Why do some people need glasses?
LaylaBird/Getty
Eyes are incredible. But sometimes they need a little help to see clearly. Enter: glasses! In this episode, we'll hear how eyes take in light and paint a picture of the world around us. We'll take a peek inside the eye to see why sometimes vision can be blurry and how glasses help. Then, we'll learn all about eye exams with a visit to the eye doctor! All that, plus a brand new mystery sound!
Featured experts: Dr. Sasha Strul, pediatric ophthalmologist and strabismus surgeon at the University of Minnesota.
Audio Transcript
Download transcript (PDF)
CREW: You're listening to Brains On!, where we're serious about being curious.
CREW: Brains on is supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation.
MOLLY BLOOM: I want to take you back to a time in the early '90s when I was in third grade.
[BELL RINGING]
Third grade Molly loved school.
YOUNG MOLLY: I love school!
MOLLY BLOOM: My teacher was the beloved Miss A, who made school fun. We got to keep pet rocks on our desks. Mine was named Rosie.
YOUNG MOLLY: Good morning, Rosie.
MOLLY BLOOM: We read funny books out loud.
YOUNG MOLLY: Once upon a time, there was a little old woman and a little old man who lived together in an old house. They were lonely. So the little old lady decided to make a man out of stinky cheese.
MOLLY BLOOM: And rotated through classroom jobs. My favorite classroom job was a weather reporter, where you got to announce the weather forecast to the class every morning.
YOUNG MOLLY: Today will be cold with a 25% chance of snow.
MOLLY BLOOM: One day we switched desks. It was good, because I got to sit next to my friend Maggie, but our desks were as far away from the whiteboard as you could be, and still be in the classroom. One day Miss A was writing on the board with an orange marker, but I couldn't see anything.
YOUNG MOLLY: Excuse me, Miss A, but I think your marker is out of ink.
MOLLY BLOOM: But the marker wasn't out of ink. It was working perfectly well. I just couldn't see it. Miss A told my parents that she thought I needed glasses, and she was right. I went to the eye doctor, got my prescription, and picked out some frames, and waited for the glasses to be ready. When I finally got to wear my glasses for the first time, I was amazed.
YOUNG MOLLY: Wow!
MOLLY BLOOM: Everything was so crisp and clear. And I still remember how floored I was by the trees.
YOUNG MOLLY: The trees, they have leaves!
MOLLY BLOOM: I mean, I knew trees had leaves before I got glasses, but they had just looked like fuzzy greenness on top of a trunk. And I thought that was just how trees looked. But then I got glasses.
YOUNG MOLLY: I can see each individual leaf. They're moving a little in the breeze. And there's a bird sitting on that branch, too!
MOLLY BLOOM: Getting glasses changed my life. And I can't wait to show you today how cool glasses are.
YOUNG MOLLY: Because they're really super, duper, extra cool!
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MOLLY BLOOM: You're listening to Brains On! from APM Studios. I'm your host, Molly Bloom, and I'm here with my co-host, Lucita, from Bellingham, Washington. Hi, Lucita.
- Hi, Molly.
MOLLY BLOOM: And Lucita, you wrote in to us with a question.
LUCITA: Yeah. I wrote, "Why do some people need glasses?"
MOLLY BLOOM: So, Lucita, are you part of the some people that need glasses?
LUCITA: Yeah, I am.
MOLLY BLOOM: So how old were you when you got glasses?
LUCITA: I was actually the same age as you, third grade.
MOLLY BLOOM: Oh my gosh! So how did you know that you needed glasses?
LUCITA: Well, I started getting really painful headaches after school, and the words started looking really like teensy weensy, but fuzzy when I looked at them really close. So I told my mom. And yeah.
MOLLY BLOOM: And so are things close up blurry or are things far away blurry to you when you're not wearing your glasses?
LUCITA: Close up.
MOLLY BLOOM: OK. And so when you put your glasses on, how do they help?
LUCITA: It makes it so I don't have really painful headaches when I'm reading, and after I stop reading. And if I look really, really close at the paper, like if I looked at the script really close without my glasses, it would start to look kind of blurry. But with my glasses, it wouldn't.
MOLLY BLOOM: Nice. And do you wear them all the time or just when you need to read something?
LUCITA: I use them when I need to read something, but, like, I might get a stronger prescription.
MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah. That's the thing about getting glasses is that I remember when I was growing up, I had to go to the eye doctor every year and get my eyes checked. And pretty much every year, my eyes got a little bit worse. So I needed to change the prescription of my glasses. So what grade are you in now?
LUCITA: I'm going into fourth grade.
MOLLY BLOOM: OK. So you've had glasses for about a year now.
LUCITA: Yeah.
MOLLY BLOOM: And what do your glasses look like?
LUCITA: Well, my glasses are jade green around the lenses, and then going back, like, the part that connects-- goes on my ear is tortoiseshell cat.
MOLLY BLOOM: Ooh, do you love them?
LUCITA: I do. Specifically because my cat is tortoiseshell, so it reminds me of my kitty.
MOLLY BLOOM: Ah, that's so cool. So before we can find out how glasses work and why some people need them, we need to talk about eyes.
LUCITA: Those beautiful orbs right in the middle of our heads.
MOLLY BLOOM: And here's a hot drying tip. When you're drawing an oval for a face, the most realistic spot for the eyes is right in the middle, between the top and the bottom of the oval.
LUCITA: Yeah, our foreheads are much bigger than we think.
MOLLY BLOOM: Too true. But back to our eyeballs-- here are the basics of how we see.
LUCITA: Light enters the eye, and it hits the back of the eyeball.
MOLLY BLOOM: Then a nerve takes a message from there to the brain.
LUCITA: And the brain reads that message.
MOLLY BLOOM: It's pretty incredible. Light is bouncing off all the objects around me, and all that light travels into my eyeballs. Then my brain takes that information, and shows me the world.
LUCITA: It's wild stuff.
MOLLY BLOOM: OK. So let's break down how all the parts of the eye work together. Lucita, can you describe what an eye looks like from the outside?
LUCITA: Well, you have this white part, and then you have the color of your eyes. The iris, I'm pretty sure, is what it's called. And then you have your pupil, the black dot in the middle of your eye.
MOLLY BLOOM: Nice. Yeah. So there's that white part, like you said, then the colored ring, and the black dot. And one of the most fun things about making Brains On! is that when we're researching and finding answers to listener questions, sometimes I learn facts that help me see the world in a whole new way, like this one. That black part of your eye, Lucita, it isn't black at all. It's actually a hole.
LUCITA: What the what?
MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah. Right? That's what I said, too. It looks black because it's dark inside your eye. So we see it as black. But that black part is the hole where light enters your eyeball. So cool.
LUCITA: That hole is called the pupil, and the colored part is called the iris, like I said earlier.
