Carrots help you see in the dark..?
By Sophie and Emily
Initial Thoughts
Is it true?
Is it false?
Yes and no. Carrots contain vitamin A, which travels to to the eye and coverted to a chemical called retinal, which changes shape when light hits it. The starts are process which ends with electrictiy travelling to the visual centres at the back of the brain, which turn electricity into the wall-to-wall sensation that we call vision.
In the Battle of Britain, in 1940, the British fighter pilot, John Cunningham, became the first person to shoot down an enemy plane with the help of radar. In fact, in WW II, he was the RAF's top-scoring night fighter pilot, with a total of 20 kills. Some pilots were better flying in daylight, while others, like Cunningham, were better at night. The RAF put out the story in the British newspapers that he, and his fellow night pilots, owed their exceptional night vision to carrots. People believed this to the extent that they started growing and eating more carrots, so that they could better navigate at night during the blackouts that were compulsory during WW II.
But this story was a myth invented by the Royal Air Force to hide their use of radar.