'The Vision Revolution': Eyes are the source of human 'su...(lepathic. 2) Because we have X-ray visio...)

The longer answers, however, are more Charles Darwin than comic books. For example, our X-ray vision is actually advanced binocular vision that developed to allow our primate ancestors to see the forest through a vast clutter of leaves and trees. Our telepathy is actually our color vision, which evolved to allow us to sense the emotions on the faces of others. And our clairvoyance is actually an ages-old hack that enables our minds to compensate for the one-tenth of a second lag between when we see something and when the visual information is received by our brain. (The very same delay, Changizi said, is at the heart of most optical illusions.)

In The Vision Revolution, Changizi tackles his four questions with a unique, interdisciplinary perspective. A self-described "square, stick-in-the-mud, pencil-necked scientist," he employs humor, a sprinkling of pop culture references, and intuitive everyday analogies to paint a rich picture of leading-edge theoretical neuroscience and evolutionary biology.

From asking readers to imagine themselves as somber squirrels, to explaining why a uniocular, unibrowed cyclops of legend would likely best today's teens at violent video games, The Vision Revolution explains with ease research that in the last two years has landed Changizi in the pages of Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, and USA Today.

"In targeting the book toward non-experts as well as my research peers, I believe it becomes more exciting for both kinds of readers," Changizi said. "Non-experts don't want a book written just for non-experts. They want to read a book they know is genuinely part of the scientific conversation. And experts don't always need to have all the enjoyment sucked out of their readings, as in most journal articles."

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