MOLLY BLOOM: Yes. And it's the iris's job to make that hole in the middle, the pupil, bigger or smaller.
LUCITA: That lets more or less light into your eye.
MOLLY BLOOM: Right. So when I'm in a dark room, my pupil gets bigger to get as much light to the back of my eye as possible. And when it's really bright out, my pupil gets smaller. When I was younger, I would stand in front of a mirror and turn the light off and watch my pupil get bigger. And then I would turn the light back on and watch it shrink down again.
LUCITA: You know how to have fun.
MOLLY BLOOM: I sure do!
LUCITA: OK. Back to eyeballs, over the top of the colored iris and the black pupil is a clear dome. It protects the eye and focuses the light coming in on the back of the eyeball.
MOLLY BLOOM: That dome is called the cornea. And getting that light focused is so important that there's another clear layer behind the iris called the lens.
LUCITA: The lens also helps focus the light in the right spot on the back of the eye.
MOLLY BLOOM: So to recap, there's the iris.
LUCITA: The colored part.
MOLLY BLOOM: The pupil.
LUCITA: That's the hole that light gets in.
MOLLY BLOOM: The cornea.
LUCITA: The clear dome on the top of the eye.
MOLLY BLOOM: And the lens.
LUCITA: That's behind the pupil.
MOLLY BLOOM: And then at the very back of the eyeball is a tissue paper thin layer called the retina.
LUCITA: The retina takes all the light around you and turns it into a message that your brain can read.
MOLLY BLOOM: So if you don't need glasses, your eye works something like this. The cornea focuses the light through the pupil, through the lens, and it hits the retina at the back of your eye.
LUCITA: Sometimes the light doesn't get focused in the right spot.
MOLLY BLOOM: This can happen for a bunch of reasons. It could be the shape of your cornea, your lens, or even the whole eyeball itself.
LUCITA: The way these parts are shaped changes where the light is focused inside your eye.
MOLLY BLOOM: Different people need glasses for different reasons. Here's one example. Light enters your eye. The cornea focuses the light through the pupil, through the lens, and it hits in front of your retina instead of on it.
LUCITA: When that happens, things far away look blurry, but close up, things are clearer.
MOLLY BLOOM: That's called being nearsighted, because your near sight is strong. I'm nearsighted, so it's easy for me to read a book without glasses, but I need my glasses to see the whiteboard.
LUCITA: There are other reasons why someone might need glasses.
MOLLY BLOOM: Like the shape of your eye might cause the light to be focused behind your retina instead of on it.
LUCITA: When that happens, things close up look blurry.
MOLLY BLOOM: That's called being farsighted, because your far sight is strong.
LUCITA: So if you can see things far away well, but close up is blurry, that's farsighted.
MOLLY BLOOM: Right. So the name for the way you see is named after your strength.
LUCITA: I appreciate that. Focus on the positive.
MOLLY BLOOM: Me too! So to recap, when things look blurry, that's because the light isn't being focused on the right spot on the back of the eye. So if that's the problem, how does blurry vision get fixed?
LUCITA: Focusing the light in the right spot.
MOLLY BLOOM: Exactly. And that's what glasses do. Since the lens in my eye and my cornea can't get the light focused on the right spot on their own, my glasses are here to help.
LUCITA: The curve of my glasses focuses the light right where it needs to be so I can see clearly when I wear them.
MOLLY BLOOM: Contacts work the same way. They add some extra curve so that light gets focused where it needs to go, the retina.
LUCITA: That's a very cool. But why do I need glasses and some of my friends don't?
MOLLY BLOOM: Great question. We're going to answer it in just a bit. But first, it's time for us to focus on the--
[STRANGE NOISE]
LUCITA: Mystery sound.
MOLLY BLOOM: Are you ready for the mystery sound?
LUCITA: Honestly, not.
[LAUGHTER]
But I will do it.
MOLLY BLOOM: Do you find the mystery sound tricky?
LUCITA: I-- yeah, it's a lot of pressure.
[LAUGHTER]
MOLLY BLOOM: You know what I would say? Most listeners don't get them right. I hardly ever get them right, so I would not worry about it one little bit. But here it is.
[MYSTERY SOUND]
LUCITA: Like, I would say, like, a bee or something, or someone winding something up, and then letting it go.
MOLLY BLOOM: Ooh, that's really good ears. Do you want to hear it again? I have no idea what this is either.
LUCITA: Yeah.
MOLLY BLOOM: So like--
LUCITA: It's weird. It sounds like a bee robot thing, but I know that's not what it is.
MOLLY BLOOM: I mean, who knows? These mystery sounds are always so tricky.
LUCITA: I mean, one time there was frozen hot dogs being banged together.
[LAUGHTER]
MOLLY BLOOM: Exactly! You never know what it's going to be. Let's hear it again.
[MYSTERY SOUND]
OK. What do you hear now?
LUCITA: Someone pulling a trigger on one of those mini helicopter things that aren't really helicopters, like those blades.
MOLLY BLOOM: Totally.
LUCITA: Like someone pulling the trigger, like rolling it back, and then letting it go.
MOLLY BLOOM: Mhm.
LUCITA: You know what I'm talking about?
MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah, I totally do. Yeah, it does sound like a toy of some sort with something being wound up.
LUCITA: Yeah, and then letting go. Or a robot bee.
MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah, it could be a robot. We just don't know. We're going to-- we're going to hear it again. We get another chance to guess, and hear the answer at the end of the show. So stick around.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
We're working on an episode all about animal leadership, and we want to hear from you. What animal do you think would make an excellent leader? What qualities do you think are important for a leader to have? What could our human leaders learn from this animal? Would you nominate a cheetah because they can move super fast or a blue whale because it has a loud voice everyone will want to listen to? So Lucita, what animal do you think would make a great leader?
LUCITA: My cat, because she's just awesome.
MOLLY BLOOM: Oh, I love that. So is she the leader of your family?
LUCITA: She is very protective of me and follows me around everywhere. And she's loving. Honestly, she doesn't respect any of us, because no cats really do. But she loves us. And I think having self-esteem and loving the people you're taking care of is some qualities a leader needs to have.
MOLLY BLOOM: Nice. Excellent answer. Well, listeners, we want to hear from you. Record your answer, and send it to us at brainson.org/contact. While you're there, send us your mystery sounds, drawings, and questions.
LUCITA: Like this one.
AUDIENCE: Why do we have tongues?
MOLLY BLOOM: You can find the answer to this question on the Moment of Um podcast, a short dose of facts and fun every weekday. Find a Moment of Um and more at brainson.org.
LUCITA: So keep listening.
ANNOUNCER: Brains On! Universe is a family of podcasts for kids and their adults. Since you're a fan of Brains On!, we know you'll love the other shows in our universe. Come on, let's explore!
