Light and Darkness

Richard Wingate, Wellcome Images.

When light from this image hits the light-sensitive cells in your retina, those cells translate that physical information into the electric language of the brain. Shortly after, retinal ganglion cells (like the hamster version pictured above) relay those signals deep into your brain’s visual processing center. Retinal ganglion cells live in the retina for easy information gathering, but their long axons braid together to form the optic nerve, which ferries visual signals to the brain’s core for processing.

About the Author

Charlie Wood

Charlie Wood is a science writer with a bachelor’s degree in physics from Brown University and a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In previous lives he taught physics in Mozambique and English in Japan, but these days he freelances from his home in New York.