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■英國科學家指出，俗稱「瀨尿蝦」的螳螂蝦(圖)，牠的眼睛能感知12種顏色，而且結構非常精密，可能有助研製超高清DVD。網上圖片
英國科學家表示，棲身於澳洲大堡礁的一種大蝦由於視力驚人，或有助研究新款的超高清DVD播放機。
螳螂蝦(俗稱「瀨尿蝦」)因有一雙強而有力的鉗子，潛水人士都稱牠為「斷指蝦」，而其眼睛結構是動物世界裡最精密的。
螳螂蝦的眼睛能感知12種原色，是人類的4倍，蝦眼還可偵測到不同種類的偏振光，即是光波振動的方向。
英國布里斯托爾大學研究小組發現，螳螂蝦的眼睛有一種特殊感光細胞，當光線進入眼睛時，細胞會轉動光線振動的平面。
DVD機和CD播放機中也有類似螳螂蝦眼睛的功能，但只能辨認一種顏色，而螳螂蝦的眼睛卻可識別紫外線與紅外線之間的絕大部分可見光譜。
若把這種多色辨認功能「移植」到DVD機上，那麼DVD機便能大幅提升處理資料的能力。
研究員羅伯茨向路透社表示：「在螳螂蝦眼中發現的偏振結構實屬首次，其功能比所有人類製造的裝置都要強大。」
羅伯茨相信，這種由細胞膜捲曲而成、「美妙而簡單」的眼睛系統，可以在實驗室利用液晶來模擬出來。
螳螂蝦眼睛的研究詳情刊於《自然光子學》雜誌上。 ■路透社
註解
Mantis shrimps：螳螂蝦，因其腹部軟葉組織儲水多，一提起來就流水，故又俗稱「瀨尿蝦」。「瀨尿蝦」主要生活在中淺海地區，可說是水中捕獵的高手。研究人員推測，「瀨尿蝦」眼睛的特別結構與其覓食與求偶等行為有關。他們認為，一些動物會通過偏振光線，來感知異性發送的訊號，或同類傳遞的秘密資訊，同時避開其他動物。另一方面，生活在水中的動物可利用偏振光線，提高視野清晰度，有利捕獵。 ■資深翻譯員 羅國偉
Shrimp's Eye Points Way to Better DVDs
The amazing eyes of a giant shrimp living on Australia's Great Barrier Reef could hold the key to developing a new type of super high-quality DVD player, British scientists said.
Mantis shrimps, dubbed "thumb splitters" by divers because of their vicious claws, have the most complex eyes in the animal kingdom.
They can see in 12 primary colours, 4 times as many as humans, and can also detect different kinds of light polarisation－the direction of oscillation in light waves.
Now a team at the University of Bristol has shown how the shrimps do it, using remarkable light-sensitive cells that rotate the plane of polarisation in light as it travels through the eye.
Manmade devices do a similar thing in DVD and CD players but they only work well for one colour, while the shrimp's eye operates almost perfectly across the whole visible spectrum from near ultra-violet to infra-red.
Transferring the same multi-colour ability into a DVD player would result in a machine capable of handling far more information than a conventional one.
"The mechanism we have found in this eye is unknown to human synthetic devices. It works much, much better than any attempts that we've made to construct a device," researcher Nicholas Roberts told Reuters.
He believes the "beautifully simple" eye system, comprising cell membranes rolled into tubes, could be mimicked in the lab using liquid crystals.
Details of the mantis shrimp research were published in the journal Nature Photonics. ■Reuters
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