ROBOT: Entering Brains On! universe to find my favorite podcasts. Brains On!, Smash Boom Best, Forever Ago. Picking up signal! Forever ago, the history show hosted by Joy Dolo.
JOY DOLO: Welcome to--
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Joy's Hall of Stalls. Every door in this hall leads to a different model of toilet from throughout history. You want to potty like it's 1999?
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Right this way.
ROBOT: Zorp! Where did the signal go? Must find Forever Ago now!
ANNOUNCER: Listen to Forever Ago wherever you get your podcasts.
ROBOT: Brains On! On! On!
LUCITA: You're listening to Brains On! I'm Lucita.
MOLLY BLOOM: And I'm Molly.
LUCITA: So far, we've learned that eyes take in light.
MOLLY BLOOM: And it gets focused on the back of the eyeball on the retina by the cornea and the lens.
LUCITA: If that light isn't focused on the right spot, your vision will be blurry.
MOLLY BLOOM: Glasses and contacts help by focusing the light in the right spot on the retina. But everyone who needs glasses has unique eyes, which means we need different kinds of help from our glasses.
LUCITA: Like, I need help seeing things clearly close up.
MOLLY BLOOM: And I need help to see things clearly far away. So, Lucita, have you been to the eye doctor before?
LUCITA: Yes, I have been twice.
MOLLY BLOOM: And what do you remember about your eye exam?
LUCITA: Well, the first time I looked at a weird house through a lensy mob-- a lensy ma-bob-- thingy-ma-bobber. I don't know what they're called. And--
MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah, that's OK.
LUCITA: I didn't need glasses the first time, but then the second time, I looked at a bunch of letters on a board, and the smaller they got, they looked blurry. Like, I thought the O was a random blob, and the Q, too, and some of the Ks.
MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah. So a lot of times you go to the eye doctor, you have to look at those letters and try to read them, and sometimes they are blurry if you need glasses. You know, I know we've had a lot of listener questions about going to the eye doctor. Like, why do you have to get special drops? What are those letters? What-- how does it work? So to help get answers to all these questions, I hung out with Dr. Sasha Strul from the University of Minnesota while she was with a patient.
SASHA STRUL: It's Dr. Strul. Do you remember me?
ALLIE: No.
CREW: It's been a while.
SASHA STRUL: That's OK. It's been a long time. You've grown up so much. I'm your eye doctor. I'm going to be taking a look at your beautiful eyes. I see you already met my friend Molly.
MOLLY BLOOM: Here's Dr. Strul while she was with her patient, seven-year-old Allie from Minnesota.
SASHA STRUL: Why don't I take a look, and we can talk about your eyes, and answer any questions you have? Would that be OK? Do you remember how we do that? It's super easy. I'm going to take a look with a flashlight. I wear it on my head, and I look with a magnifying glass. And that's the last thing we got to do. Does that sound OK?
ALLIE: Where's the magnifying glass?
SASHA STRUL: I'm going to show it to you. That's a great question. So I have a couple. I'm going to use this one here today, and take a look at your eyes. So if you look at me through it, I might look upside down. Isn't that silly? Isn't that so weird? Yeah. So it helps me make everything that's inside the eyes look a little bit bigger.
MOLLY BLOOM: So, Lucita, when you went to the eye doctor, did you have to get your eyes dilated?
LUCITA: Yeah, I did. It was ouchie. It stung a lot.
MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah. So those are special eye drops that open your pupil really big, even when the lights are on. It's probably the biggest you'll ever see your pupil. And you said, yeah, it feels kind of stingy and ouchie. Just for a second though, right? And do you remember what it felt like after the stinging ouchie wore off?
LUCITA: It felt like my eyes were super wide open. I couldn't close them.
MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah, it's like you can see all the-- it's like all the light is going in your eyes. And it's almost like things feel a little bit blurry, and so your eyes are a little bit sensitive to the light.
LUCITA: Yeah.
MOLLY BLOOM: So they often give you sunglasses to wear, which is kind of cool.
LUCITA: They didn't give me sunglasses at all.
MOLLY BLOOM: Oh, oh man.
LUCITA: So it was just blurry.
MOLLY BLOOM: Well, that's the pro tip for people who need glasses. Bring your own sunglasses, just in case. So did you have to go back to school after you got your eyes dilated?
LUCITA: No. My eye doctor's appointment was after school, so--
MOLLY BLOOM: Perfect. Sometimes I've had my eyes dilated and I have to go back to school or work afterwards. And I have to wear sunglasses because, otherwise, that light kind of hurts your eyes, because it's kind of sensitive, and things look a little blurry. But it does wear off by the next day totally. And sometimes it can wear off in just a few hours.
LUCITA: So why do you have to get your eyes dilated anyway?
MOLLY BLOOM: Eye doctors like Dr. Strul do this so they can see what's going on inside your eye.
SASHA STRUL: The back wall of the eye is called the retina. But what it is, it's basically a screen that's almost as thin, almost thinner, really, than tissue paper. So if you imagine, it is wallpaper lining the back of the eye. And what it is is an electrical board. So it takes the light that hits the back of the eye, and turns it into an electric signal. And then it's carried along into the nerve of the eye, and then to the back of the brain. And that's how the brain sees. It has to have all that info. So everything along the way has to work.
So when I'm looking for is, does that film part of the eye, the retina, look healthy? Do the blood vessels that are supplying the nutrients and oxygen to the retina look healthy? Does the nerve that I can see the start of, the cable connecting the eye to the brain look healthy? And is there anything that's causing this kid to have a harder time seeing, or things that we can address to help them improve seeing?
LUCITA: Besides making sure all the parts of your eye are healthy, your eye doctor will also check if you need glasses.
MOLLY BLOOM: So do you remember what that eye exam was like? You talked a bit about it before, looking at the letters, and looking at the house. Did they also do the thing where they showed you different lenses and asked if one looked clearer than the other?
LUCITA: Yeah, they did about two lenses. They gave me one, and I was like, this one looks a little blurry. And they're like, OK. And then they showed me a different one, and I was like, more blurry.
MOLLY BLOOM: OK. Yeah, they often ask you to compare them. So they'll look at each eye separately first. And so when I was at the clinic, I met Kim Merrill. She's an orthoptist, which means she does things like eye exams. And during the exam, Kim asked seven-year-old patient Allie to cover up one of her eyes.
KIM MERRILL: You look like a cute pirate. What does the pirate say?
ALLIE: Arrr!
KIM MERRILL: That's it. And then look way down here. Can you do those for me? What do you see on there?
ALLIE: A, Z, N, L, O.
KIM MERRILL: Nice job. How about those?
ALLIE: Too tiny!
KIM MERRILL: Try them. There's no right or wrong, remember? You can do your best. What do you think they are?
