,500 lenses each.
You might think that would give them
incredible optical abilities,
but each eye doesn’t
actually see all that well.
But combine them,
and they form an almost
360-degree field of vision.
So if you had fly eyes,
would you instantly possess
super-human sight?
Your eyes might be
the window to your soul,
but when your loved ones look at you now
they’d certainly be peering through
a very, very different window.
Before you attempt to fly away,
in this scenario
you’d only be doing an eye swap.
The rest of your body
would stay exactly the same.
But what you’d see
would be completely different.
You'd now have a nearly 360-degree
picture of all that's
going on around you.
No more worrying about people
sneaking up on you.
This built-in
security system comes at a price.
Everything would be blurry.
You wouldn't have pupils,
so say goodbye
to controlling the amount of light
coming through the lenses to help
keep things in focus.
Also, you’d no longer be able to see
colors like you're used to.
Your old human eyes
were marvelously advanced in this regard.
But now, you wouldn’t
be able to see all the different
shadings, hues
and levels of vividness anymore.
Flies only have two sensor cells,
which gives them trouble distinguishing
between colors.
With your new fly eyes,
the color red
would be out of the picture.
Literally.
Hope it wasn't your favorite.
There are
some insects with compound eyes
that see color better.
Bees, for one.
They even see colors better than we do.
Makes sense
when you consider that
distinguishing different
flowers is vital to their survival.
But back to flies.
If you found yourself with a pair of eyes
from a male fly,
you’d also now have
the so-called love spot.
This would enhance your ability
to process visual signals by up to 60%.
This enables male flies to better detect
the fast movements
of their female counterparts.
You’d look pretty crazy
darting your head around all day
looking for a date.
Then again,
you’d be a human
with colossal compound eyes.
So you’d already
look a little bonkers as it is.
And bonkers would be
an appropriate description
of the physical appearance of these eyes,
which would also have
intense patterns adding to the mystique.
Researchers aren't exactly sure why.
Some think mating plays a big role.
Who knows?
Maybe you’d start suddenly attracting
hundreds of flies of the opposite sex?
All that buzzing would be worse
than being text bombed.
Probably better to keep your human eyes
after all.
Instead, you could try out a camera
scientists have built to detect movement
just like a fly does.
The problem is,
the photos would be black and white.
I'm pretty sure your cellphone
could do better.
Maybe you’d prefer a different kind
of vision.
X-Ray vision.
Well, that’s a story for another WHAT IF.