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Quick & curious · Body

Your body glows – just far too faintly for your eyes.

A special camera captured the light from human skin in total darkness. The cheeks glowed brightest.

Close-up of a human eye with a wide-open pupil in low light
Photo: Rapidreflex · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Original

1,000×too faint for the naked eye

The story behind it

Your body glows – just far too faintly for your eyes.

The light is about 1,000 times weaker than what our eyes can perceive. A Japanese team photographed five young men in total darkness with a cooled special camera. Brightest: cheeks and mouth, strongest around 16:00. It is probably linked to metabolism.

Fits with this

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    Photo: Geoff Gallice from Gainesville, FL, USA · CC BY 2.0

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    Gut-lining cells live for days, the neurons in your cortex for a lifetime

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