ALLIE: P, X, P, A, U.
KIM MERRILL: Very good.
MOLLY BLOOM: Then Kim had Allie look through different lenses to see if they helped things look more clear for her.
KIM MERRILL: OK. Look way down at my TV down there again. Do you see those letters?
ALLIE: A, B, S, H.
KIM MERRILL: Look at the first letter again. What's that first one?
ALLIE: E-- I mean, F.
KIM MERRILL: F, yeah. Look at them again. Does this make it better or does that make it look smaller?
ALLIE: That makes it look smaller.
KIM MERRILL: All right. What about with this one? Is that any better or does that look smaller?
ALLIE: Bigger.
KIM MERRILL: Better?
ALLIE: A, B, S, H.
KIM MERRILL: Yeah, good work.
LUCITA: So the eye doctor has you tell them when the letters look blurry, and when they look clear.
MOLLY BLOOM: Right. That's a test they use to figure out if you need glasses.
LUCITA: OK. But why do I need glasses and my friends don't?
MOLLY BLOOM: I asked Dr. Strul about that, and here's what she said.
SASHA STRUL: Why some of us do and some of us don't is mostly genetics. So I always joke that my son's going to be getting glasses at some point, because both my husband and I wear it.
MOLLY BLOOM: When she says genetics, she's talking about genes. These control a lot of your features, like eye color and hair color. If you got your genes from someone who needed glasses, then it's more likely you'll need them, too.
SASHA STRUL: But we're also learning a lot about the environment. So with online schooling that became so common during the initial start of the COVID pandemic, we actually have seen studies come out that showed that nearsightedness, where you can't see far without your glasses, increased. And we think part of it is because we were all on screens and doing a lot more of what we call near work, or reading up close, rather than looking far away on a board like you would when you're in school.
LUCITA: So staring at screens all day can actually make your vision worse?
MOLLY BLOOM: Yes, it affects nearsightedness, so when things close up are clear, but things far away are blurry. Looking at screens doesn't seem to affect farsightedness, though, but there are things you can do to help keep your vision focused.
SASHA STRUL: The first is get outdoors, even if you are reading or on a screen. They've shown in societies where they spend like two hours a day or more outside, they have a lot less need for glasses, especially nearsightedness.
The other thing that you can do is hold things a little bit farther away. So just not having the screen or the book right up against your nose. Holding it about arm's length. So that can help as well, or even just taking breaks.
MOLLY BLOOM: But doctors are still learning a lot about how our environments and genetics affect our eyesight.
LUCITA: OK. So why do so many grownups have glasses?
MOLLY BLOOM: When adults get to be in their 40's and older, their eyes become more stiff, and it makes it harder for them to switch between looking far away and close up. So they start to need glasses to see things close to them, even if they never needed them before.
LUCITA: So kids are more flexible?
MOLLY BLOOM: Just another kid superpower. I asked Dr. Strul about this.
SASHA STRUL: So if kids get a scratch on the surface of their eye, they usually can heal it within a day to three days. Adults, it can take up to 3 to 5 days, and so sometimes even longer. So kids have superhuman ability to heal up really fast. They also just have very resilient eyes. And unlike adults, where if we lose vision, we can't really gain it back, if there was something that caused us not to see, well, for whatever reason, kids brains are still growing. So if we catch something, and we can fix it in childhood, they can actually regain brain, which is how we regain vision, which is amazing.
MOLLY BLOOM: Kids are so cool!
LUCITA: Yeah, we are!
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MOLLY BLOOM: Eyes take in light, and turn that light into a message that gets sent to the brain.
LUCITA: If that light doesn't get focused on the right spot, things will look blurry to you.
MOLLY BLOOM: But glasses or contacts can help focus the light coming into your eye so it hits the retina at the back of your eye.
LUCITA: Eye doctors can help you figure out if you need glasses, whether you're a baby or an adult.
MOLLY BLOOM: That's it for this episode of Brains On!
LUCITA: This episode was written and produced by--
MOLLY BLOOM: Molly Bloom.
LUCITA: It was also produced by--
ROSE DUPONT: Rose Dupont.
LUCITA: Our editors are--
SANDEN TOTTEN: Sanden Totten.
LUCITA: And--
SHAHLA FARZAN: Shahla Farzan.
LUCITA: Fact checking by--
JESS MILLER: Jess Miller.
MOLLY BLOOM: We had engineering help from Alex Simpson and Bill Simpkins with sound design by--
RACHEL BREES: Rachel Brees.
MOLLY BLOOM: Original theme music by--
MARC SANCHEZ: Marc Sanchez.
LUCITA: We had production help from the rest of the Brains On! Universe team.
ANNA GOLDFIELD: Anna Goldfield.
NICO WISLER: Nico Gonzalez Wisler
RUBY GUTHRIE: Ruby Guthrie.
LAUREN HUMPERT: Lauren Humpert.
JOSHUA RAY: Joshua Ray.
MARC SANCHEZ: Marc Sanchez.
CHARLOTTE TRAVER: Charlotte Traver.
ANNA WEGGEL: Anna Weggel.
LUCITA: And--
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: Aron Woldeslassie.
MOLLY BLOOM: Beth Pearlman is our executive producer, and the executives in charge of APM Studios are Chandra Kavati and Joanne Griffith. Special thanks to Jesse Lou Galbreath.
LUCITA: Brains On! is a nonprofit, public radio program.
MOLLY BLOOM: There are lots of ways to support the show. Subscribe to Brains On! Universe on YouTube, where you can watch animated versions of some of your favorite episodes, or head to brainson.org.
LUCITA: While you're there, you can send us mystery sounds, drawings, and questions.
MOLLY BLOOM: OK, Lucita. Are you ready to hear the mystery sound again?
LUCITA: Uh, honestly, no. But I will.
MOLLY BLOOM: OK, great. Thank you so much. Here it is.
[MYSTERY SOUND]
LUCITA: I'm going to stick with my guesses.
MOLLY BLOOM: OK.
LUCITA: A bee, a wind-up toy, or one of those, like, helicopter toys where you twist it back, and then like this. And then it goes.
MOLLY BLOOM: I love that.
LUCITA: And-- or a robot bee.
MOLLY BLOOM: OK. I love that idea. I think both are great. I'm pulling for the robot bee, though. OK, let's see what the answer is.
BO: Hi. My name's Bo.
TAY: Hi. My name's Tay. And we're from Papamoa, New Zealand.
BO: And that was the sound of a toy motorbike running on the ground.
MOLLY BLOOM: Hey!
LUCITA: I knew it. I knew it was something like winding up, and then going.
MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah. You were totally right on. Yeah, it was a toy winding up.
LUCITA: Yes!
MOLLY BLOOM: Very good. Now, I hope you won't be scared of mystery sounds anymore.
