Unshelved by Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum
comic strip overdue media

Friday, July 24, 2009

They say pregnant women have a glow; turns out we all do

Humans Glow in Visible Light

Past research has shown that the body emits visible light, 1,000 times less intense than the levels to which our naked eyes are sensitive. In fact, virtually all living creatures emit very weak light, which is thought to be a byproduct of biochemical reactions involving free radicals....

The researchers found the body glow rose and fell over the day, with its lowest point at 10 a.m. and its peak at 4 p.m., dropping gradually after that. These findings suggest there is light emission linked to our body clocks, most likely due to how our metabolic rhythms fluctuate over the course of the day.

Faces glowed more than the rest of the body. This might be because faces are more tanned than the rest of the body, since they get more exposure to sunlight — the pigment behind skin color, melanin, has fluorescent components that could enhance the body's miniscule light production.


Cool, yes? Although it is supposedly undetectable by the naked eye, I wonder if there is some mechanism that we are subliminally aware of it when dealing with others?

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