This camera lens can focus up close and far away at the same time

The large depth of field helps recover distance information from a single image

six nesting dolls at different distances, all in focus

These dolls are at various distances from the camera — from 30 centimeters (bottom) to 3.3 meters (top) — and yet are all in focus, thanks to a new type of lens inspired by the eye of an extinct trilobite.

Ting Xu, Amit Agrawal

Ben Franklin had nothing on trilobites.