I read once, I think in Sky and Telescope, that people who have had cataract surgery can see ultraviolet, because our retinas are UV sensitive, but the lens blocks UV (good thing, too). The plastic used for replacing lenses transmits UV.
This might make for some interesting sights if you do have surgery.
I don't know whether they're using the same material.
I used to work as a physics lab assistant at UC Santa Cruz. The lab supervisor, Bernard Cleyet, had a side business of making little jigs to make it easier to tie sutures to artificial catarect lenses. He spent a lot of time fiddling around with a low-power stero microscope. He told me that the plastic they use was discovered to be safe for eyes during World War II, because fighter plane canopies were made out of the stuff. Pilots who had bits of the plastic canopy lodged in their eyes after being hit were able to tolerate the bits being left in there. Kind of morbid, eh?
Mike_Crawford@QuickMail.Apple.Com