the.com/retina
a screen that sees backwards and upside down, then lies brilliantly to your brain
means The light-sensitive layer of tissue lining the back of the eye, where incoming images are converted into nerve signals sent to the brain.
from From Medieval Latin retina, almost certainly built on Latin rete, meaning 'net' — the early anatomists who named it saw a fine, net-like web of tiny blood vessels spread across the eye's inner surface. So the screen at the back of your sight is, etymologically, a net cast for the light.
- wired backward
- light passes through neurons before hitting photoreceptors
- blind spot
- each eye has a hole you never notice
- brain tissue
- it's literally an outpost of your central nervous system
- upside down
- images land inverted; the brain flips them
- 130 million
- photoreceptors per eye crammed into millimeters
fovea centralis — the retina's central pit with highest visual acuity, containing ~200,000 cone cells per square millimeter
retinitis pigmentosa — genetic disorder affecting ~1 in 4,000 people, causes progressive retinal degeneration and vision loss