EY: v1

THE LIVING CORNEA: If you were to take a journey through an eyeball, the first thing you would run into is: 

THE LIVING CORNEA:  A memory trick to remember that the outside of your eye is the cornea is to think of eating a cob of corn and accidentally bopping yourself in the eye with it.

Corn=corn+ea.

CORNEA STRENGTH:  The cornea is actually very thin, just 1mm thick. That’s the same width as 5 pieces of paper.

CORNEA STRENGTH:  The cornea is amazingly strong for its thin-ness. The strength of the cornea comes from a protein called cellulose.

CORNEA STRENGTH:  You would have to stack over 1 million molecules of collagen to get a mound of collagen one inch high.

CORNEA STRENGTH:  Millions and millions of these super-strong collagen proteins add protection by running like train tracks through the cells of the cornea. 

CORNEA STRENGTH:  Although collagen proteins are so strong, They are not transparent. If the cornea was only made up of just collagen fibers, even a bullet couldn’t pop our eye.

CORNEA STRENGTH:  There are precise spaces in between the collagen fibers that allow in light. These spaces are just about 200 microns wide!

CORNEA STRENGTH:  If these millions of spaces between the collagen strands in your cornea were slightly thinner, they wouldn’t allow light to go through and you would be blind! 

CORNEA STRENGTH:  The cornea is transparent.