Somebody is watching circularly. Stromatopod crustaceans possess an unusual system of vision, unlike that of any animal, including turnable eight-channel color vision, linear polarization vision, etc. Here I describe a newly discovered capability of perception of circular polarized vision in Odontodactylus cultrifer and scyllarus. This represents a new channel for communicaton of these animals and probably enhances visual contrast in turbulent waters where they live. (Based on Paper Chiou et al.: Current Biology 18, 429-534, 2008.) Human ability to detect linearly and circularly polarized light by Haidinger´s brush phenomenon is discussed as well.
The vast majority of physical objects we deal with are almost exclusively made of atoms. Due to their discrete level structure, single atoms have proved to be excellent emitters of nonclassical light, i.e. single photons. We demonstrate experimentally that this nonclassical behaviour is preserved when scaling up the number of atoms in the source ensemble by several orders of magnitude., Lukáš Slodička, Ondřej Číp a Radim Filip., and Obsahuje bibliografické odkazy