Lose an eye, don't lose a dimension

Seeing in three dimensions doesn’t necessarily need the use of two eyes, according to a pair of scientists at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. One of the ways that humans perceive depth is through a process called stereopsis. Stereopsis stems from the fact that most people view the world through two eyeballs, each of which presents a slightly different picture. The tiny differences between the two pictures that each eye sees help the brain calculate the three-dimensional portrait of the world around the viewer. Losing one eye often sharply decreases a person’s depth perception. You can still pick up cues from the world around you by relying on lighting, perspective, and familiarity with the sizes of various objects. One of the few ways to recreate stereopsis with one eye is through motion, creating parallax – the same phenomenon that allows astronomers to calculate celestial distances by observing the motion of stars and planets. So there's no need for all you one-eyed readers out there to worry - you can still see many of the latest blockbusters in 3D (if you know the secret). Speaking of secrets, scientists have discovered a new type of botox they believe is the "deadliest substance known to man", but have withheld the DNA sequence because an antidote is not known. It is the first time the scientific community has made such a move to withhold such information but security concerns have dictated that they do so. New Scientist reports that just 2 billionths of a gram of the protein botulinum produced by the soil bacterium Clostridium botulinum will kill an adult.