[TOY MOTORBIKE RUNNING]
Now it's time for the Brains honor roll. These are the incredible kids who keep the show going with their questions, ideas, mystery sounds, drawings, and high fives.
[LISTING HONOR ROLL]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
We'll be back next week with an episode about why some of us have food allergies.
LUCITA: Thanks for listening!
CREW: Brains on is supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation.
MOLLY BLOOM: I want to take you back to a time in the early '90s when I was in third grade.
[BELL RINGING]
Third grade Molly loved school.
YOUNG MOLLY: I love school!
MOLLY BLOOM: My teacher was the beloved Miss A, who made school fun. We got to keep pet rocks on our desks. Mine was named Rosie.
YOUNG MOLLY: Good morning, Rosie.
MOLLY BLOOM: We read funny books out loud.
YOUNG MOLLY: Once upon a time, there was a little old woman and a little old man who lived together in an old house. They were lonely. So the little old lady decided to make a man out of stinky cheese.
MOLLY BLOOM: And rotated through classroom jobs. My favorite classroom job was a weather reporter, where you got to announce the weather forecast to the class every morning.
YOUNG MOLLY: Today will be cold with a 25% chance of snow.
MOLLY BLOOM: One day we switched desks. It was good, because I got to sit next to my friend Maggie, but our desks were as far away from the whiteboard as you could be, and still be in the classroom. One day Miss A was writing on the board with an orange marker, but I couldn't see anything.
YOUNG MOLLY: Excuse me, Miss A, but I think your marker is out of ink.
MOLLY BLOOM: But the marker wasn't out of ink. It was working perfectly well. I just couldn't see it. Miss A told my parents that she thought I needed glasses, and she was right. I went to the eye doctor, got my prescription, and picked out some frames, and waited for the glasses to be ready. When I finally got to wear my glasses for the first time, I was amazed.
YOUNG MOLLY: Wow!
MOLLY BLOOM: Everything was so crisp and clear. And I still remember how floored I was by the trees.
YOUNG MOLLY: The trees, they have leaves!
MOLLY BLOOM: I mean, I knew trees had leaves before I got glasses, but they had just looked like fuzzy greenness on top of a trunk. And I thought that was just how trees looked. But then I got glasses.
YOUNG MOLLY: I can see each individual leaf. They're moving a little in the breeze. And there's a bird sitting on that branch, too!
MOLLY BLOOM: Getting glasses changed my life. And I can't wait to show you today how cool glasses are.
YOUNG MOLLY: Because they're really super, duper, extra cool!
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MOLLY BLOOM: You're listening to Brains On! from APM Studios. I'm your host, Molly Bloom, and I'm here with my co-host, Lucita, from Bellingham, Washington. Hi, Lucita.
- Hi, Molly.
MOLLY BLOOM: And Lucita, you wrote in to us with a question.
LUCITA: Yeah. I wrote, "Why do some people need glasses?"
MOLLY BLOOM: So, Lucita, are you part of the some people that need glasses?
LUCITA: Yeah, I am.
MOLLY BLOOM: So how old were you when you got glasses?
LUCITA: I was actually the same age as you, third grade.
MOLLY BLOOM: Oh my gosh! So how did you know that you needed glasses?
LUCITA: Well, I started getting really painful headaches after school, and the words started looking really like teensy weensy, but fuzzy when I looked at them really close. So I told my mom. And yeah.
MOLLY BLOOM: And so are things close up blurry or are things far away blurry to you when you're not wearing your glasses?
LUCITA: Close up.
MOLLY BLOOM: OK. And so when you put your glasses on, how do they help?
LUCITA: It makes it so I don't have really painful headaches when I'm reading, and after I stop reading. And if I look really, really close at the paper, like if I looked at the script really close without my glasses, it would start to look kind of blurry. But with my glasses, it wouldn't.
MOLLY BLOOM: Nice. And do you wear them all the time or just when you need to read something?
LUCITA: I use them when I need to read something, but, like, I might get a stronger prescription.
MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah. That's the thing about getting glasses is that I remember when I was growing up, I had to go to the eye doctor every year and get my eyes checked. And pretty much every year, my eyes got a little bit worse. So I needed to change the prescription of my glasses. So what grade are you in now?
LUCITA: I'm going into fourth grade.
MOLLY BLOOM: OK. So you've had glasses for about a year now.
LUCITA: Yeah.
MOLLY BLOOM: And what do your glasses look like?
LUCITA: Well, my glasses are jade green around the lenses, and then going back, like, the part that connects-- goes on my ear is tortoiseshell cat.
MOLLY BLOOM: Ooh, do you love them?
LUCITA: I do. Specifically because my cat is tortoiseshell, so it reminds me of my kitty.
MOLLY BLOOM: Ah, that's so cool. So before we can find out how glasses work and why some people need them, we need to talk about eyes.
LUCITA: Those beautiful orbs right in the middle of our heads.
MOLLY BLOOM: And here's a hot drying tip. When you're drawing an oval for a face, the most realistic spot for the eyes is right in the middle, between the top and the bottom of the oval.
LUCITA: Yeah, our foreheads are much bigger than we think.
MOLLY BLOOM: Too true. But back to our eyeballs-- here are the basics of how we see.
LUCITA: Light enters the eye, and it hits the back of the eyeball.
MOLLY BLOOM: Then a nerve takes a message from there to the brain.
LUCITA: And the brain reads that message.
MOLLY BLOOM: It's pretty incredible. Light is bouncing off all the objects around me, and all that light travels into my eyeballs. Then my brain takes that information, and shows me the world.
LUCITA: It's wild stuff.
MOLLY BLOOM: OK. So let's break down how all the parts of the eye work together. Lucita, can you describe what an eye looks like from the outside?
LUCITA: Well, you have this white part, and then you have the color of your eyes. The iris, I'm pretty sure, is what it's called. And then you have your pupil, the black dot in the middle of your eye.
MOLLY BLOOM: Nice. Yeah. So there's that white part, like you said, then the colored ring, and the black dot. And one of the most fun things about making Brains On! is that when we're researching and finding answers to listener questions, sometimes I learn facts that help me see the world in a whole new way, like this one. That black part of your eye, Lucita, it isn't black at all. It's actually a hole.
LUCITA: What the what?
MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah. Right? That's what I said, too. It looks black because it's dark inside your eye. So we see it as black. But that black part is the hole where light enters your eyeball. So cool.
LUCITA: That hole is called the pupil, and the colored part is called the iris, like I said earlier.
MOLLY BLOOM: Yes. And it's the iris's job to make that hole in the middle, the pupil, bigger or smaller.
LUCITA: That lets more or less light into your eye.
