Interesting facts about the eyes

Today in our post we tell you several curiosities about the eyes. They are one of the most complex and best developed organs in the human body. But the eye is also a differentiating element of our face: it brings personality, beauty and expression. I’m sure now that we’re all wearing mascara you’ve learned to get to know the eyes of the people around you better too!

1. The eye is the most complex organ in the human body, except for the brain, and the fastest and most active muscle.
2. The eyes, unlike the nose and ears, hardly grow from birth.
3. The diameter of the eyeball is 24 millimeters, its average weight is 7.5 grams and it needs 6 muscles to move.
4. The size of the male eye is half a millimeter larger than that of the female.
5. The eye is capable of distinguishing about 10 million different colors.
6. If the human eye were a camera, it would have 576 megapixels.
7. Your eye is capable of processing 36,000 bits of information every hour.
8. Women have less difficulty distinguishing colors than men.
9. Most people blink an average of 17 times per minute, 14,280 times per day and 5.2 million times per year.

Curiosities about the eyes: color

1. The pupil of light eyes dilates better and faster than that of dark eyes, but in reality the main difference that color makes is aesthetic.
2. The majority of the population is brown, but only 3% have green eyes.
3. The natural color of gray eyes is actually blue, but it is so weak that it tends to be covered by a protective layer of gray.
4. Some people are born with different eye colors. This particularity is known as heterochromia and only occurs in 3 million people in the world.
5. There is no such thing as black eyes. In these cases, either the iris color is very dark brown, or the person suffers from aniridia, a rare disease that causes the almost total absence of iris.

Curiosities about babies’ eyes

1. All babies are color blind at birth.
2. Newborn eyes begin to produce tears between 4 and 13 weeks.
3. Many babies are born with a bluish-gray eye color that in many cases evolves to brown.
4. Until two or three months of age, the baby’s eyes do not coordinate, so they do not have depth sensation.
5. The baby is born with blurred and very near vision. Their sense of vision is in tune with their need to see the important people and isolate themselves from the rest.
6. Many visual diseases can develop before the baby is 18 months old, so we must be attentive and, at any symptom, go to a specialist.

For more information about children’s eyes consult our Pediatric Ophthalmology Unit.