You look radiant!
Stories from Physics
for 11-14
14-16
The human body literally glitters. A Japanese research team has discovered that the human body emits light photons at an intensity so low human eyes would need to be a thousand times more sensitive to detect them. The photon emission is highest in the morning and lowest in the evening, correlating negatively with levels of cortisol in the body. The radiation occurs most intensely from the face and in particular the cheeks. The mechanism for the emission of photons is thought to be connected to the generation of free radicals by metabolic processes.
References
M. Kobayashi, D. Kikuchi, & H. Okamura, Imaging of ultraweak spontaneous photon emission from human body displaying diurnal rhythm. PLoS one, 4(7), 2009, e6256.