MOLLY BLOOM: Right. So when I'm in a dark room, my pupil gets bigger to get as much light to the back of my eye as possible. And when it's really bright out, my pupil gets smaller. When I was younger, I would stand in front of a mirror and turn the light off and watch my pupil get bigger. And then I would turn the light back on and watch it shrink down again.
LUCITA: You know how to have fun.
MOLLY BLOOM: I sure do!
LUCITA: OK. Back to eyeballs, over the top of the colored iris and the black pupil is a clear dome. It protects the eye and focuses the light coming in on the back of the eyeball.
MOLLY BLOOM: That dome is called the cornea. And getting that light focused is so important that there's another clear layer behind the iris called the lens.
LUCITA: The lens also helps focus the light in the right spot on the back of the eye.
MOLLY BLOOM: So to recap, there's the iris.
LUCITA: The colored part.
MOLLY BLOOM: The pupil.
LUCITA: That's the hole that light gets in.
MOLLY BLOOM: The cornea.
LUCITA: The clear dome on the top of the eye.
MOLLY BLOOM: And the lens.
LUCITA: That's behind the pupil.
MOLLY BLOOM: And then at the very back of the eyeball is a tissue paper thin layer called the retina.
LUCITA: The retina takes all the light around you and turns it into a message that your brain can read.
MOLLY BLOOM: So if you don't need glasses, your eye works something like this. The cornea focuses the light through the pupil, through the lens, and it hits the retina at the back of your eye.
LUCITA: Sometimes the light doesn't get focused in the right spot.
MOLLY BLOOM: This can happen for a bunch of reasons. It could be the shape of your cornea, your lens, or even the whole eyeball itself.
LUCITA: The way these parts are shaped changes where the light is focused inside your eye.
MOLLY BLOOM: Different people need glasses for different reasons. Here's one example. Light enters your eye. The cornea focuses the light through the pupil, through the lens, and it hits in front of your retina instead of on it.
LUCITA: When that happens, things far away look blurry, but close up, things are clearer.
MOLLY BLOOM: That's called being nearsighted, because your near sight is strong. I'm nearsighted, so it's easy for me to read a book without glasses, but I need my glasses to see the whiteboard.
LUCITA: There are other reasons why someone might need glasses.
MOLLY BLOOM: Like the shape of your eye might cause the light to be focused behind your retina instead of on it.
LUCITA: When that happens, things close up look blurry.
MOLLY BLOOM: That's called being farsighted, because your far sight is strong.
LUCITA: So if you can see things far away well, but close up is blurry, that's farsighted.
MOLLY BLOOM: Right. So the name for the way you see is named after your strength.
LUCITA: I appreciate that. Focus on the positive.
MOLLY BLOOM: Me too! So to recap, when things look blurry, that's because the light isn't being focused on the right spot on the back of the eye. So if that's the problem, how does blurry vision get fixed?
LUCITA: Focusing the light in the right spot.
MOLLY BLOOM: Exactly. And that's what glasses do. Since the lens in my eye and my cornea can't get the light focused on the right spot on their own, my glasses are here to help.
LUCITA: The curve of my glasses focuses the light right where it needs to be so I can see clearly when I wear them.
MOLLY BLOOM: Contacts work the same way. They add some extra curve so that light gets focused where it needs to go, the retina.
LUCITA: That's a very cool. But why do I need glasses and some of my friends don't?
MOLLY BLOOM: Great question. We're going to answer it in just a bit. But first, it's time for us to focus on the--
[STRANGE NOISE]
LUCITA: Mystery sound.
MOLLY BLOOM: Are you ready for the mystery sound?
LUCITA: Honestly, not.
[LAUGHTER]
But I will do it.
MOLLY BLOOM: Do you find the mystery sound tricky?
LUCITA: I-- yeah, it's a lot of pressure.
[LAUGHTER]
MOLLY BLOOM: You know what I would say? Most listeners don't get them right. I hardly ever get them right, so I would not worry about it one little bit. But here it is.
[MYSTERY SOUND]
LUCITA: Like, I would say, like, a bee or something, or someone winding something up, and then letting it go.
MOLLY BLOOM: Ooh, that's really good ears. Do you want to hear it again? I have no idea what this is either.
LUCITA: Yeah.
MOLLY BLOOM: So like--
LUCITA: It's weird. It sounds like a bee robot thing, but I know that's not what it is.
MOLLY BLOOM: I mean, who knows? These mystery sounds are always so tricky.
LUCITA: I mean, one time there was frozen hot dogs being banged together.
[LAUGHTER]
MOLLY BLOOM: Exactly! You never know what it's going to be. Let's hear it again.
[MYSTERY SOUND]
OK. What do you hear now?
LUCITA: Someone pulling a trigger on one of those mini helicopter things that aren't really helicopters, like those blades.
MOLLY BLOOM: Totally.
LUCITA: Like someone pulling the trigger, like rolling it back, and then letting it go.
MOLLY BLOOM: Mhm.
LUCITA: You know what I'm talking about?
MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah, I totally do. Yeah, it does sound like a toy of some sort with something being wound up.
LUCITA: Yeah, and then letting go. Or a robot bee.
MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah, it could be a robot. We just don't know. We're going to-- we're going to hear it again. We get another chance to guess, and hear the answer at the end of the show. So stick around.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
We're working on an episode all about animal leadership, and we want to hear from you. What animal do you think would make an excellent leader? What qualities do you think are important for a leader to have? What could our human leaders learn from this animal? Would you nominate a cheetah because they can move super fast or a blue whale because it has a loud voice everyone will want to listen to? So Lucita, what animal do you think would make a great leader?
LUCITA: My cat, because she's just awesome.
MOLLY BLOOM: Oh, I love that. So is she the leader of your family?
LUCITA: She is very protective of me and follows me around everywhere. And she's loving. Honestly, she doesn't respect any of us, because no cats really do. But she loves us. And I think having self-esteem and loving the people you're taking care of is some qualities a leader needs to have.
MOLLY BLOOM: Nice. Excellent answer. Well, listeners, we want to hear from you. Record your answer, and send it to us at brainson.org/contact. While you're there, send us your mystery sounds, drawings, and questions.
LUCITA: Like this one.
AUDIENCE: Why do we have tongues?
MOLLY BLOOM: You can find the answer to this question on the Moment of Um podcast, a short dose of facts and fun every weekday. Find a Moment of Um and more at brainson.org.
LUCITA: So keep listening.
ANNOUNCER: Brains On! Universe is a family of podcasts for kids and their adults. Since you're a fan of Brains On!, we know you'll love the other shows in our universe. Come on, let's explore!
ROBOT: Entering Brains On! universe to find my favorite podcasts. Brains On!, Smash Boom Best, Forever Ago. Picking up signal! Forever ago, the history show hosted by Joy Dolo.
JOY DOLO: Welcome to--
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Joy's Hall of Stalls. Every door in this hall leads to a different model of toilet from throughout history. You want to potty like it's 1999?
