Melanopsin (OPN4) is a light-sensing protein found in skin and retina cells. A new study conducted at the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil suggests that OPN4 can also participate in the ...

Frogs have maintained a surprising diversity of light-sensing proteins over evolutionary time, according to a new study led by a Penn State researcher. Light-sensing proteins, called opsins, enable ...

Integrative and Comparative Biology, Vol. 58, No. 3 (September 2018), pp. 386-397 (12 pages) Most stomatopod crustaceans have complex retinas in their compound eyes, with up to 16 spectral types of ...

A 58-year-old man who has been blind for years now sees well enough to make out shapes, including the white lines of a crosswalk. The advancement comes thanks to a technology called “optogenetics,” a ...

A research group has revealed a new system that allows them to control the behavior of the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans, using two different animal opsins, a type of light-sensitive protein.

Unlike typical opsins, the anthozoan-specific opsin II group (ASO-II opsins) in reef-building corals use chloride ions (Cl⁻) instead of amino acids as counterions. Corals may lack eyes, but they are ...

Color vision, ocular color detection is achieved with complicated neural mechanisms in the eyes. Researchers have found color detection with a simplest mechanism in the fish pineal organ, an ...