Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles KidsHealth presents "How the Body Works," with Chloe and the Nurb. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] Nurb, just because eyeballs are the size of ping pong balls doesn't mean they make good ping pong balls. A nurb cannot be blamed for his love of scientific exploration, my dear Chloe. It is what makes him a nurb. Then can we use the eyeballs to explore how an eyeball works instead? We could, but these are kind of small and-- Squished. One might say that. How about we take a look at him? Most excellent idea. Let's do. The eyeball is a beautiful machine with lots of different parts working together to let you see. Poets say the eyes are the window to the soul. Well, the window to the eyeball is the cornea, a dome of clear tissue up in front of the eye that focuses light as it passes through. Look at that beautiful green eye. And brown eye. And blue eye. The colorful part is called the iris, right? Yup. It's right behind the cornea. In the middle of the iris is a black circle called the pupil, an opening that lets light into the eye. The iris has muscles attached to it that change its size, making the pupil bigger and smaller to control how much light gets through. So the pupil gets smaller when there's a lot of light and bigger when it's dimmer. Don't look now, but I think we're being watched. Hmm. Ha! He blinked first. Which is a good thing. Blinking protects and moistens the eye. Good point. So what happens after the light has passed through the cornea and the pupil? The light passes through the lens. Like the lens in a camera? Precisely. The lens focuses the light onto the back of the eye, where seeing really starts to happen. Can the lens in the eye focus on stuff that's close and stuff that's far, like a camera lens would? It sure can. Let's head inside to see how. Last one through the pupil's a rotten egg! The lens is held in place by a bunch of fibers, which are attached to this ciliary muscles. (SINGING) Ciliary! Ciliary! Ciliary! The ciliary muscles change the shape of the lens to let the eye change its focus from something close by to something far away. What are you waiting for? Let's get focusing! To see something near, the ciliary muscle makes the lens the thicker. To see something far, the ciliary muscles makes the lens thinner. From the lens, we travel to the retina, the back wall of the eyeball. Right, because the lens focuses the light onto the retina. The retina has millions of light sensitive cells called rods and cones-- about 120 million rods and 7 million cones in each eye. Whoa. That's a lot of rods and cones. What's the difference between them? It's the difference between black and white and color! The rods see in black, white, and shades of gray, and help us see the shape and form of a thing. Rods also help us see in the dark. And the cones see color? Cones are sensitive to one of three colors-- red, green, or blue. Together, they let us see millions of colors, but cones need more light than rods to work with. Hey, what's this thing behind the retina? Hey, no bouncing on the optic nerve. It carries messages to the brain about what you're seeing. The rods and cones change the colors and shapes you see into millions of nerve messages. Then those messages are carried along the optic nerve to the brain. It's like your eye is sending the brain a report on what you're seeing. Then your brain translates the report into cat, apple, or bicycle. Or-- a ping pong ball! Hm? Keep your eye on the ball there, Nurb. Oh! Ha ha, it's on. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING]
B1 US lens eye pupil eyeball retina cornea How Your Eyes Work 758 44 Cristal Chen posted on 2017/05/10 More Share Save Report Video vocabulary