There is a common saying that “gold will always shine,” which is used as a metaphor to suggest that talented people will never be buried in obscurity. However, it has now been discovered that our human bodies naturally emit light (the language of the ancients was quite accurate ^_^). According to a report by Live Science, scientists have discovered that the human body emits light, specifically a faint visible light, the intensity of which fluctuates throughout the day.
Previous research has already found that the body emits light, though it is 1,000 times weaker than the intensity visible to the naked eye. In fact, all living organisms emit extremely faint light, which is thought to be the result of free radicals participating in biochemical reactions. This visible light is different from infrared radiation; infrared is not visible light and originates from body heat.
To further understand this faint visible light, Japanese scientists used ultra-sensitive cameras capable of detecting single photons. Five healthy men in their 20s were arranged to stand shirtless in front of the camera for 20 minutes every 3 hours from 10:00 AM to 10:00 PM for three consecutive days. The room was light-proof and pitch black. The researchers found that the intensity of the body’s light emission fluctuated throughout the day, with the weakest emission at 10:00 AM and the strongest at 4:00 PM, after which it gradually weakened. These findings suggest that light emission is related to our biological clock, most likely fluctuating with our metabolic rhythms throughout the day.
The face emits more light than other parts of the body. This may be because the face receives more sun exposure than other parts of the body; they receive more sunlight, and the melanin in the skin contains fluorescent components, which may increase the “yield” of light.
Hitoshi Okamura, a circadian rhythm biologist at Kyoto University in Japan, stated that since this faint light is related to body metabolism, these findings suggest that cameras capable of capturing this faint light might help identify medical issues. Masaki Kobayashi, a biomedical photonics expert at the Tohoku Institute of Technology in Sendai, Japan, said: “If you can see the light emitted from the body surface, you can see the overall condition of the body.” (Yang Xiaowen)
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