If You Like Gore, You’ll Like Watching This Eyeball Get Dissected

The eye is an highly complex organ, where highly specialized cells work together to turn one thing—a photon—into another—an electrical impulse en route to the brain. The eye, in all its intricacy, has long been a symbol in the debate between creationists and scientists, with the former using it as an example of irreducible complexity (it isn't), the latter seeing it as a testament to the power of natural selection and evolution.

None of this will likely stop you from cringing when Joss Exton in the video above stabs a horse's eye with a pair of scissors and a whole bunch of eye juice squirts out.

The eye is sophisticated and complex, but it's also very frail. In the video, Exton walks through a dissection of a horse's eye for the At Bristol science center, showing off everything from the flopping flap of the iris to the flaky retina cells.

This isn't the only dissection video done by Exton and the science center; there's another equally gross one where he digs through a pig's heart. Maybe if Exton's videos get enough views he'll be able to buy some gloves.

Colin Schultz | | READ MORE

Colin Schultz is a freelance science writer and editor based in Toronto, Canada. He blogs for Smart News and contributes to the American Geophysical Union. He has a B.Sc. in physical science and philosophy, and a M.A. in journalism.