Grace's personal quest, however, was more in the line of scientific curiosity. That could come in handy for such things as a heat-seeking missile that could fly up the exhaust valve of an enemy aircraft without revealing its presence. Air Force Office of Scientific Research to see just what snakes might be able to tell us about infrared vision. So a couple of years ago he landed a $365,800 three-year grant from the U.S. "If you can build a sensor that's based upon the cell biology and biochemistry" of snakes, he says, "you could make some extraordinary advancements in artificial sensor technology." Unlike artificial sensors, they don't require an elaborate cooling system, and they can repair themselves if damaged. Yet despite their tiny size, the sensors are at least 10 times more sensitive than the best artificial infrared sensors that have ever been built, says Grace, a biology professor at Florida Tech. A rattlesnake, for instance, has one small pit on each side of its head, filled with thousands of receptor cells, which are actually microscopic-sized infrared sensors. What has intrigued Grace for years now is how snakes are able to do so much with so little. They can switch back and forth between those two systems, or use both simultaneously, giving them a leg up, so to speak, when it comes to targeting a warm object. They can use their eyes to create a visual image of the world around them, just like humans do, or they can use their extraordinarily sensitive infrared sensors to create a similar image based upon heat emitted by objects in their environment.
That's because pit vipers, like rattlesnakes, and the group of snakes including pythons or boas can literally see the world in two different ways. The secrets he is learning from the fascinating reptiles that live in his lab could someday lead to major advancements in everything from heat seeking missiles for the military to tiny devices that might help physicians locate tumors in the human body.
Now, he spends his time probing the world of snakes in his laboratory at the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne. But to a kid in Georgia, that just made snakes all the more interesting.Īs the years passed he turned his hobby into a profession.