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Have you ever noticed something swimming
in your field of vision?
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It may look like a tiny worm,
or a transparent blob,
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and whenever you try to get a closer look,
it disappears,
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only to reappear
as soon as you shift your glance.
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But don't go rinsing out your eyes.
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What you are seeing is a common phenomenon
known as a floater.
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The scientific name for these objects
is Muscae Volitantes,
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Latin for "flying flies,"
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and true to their name,
they can be somewhat annoying.
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But they're not actually bugs
or any kind of external objects at all.
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Rather, they exist inside your eyeball.
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Floaters may seem to be alive,
since they move and change shape,
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but they are not alive.
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Floaters are tiny objects
that cast shadows on the retina,
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the light-sensitive tissue
at the back of your eye.
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They might be pits of tissue,
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red blood cells,
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or clumps of protein.
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Any because they're suspended
within the vitreous humor,
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the gel-like liquid
that fills the inside of your eye,
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floaters drift along
with your eye movements,
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and seem to bounce a little
when your eye stops.
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Floaters may be only
barely distinguishable most of the time.
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They become more visible
the closer they are to the retina,
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just as holding your hand
closer to a table with an overhead light
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will result in a more sharply
defined shadow.
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And floaters are particularly noticeable
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when you are looking
at a uniform bright surface,
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like a blank computer screen,
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snow,
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or a clear sky,
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where the consistency of the background
makes them easier to distinguish.
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The brighter the light is,
the more your pupil contracts.
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This has an effect similar
to replacing a large diffuse light fixture
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with a single overhead light bulb,
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which also makes
the shadow appear clearer.
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There is another visual phenomenon
that looks similar to floaters,
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but is in fact unrelated.
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If you've seen tiny dots of light
darting about
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when looking at a bright blue sky,
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you've experienced what is known as
the blue field entoptic phenomenon.
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In some ways,
this is the opposite of seeing floaters.
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Here you are not seeing shadows,
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but little moving windows
letting light through to your retina.
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The windows are actually caused
by white blood cells
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moving through the capillaries
along your retina's surface.
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These leukocytes can be so large
that they nearly fill a capillary
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causing a plasma space
to open up in front of them.
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Because the space in the white blood cells
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are both more transparent to blue light
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than the red blood cells
normally present in capillaries,
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we see a moving dot of light
wherever this happens,
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following the paths of your capillaries
and moving in time with your pulse.
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Under ideal viewing conditions,
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you might even see what looks
like a dark tail following the dot.
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This is the red blood cells
that have bunched up behind the leukocyte.
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Some science museums have an exhibit
which consists of a screen of blue light,
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allowing you to see these blue sky sprites
much more clearly than you normally would.
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While everybody's eyes experience
these sort of effects,
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the number and type vary greatly.
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In the case of floaters,
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they often go unnoticed
as our brain learns to ignore them.
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However, abnormally numerous
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or large floaters
that interfere with vision
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may be sign of a more serious condition,
requiring immediate medical treatment.
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But the majority of the time
entoptic phenomena,
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such as floaters and blue sky sprites,
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are just a gentle reminder
that what we think we see
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depends just as much
on our biology and minds
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as it does on the external world.
Krystian Aparta
The English transcript was updated on 7/16/2015.