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Right this way.
ROBOT: Zorp! Where did the signal go? Must find Forever Ago now!
ANNOUNCER: Listen to Forever Ago wherever you get your podcasts.
ROBOT: Brains On! On! On!
LUCITA: You're listening to Brains On! I'm Lucita.
MOLLY BLOOM: And I'm Molly.
LUCITA: So far, we've learned that eyes take in light.
MOLLY BLOOM: And it gets focused on the back of the eyeball on the retina by the cornea and the lens.
LUCITA: If that light isn't focused on the right spot, your vision will be blurry.
MOLLY BLOOM: Glasses and contacts help by focusing the light in the right spot on the retina. But everyone who needs glasses has unique eyes, which means we need different kinds of help from our glasses.
LUCITA: Like, I need help seeing things clearly close up.
MOLLY BLOOM: And I need help to see things clearly far away. So, Lucita, have you been to the eye doctor before?
LUCITA: Yes, I have been twice.
MOLLY BLOOM: And what do you remember about your eye exam?
LUCITA: Well, the first time I looked at a weird house through a lensy mob-- a lensy ma-bob-- thingy-ma-bobber. I don't know what they're called. And--
MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah, that's OK.
LUCITA: I didn't need glasses the first time, but then the second time, I looked at a bunch of letters on a board, and the smaller they got, they looked blurry. Like, I thought the O was a random blob, and the Q, too, and some of the Ks.
MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah. So a lot of times you go to the eye doctor, you have to look at those letters and try to read them, and sometimes they are blurry if you need glasses. You know, I know we've had a lot of listener questions about going to the eye doctor. Like, why do you have to get special drops? What are those letters? What-- how does it work? So to help get answers to all these questions, I hung out with Dr. Sasha Strul from the University of Minnesota while she was with a patient.
SASHA STRUL: It's Dr. Strul. Do you remember me?
ALLIE: No.
CREW: It's been a while.
SASHA STRUL: That's OK. It's been a long time. You've grown up so much. I'm your eye doctor. I'm going to be taking a look at your beautiful eyes. I see you already met my friend Molly.
MOLLY BLOOM: Here's Dr. Strul while she was with her patient, seven-year-old Allie from Minnesota.
SASHA STRUL: Why don't I take a look, and we can talk about your eyes, and answer any questions you have? Would that be OK? Do you remember how we do that? It's super easy. I'm going to take a look with a flashlight. I wear it on my head, and I look with a magnifying glass. And that's the last thing we got to do. Does that sound OK?
ALLIE: Where's the magnifying glass?
SASHA STRUL: I'm going to show it to you. That's a great question. So I have a couple. I'm going to use this one here today, and take a look at your eyes. So if you look at me through it, I might look upside down. Isn't that silly? Isn't that so weird? Yeah. So it helps me make everything that's inside the eyes look a little bit bigger.
MOLLY BLOOM: So, Lucita, when you went to the eye doctor, did you have to get your eyes dilated?
LUCITA: Yeah, I did. It was ouchie. It stung a lot.
MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah. So those are special eye drops that open your pupil really big, even when the lights are on. It's probably the biggest you'll ever see your pupil. And you said, yeah, it feels kind of stingy and ouchie. Just for a second though, right? And do you remember what it felt like after the stinging ouchie wore off?
LUCITA: It felt like my eyes were super wide open. I couldn't close them.
MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah, it's like you can see all the-- it's like all the light is going in your eyes. And it's almost like things feel a little bit blurry, and so your eyes are a little bit sensitive to the light.
LUCITA: Yeah.
MOLLY BLOOM: So they often give you sunglasses to wear, which is kind of cool.
LUCITA: They didn't give me sunglasses at all.
MOLLY BLOOM: Oh, oh man.
LUCITA: So it was just blurry.
MOLLY BLOOM: Well, that's the pro tip for people who need glasses. Bring your own sunglasses, just in case. So did you have to go back to school after you got your eyes dilated?
LUCITA: No. My eye doctor's appointment was after school, so--
MOLLY BLOOM: Perfect. Sometimes I've had my eyes dilated and I have to go back to school or work afterwards. And I have to wear sunglasses because, otherwise, that light kind of hurts your eyes, because it's kind of sensitive, and things look a little blurry. But it does wear off by the next day totally. And sometimes it can wear off in just a few hours.
LUCITA: So why do you have to get your eyes dilated anyway?
MOLLY BLOOM: Eye doctors like Dr. Strul do this so they can see what's going on inside your eye.
SASHA STRUL: The back wall of the eye is called the retina. But what it is, it's basically a screen that's almost as thin, almost thinner, really, than tissue paper. So if you imagine, it is wallpaper lining the back of the eye. And what it is is an electrical board. So it takes the light that hits the back of the eye, and turns it into an electric signal. And then it's carried along into the nerve of the eye, and then to the back of the brain. And that's how the brain sees. It has to have all that info. So everything along the way has to work.
So when I'm looking for is, does that film part of the eye, the retina, look healthy? Do the blood vessels that are supplying the nutrients and oxygen to the retina look healthy? Does the nerve that I can see the start of, the cable connecting the eye to the brain look healthy? And is there anything that's causing this kid to have a harder time seeing, or things that we can address to help them improve seeing?
LUCITA: Besides making sure all the parts of your eye are healthy, your eye doctor will also check if you need glasses.
MOLLY BLOOM: So do you remember what that eye exam was like? You talked a bit about it before, looking at the letters, and looking at the house. Did they also do the thing where they showed you different lenses and asked if one looked clearer than the other?
LUCITA: Yeah, they did about two lenses. They gave me one, and I was like, this one looks a little blurry. And they're like, OK. And then they showed me a different one, and I was like, more blurry.
MOLLY BLOOM: OK. Yeah, they often ask you to compare them. So they'll look at each eye separately first. And so when I was at the clinic, I met Kim Merrill. She's an orthoptist, which means she does things like eye exams. And during the exam, Kim asked seven-year-old patient Allie to cover up one of her eyes.
KIM MERRILL: You look like a cute pirate. What does the pirate say?
ALLIE: Arrr!
KIM MERRILL: That's it. And then look way down here. Can you do those for me? What do you see on there?
ALLIE: A, Z, N, L, O.
KIM MERRILL: Nice job. How about those?
ALLIE: Too tiny!
KIM MERRILL: Try them. There's no right or wrong, remember? You can do your best. What do you think they are?
ALLIE: P, X, P, A, U.
KIM MERRILL: Very good.
MOLLY BLOOM: Then Kim had Allie look through different lenses to see if they helped things look more clear for her.
KIM MERRILL: OK. Look way down at my TV down there again. Do you see those letters?
ALLIE: A, B, S, H.
KIM MERRILL: Look at the first letter again. What's that first one?
