12 freaky but true facts about the human eye.

Sometimes, you just want to know some fun facts.

Like that Cleopatra lived closer to the launch of the iPhone than the building of the pyramids.

Or that alligators will give manatees the right of way if they are swimming near each other. How… polite.

But Optometry Australia have shared a dozen facts about the human eye, and now facts about eyes are our favourite type of facts.

Here they are, so the next time a friend says, ‘eugh, I have an eyelash stuck in my eye,’ you can yell, ‘PEOPLE HAVE EYELASHES TO KEEP DIRT OUT OF THEIR EYES,’ and you’ll be confusingly aggressive but also factually correct:

1. We blink around 10-15 times a minute and around 6.3 million times a year.

2. Our eyeballs remain the same size from birth to death while our noses and ears will continue to grow.

3. An eye is composed of more than two million working parts including over one million nerve fibres which connect each eye to the brain. As a result of this maze of nerve fibres, an eye cannot be transplanted as it is currently not possible to reconstruct these connections.

4. We might pump iron, compete in triathlons and climb mountains but the most active muscles in our body are those that control our eyes.

5. An iris has 256 unique characters – 6.4 times that of a fingerprint – which makes a retina scan ideal for security.

6. An average eyeball is 24 millimetres wide. It weighs only 28 grams yet it contains around 107 million light sensitive cells.

7. The real machine behind our sight is our brain. Our eyes are mere cameras that capture light and they send this data back to the brain to be interpreted into shapes, colours and images.

8. Our retinas actually perceive the world upside down and it is our brain that flips the image the right way up for us.

9. You’ve heard of 50 Shades of Grey, well the human eye can see 500 shades of grey. And red, blue and green which are the only colours we can see – all other colours are a combination of these.

10. Our eyelashes play an important function in keeping dirt out of our eyes while our eyebrows are there to prevent sweat dripping into our eyes.

11. If you have blue eyes you will share a common ancestor with every other blue-eyed person in the world (Brad Pitt, Jennifer Lawrence or Ryan Gosling, for instance).

12. Your eyes don’t show signs of many eye diseases – such as glaucoma and macular degeneration – until it is too late and their effects cannot be reversed leading to serous visual impairment and often blindness.

Oh. Well now we know lots of facts about eyes. And some of you (but not me, unfortunately) might just be related to Ryan Gosling.

To find an optometrist near you and to learn more about your eyes go to goodvisionforlife.com.au.