Eyes are known as a window to the soul, and poems have been written about falling, swimming and drowning in certain people’s peepers. What is it that’s so captivating about a person’s eyes? We may never answer that question, but there are 18 eye facts to keep you entertained as you ponder the existential mysteries of the human psyche.
1. The world’s most common eye color is brown.
2. Brown eyes are actually blue underneath.
3. Melanin affects the color of your eyes, so brown eyes have more melanin than blue eyes.
4. Heterochromia is a condition in which a person is born with two differently colored eyes.
5. Blue-eyed people share a common ancestor with every other blue-eyed person in the world.
6. People blink more than they talk.
7. It is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
8. The average person blinks 12 times per minute, about 10,000 blinks per day.
9. The eye is the fastest – and most active – muscle in the body.
10. You blink less when you’re reading. (This is why we tell you to give your eyes breaks when you’re doing exactly what you’re doing now – staring at a screen. Do it too long, and your eyes will get dry and tired!)
11. A blink usually lasts 100 to 150 milliseconds, making it possible to blink five times in a second.
12. Infants blink 10 times less than adults.
13. You blink an average of 4,200,000 times a year.
14. Our eyes close automatically to protect us from perceived dangers.
15. The older we are, the less tears we produce.
16. Tears are made of three main components: fat, mucous and water. This prevents them from evaporating.
17. Tears kill bacteria because they contain lysosome, a fluid that can kill 90 to 95 percent of all bacteria.
18. A newborn baby will cry but not produce tears. Tear production does not begin until about the six week mark.
This is not a fact, but we’re betting that with all that talk about blinking and eyes, you blinked a lot more than usual reading this!