ALLIE: E-- I mean, F.
KIM MERRILL: F, yeah. Look at them again. Does this make it better or does that make it look smaller?
ALLIE: That makes it look smaller.
KIM MERRILL: All right. What about with this one? Is that any better or does that look smaller?
ALLIE: Bigger.
KIM MERRILL: Better?
ALLIE: A, B, S, H.
KIM MERRILL: Yeah, good work.
LUCITA: So the eye doctor has you tell them when the letters look blurry, and when they look clear.
MOLLY BLOOM: Right. That's a test they use to figure out if you need glasses.
LUCITA: OK. But why do I need glasses and my friends don't?
MOLLY BLOOM: I asked Dr. Strul about that, and here's what she said.
SASHA STRUL: Why some of us do and some of us don't is mostly genetics. So I always joke that my son's going to be getting glasses at some point, because both my husband and I wear it.
MOLLY BLOOM: When she says genetics, she's talking about genes. These control a lot of your features, like eye color and hair color. If you got your genes from someone who needed glasses, then it's more likely you'll need them, too.
SASHA STRUL: But we're also learning a lot about the environment. So with online schooling that became so common during the initial start of the COVID pandemic, we actually have seen studies come out that showed that nearsightedness, where you can't see far without your glasses, increased. And we think part of it is because we were all on screens and doing a lot more of what we call near work, or reading up close, rather than looking far away on a board like you would when you're in school.
LUCITA: So staring at screens all day can actually make your vision worse?
MOLLY BLOOM: Yes, it affects nearsightedness, so when things close up are clear, but things far away are blurry. Looking at screens doesn't seem to affect farsightedness, though, but there are things you can do to help keep your vision focused.
SASHA STRUL: The first is get outdoors, even if you are reading or on a screen. They've shown in societies where they spend like two hours a day or more outside, they have a lot less need for glasses, especially nearsightedness.
The other thing that you can do is hold things a little bit farther away. So just not having the screen or the book right up against your nose. Holding it about arm's length. So that can help as well, or even just taking breaks.
MOLLY BLOOM: But doctors are still learning a lot about how our environments and genetics affect our eyesight.
LUCITA: OK. So why do so many grownups have glasses?
MOLLY BLOOM: When adults get to be in their 40's and older, their eyes become more stiff, and it makes it harder for them to switch between looking far away and close up. So they start to need glasses to see things close to them, even if they never needed them before.
LUCITA: So kids are more flexible?
MOLLY BLOOM: Just another kid superpower. I asked Dr. Strul about this.
SASHA STRUL: So if kids get a scratch on the surface of their eye, they usually can heal it within a day to three days. Adults, it can take up to 3 to 5 days, and so sometimes even longer. So kids have superhuman ability to heal up really fast. They also just have very resilient eyes. And unlike adults, where if we lose vision, we can't really gain it back, if there was something that caused us not to see, well, for whatever reason, kids brains are still growing. So if we catch something, and we can fix it in childhood, they can actually regain brain, which is how we regain vision, which is amazing.
MOLLY BLOOM: Kids are so cool!
LUCITA: Yeah, we are!
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MOLLY BLOOM: Eyes take in light, and turn that light into a message that gets sent to the brain.
LUCITA: If that light doesn't get focused on the right spot, things will look blurry to you.
MOLLY BLOOM: But glasses or contacts can help focus the light coming into your eye so it hits the retina at the back of your eye.
LUCITA: Eye doctors can help you figure out if you need glasses, whether you're a baby or an adult.
MOLLY BLOOM: That's it for this episode of Brains On!
LUCITA: This episode was written and produced by--
MOLLY BLOOM: Molly Bloom.
LUCITA: It was also produced by--
ROSE DUPONT: Rose Dupont.
LUCITA: Our editors are--
SANDEN TOTTEN: Sanden Totten.
LUCITA: And--
SHAHLA FARZAN: Shahla Farzan.
LUCITA: Fact checking by--
JESS MILLER: Jess Miller.
MOLLY BLOOM: We had engineering help from Alex Simpson and Bill Simpkins with sound design by--
RACHEL BREES: Rachel Brees.
MOLLY BLOOM: Original theme music by--
MARC SANCHEZ: Marc Sanchez.
LUCITA: We had production help from the rest of the Brains On! Universe team.
ANNA GOLDFIELD: Anna Goldfield.
NICO WISLER: Nico Gonzalez Wisler
RUBY GUTHRIE: Ruby Guthrie.
LAUREN HUMPERT: Lauren Humpert.
JOSHUA RAY: Joshua Ray.
MARC SANCHEZ: Marc Sanchez.
CHARLOTTE TRAVER: Charlotte Traver.
ANNA WEGGEL: Anna Weggel.
LUCITA: And--
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: Aron Woldeslassie.
MOLLY BLOOM: Beth Pearlman is our executive producer, and the executives in charge of APM Studios are Chandra Kavati and Joanne Griffith. Special thanks to Jesse Lou Galbreath.
LUCITA: Brains On! is a nonprofit, public radio program.
MOLLY BLOOM: There are lots of ways to support the show. Subscribe to Brains On! Universe on YouTube, where you can watch animated versions of some of your favorite episodes, or head to brainson.org.
LUCITA: While you're there, you can send us mystery sounds, drawings, and questions.
MOLLY BLOOM: OK, Lucita. Are you ready to hear the mystery sound again?
LUCITA: Uh, honestly, no. But I will.
MOLLY BLOOM: OK, great. Thank you so much. Here it is.
[MYSTERY SOUND]
LUCITA: I'm going to stick with my guesses.
MOLLY BLOOM: OK.
LUCITA: A bee, a wind-up toy, or one of those, like, helicopter toys where you twist it back, and then like this. And then it goes.
MOLLY BLOOM: I love that.
LUCITA: And-- or a robot bee.
MOLLY BLOOM: OK. I love that idea. I think both are great. I'm pulling for the robot bee, though. OK, let's see what the answer is.
BO: Hi. My name's Bo.
TAY: Hi. My name's Tay. And we're from Papamoa, New Zealand.
BO: And that was the sound of a toy motorbike running on the ground.
MOLLY BLOOM: Hey!
LUCITA: I knew it. I knew it was something like winding up, and then going.
MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah. You were totally right on. Yeah, it was a toy winding up.
LUCITA: Yes!
MOLLY BLOOM: Very good. Now, I hope you won't be scared of mystery sounds anymore.
[TOY MOTORBIKE RUNNING]
Now it's time for the Brains honor roll. These are the incredible kids who keep the show going with their questions, ideas, mystery sounds, drawings, and high fives.
[LISTING HONOR ROLL]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
We'll be back next week with an episode about why some of us have food allergies.
LUCITA: Thanks for listening!
Transcription services provided by 3Play Media.
