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Humans Glow in Visible Light
AOL Science News (July 22) - The human body literally glows, emitting a visible light in extremely small quantities at levels that rise and fall with the day, scientists now reveal.
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.
(This visible light differs from the infrared radiation — an invisible form of light — that comes from body heat.)
To learn more about this faint visible light, scientists in Japan employed extraordinarily sensitive cameras capable of detecting single photons. Five healthy male volunteers in their 20s were placed barechested in front of the cameras in complete darkness in light-tight rooms for 20 minutes every three hours from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. for three days.
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. Since this faint light is linked with the body’s metabolism, this finding suggests cameras that can spot the weak emissions could help spot medical conditions, said researcher Hitoshi Okamura, a circadian biologist at Kyoto University in Japan.
“If you can see the glimmer from the body’s surface, you could see the whole body condition,” said researcher Masaki Kobayashi, a biomedical photonics specialist at the Tohoku Institute of Technology in Sendai, Japan. The scientists detailed their findings online July 16 in the journal PLoS ONE.
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.
(This visible light differs from the infrared radiation — an invisible form of light — that comes from body heat.)
To learn more about this faint visible light, scientists in Japan employed extraordinarily sensitive cameras capable of detecting single photons. Five healthy male volunteers in their 20s were placed barechested in front of the cameras in complete darkness in light-tight rooms for 20 minutes every three hours from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. for three days.
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. Since this faint light is linked with the body’s metabolism, this finding suggests cameras that can spot the weak emissions could help spot medical conditions, said researcher Hitoshi Okamura, a circadian biologist at Kyoto University in Japan.
“If you can see the glimmer from the body’s surface, you could see the whole body condition,” said researcher Masaki Kobayashi, a biomedical photonics specialist at the Tohoku Institute of Technology in Sendai, Japan. The scientists detailed their findings online July 16 in the journal PLoS ONE.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Vanese Va Voom on -
Here here my love!
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Permalink Reply by Hierophage on -
Here's an illustration from Kyoto University that may be of assistance:
This finding seems different to me than either Kirlian's or Kilner's due to the fact that nothing is added to the photographic process (no high voltage, no chemical plates, etc.) since the CCT units used are just highly sensitive (300-600 photons/s-cm2).
Unfortunately, the article is woefully brief. So I can't really address any of your other questions as to the nature of the production of the light they're talking about. My guess is (and they allude to this in the article) is that it may have something to do with melanin fluorescence. Which would be exciting since up to this point that fluorescence was limited to the NIR range and had to be stimulated using lasers.
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Permalink Reply by Hierophage on
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I think the reason why they're similar is due to the ubiquity of the graded color scale used in imaging those things which the naked eye can't normally see. Compare, for instance, the image of the Japanese subject above. The last photo (I), used for comparative purposes, is an IR image which uses similar coloring as the other photos even though these other images are picking up light in a different frequency range.
Melanin fluoresces when lased, i.e., when you stimulate it with laser light of specific frequencies. But what if melanin also fluoresces under normal conditions? What if there is a reaction between melanin and the dermal tissue's free radicals that produces some type of low grade light emissions?
I'm not really sure about aura cameras due primarily to the preponderance of hucksters on the scene willing to fleece the willing. I know a good majority of them have internal lighting which generates colored lights based on galvanic skin response. This lighting then affects the film creating a photomontage effect which is explained away by the practitioner as being a picture of your aura.
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Permalink Reply by Vanese Va Voom on
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Very interesting Honey : )
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