Adaptive Optics is a technology that detects and corrects changing distortions in optical systems.  It has been applied to great effect during the past decade for correcting astronomical telescopes for blurring due to turbulence in the Earth’s atmosphere. This talk will describe how Adaptive Optics works, and how it is helping us to learn about black holes and outflows from mergers of nearby gas-rich galaxies. The talk will conclude with a view of another application of Adaptive Optics: imaging the living human retina.