the.com/opsin
a protein that spends its whole life waiting to catch a photon and freak out.
means opsin is a light-sensitive protein in retina cells that changes shape when hit by light, kicking off the signal your brain reads as vision.
from from greek opsis, meaning sight or view, the same root that gives us optic and optometry.
needs a partneruseless without retinal, a vitamin a derivative
shape shiftabsorbing light bends its molecule in picoseconds
ancient designrelated opsins exist in bacteria and algae too
color codedthree human opsin types tune red, green, blue
for instance
rhodopsin — the rod cell opsin that lets you see in near darkness
melanopsin — drives your circadian clock, discovered in eye ganglion cells in 1998
channelrhodopsin — algae opsin hijacked to invent optogenetics in the 2000s
color blindness genes — faulty red or green opsin genes cause most inherited color blindness