Do you ever find yourself squinting into the glare of your computer screen around 4 PM and thinking that your eyes aren't built for this? You're right, of course. The human eye evolved on the African savanna. This is what it's built to see:
Scientists from the University of Pennsylvania and elsewhere took about 5,000 digital photos in a Botswana savanna. They captured natural scenes at various times of day, from sun-baked vistas to up-close tree bark to fresh elephant dung, and compiled the images into a publicly available database.
Clicking through the albums may make you feel overheated, but it also simulates a pleasant stroll through the savanna. (Spoiler alert: baby baboons!)
The researchers used this database to investigate the evolution of the human eye. Specifically, they wanted to find the logic behind how our color-sensing machinery is set up.
Our eyes detect color using cone cells, which come ...
