Have Eyes, Will Sea

Guest: Benjamin Palmer, PhD, Postdoc Research Fellow, Department of Structural Biology, Weitzmann Institute of Science Scallops seem like a simple seafood, little medallions of firm white flesh with no bones or skin to deal with, but if you encountered one in the wild, you wouldn’t think it was so simple. For one thing, scallops can have up to 200 eyes. Scientists have long wondered why that is – and how those eyes actually work. A team in Israel and Sweden has now managed to get a close-up look and one fascinating thing they’ve learned is that scallop eyes have microscopic mirrors in them – just like high-end telescopes use mirrors. So does that mean they can see into outer space? Let’s find out.