'Night Vision' Contacts Are Here, Scientists Say
In the 1980s, people wore their sunglasses at night. In the 2020s, people will be able to wear ultra advanced contact lenses that grant the wearer 'super-vision,' according to researchers. In a new report from Live Science, the new super contacts will allow wearers to see infrared wavelengths that are usually invisible to the human eye. Talk about a major upgrade.
In a press release, researcher and senior author of the paper about the contacts, Tian Xue, said that the contacts will have a wide variety of applications.
'Our research opens up the potential for non-invasive wearable devices to give people super-vision,' said Tian Xue, a neuroscientist at the University of Science and Technology of China. 'There are many potential applications right away for this material. For example, flickering infrared light could be used to transmit information in security, rescue, encryption or anti-counterfeiting settings.'
Right now though, the contact lenses are still purely in the realm of scientific study. They have been tested on both mice and humans. The tests so far have proved that without the lenses, there were certain things humans simply could not see.
'It's totally clear cut: without the contact lenses, the subject cannot see anything, but when they put them on, they can clearly see the flickering of the infrared light,' said Xue. 'We also found that when the subject closes their eyes, they're even better able to receive this flickering information, because near-infrared light penetrates the eyelid more effectively than visible light, so there is less interference from visible light.'
If you want to read more about the science involved, you can check out more details here.
'Night Vision' Contacts Are Here, Scientists Say first appeared on Men's Journal on May 23, 2025
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