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LONDON (Reuters) – The amazing eyes of a giant shrimp living on Australia's Great Barrier Reef could hold the key to developing a new type of super high-quality DVD player, British scientists said on Sunday. Mantis shrimps, dubbed "thumb splitters" by divers because of their vicious claws, have the most complex eyes in the animal kingdom. They can see in 12 primary colors, four times as many as humans, and can also detect different kinds of light polarization -- the direction of oscillation in light waves.

Considering the name of this blog, we took great concern with the left Eye of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, which appeared puffy on Wednesday while she testified to a Senate committee.

I went over to TxRadioGuy's hometown forum, to see an argument ongoing there, about how enemy combatants should be treated. And as usual, there's a primitive mucking up a passage ostensibly from the Bible, but which actually goes back much further than that (Christ was saying it as then-ancient history). This "eye for an eye" bit. I have no idea why that's considered a bad thing. Of course, it's considered a bad thing because it's always misinterpreted.

<p>BAKERSFIELD, Calif. – A 4-year-old California boy may be permanently blinded after police say his father bit out one of his eyes and mutilated the other.</p> <p>Bakersfield police say 34-year-old Angel Vidal Mendoza appeared to be under the influence of PCP when he attacked the boy April 28.</p>

Your Eye Works a Precision Jigsaw PuzzleApril 7, 2009 — You have twin 125 megapixel video cameras in your eyeballs. Each pixel, a rod or cone connected to a neuron, sees only a small bit of the total image. How do these bits, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, fit together? Scientists at the Salk Institute have found that they are finely tuned to fit together for optimum clarity. Writing in PLoS Biology, they said...

A man who lost his sight 30 years ago says he can now see flashes of light after being fitted with a bionic eye. Ron, 73, had the experimental surgery seven months ago at London's Moorfield's eye hospital. He says he can now follow white lines on the road, and even sort socks, using the bionic eye, known as Argus II. It uses a camera and video processor mounted on sunglasses to send captured images wirelessly to a tiny receiver on the outside of the eye. In turn, the receiver passes on the data via a tiny cable to an...

HOUSTON—A Texas death row inmate with a history of mental problems pulled out his only good eye and told authorities he ate it. Andre Thomas, 25, was arrested for the fatal stabbings of his estranged wife, their young son and her 13-month-old daughter in March 2004. Their hearts also had been ripped out. He was convicted and condemned for the infant's death.

An American toddler has had a miracle recovery after getting a key lodged in his eye.

Right now, in the press, "rage" is all the rage. At the New York Times, Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich - who may be the same person since they both wear dresses - have columns on the rising tide of anger in McCain's campaign. Dowd is calling the whole thing "seamy," and whenever someone brings up Bill Ayers, Rich sees a "violent escalation" in rhetoric. He links addressing real issues to an increased risk of Obama's assassination – meaning if you think voter fraud is important, you probably also want to kill black people. True, a few nutbags in the...

Eating Fish And Foods With Omega-3 Fatty Acids Linked To Lower Risk Of Age-related Eye Disease"Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of severe vision loss among elderly people," they write as background information in the article. New treatments for AMD are potentially risky and treat only certain forms of the disease. "Thus, primary prevention of AMD by modifying risk factors (e.g., cigarette smoking) remains an important public health strategy." Elaine W-T. Chong, M.B.B.S., of the University of Melbourne, Australia, and colleagues conducted a systematic review of studies published before May 2007 evaluating the fish consumption and overall omega-3...

The hundreds of drones cruising over Iraq and Afghanistan have changed war forever."The whole art of war consists of getting at what is on the other side of the hill," said the Duke of Wellington, conqueror of Napoleon at Waterloo. In the murky kind of fight that marks modern warfare against terrorists and guerrillas, knowing what's on the other side of the hill—or inside a building—takes on a whole new urgency and meaning. Lt. Col. Scott Williams, who leads a unit of Apache helicopters in Baghdad, is in the business of "servicing" targets, by which he means anything from blowing...

An Australian swimmer survived a great white shark attack by poking the creature in the eyes as it dragged him through the water after badly savaging his left leg. Jason Cull was swimming off a beach on Australia's southwest coast on Sunday when the four meter (12 feet) shark attacked. "Initially I thought it was a dolphin," Cull told The Australian newspaper on Monday. "I just remember being dragged along backwards. I was trying to feel its gills but I found its eye and I stuck my finger in and that's when it let go." The shark tore two chunks...

WASHINGTON, March 12, 2008 – The top U.S. general in the Pacific told Congress yesterday that he’s working to strengthen the U.S.-Sino relationship, but he emphasized the need to keep a close eye on China as it strives to expand its influence in the region. Navy Adm. Timothy J. Keating told the Senate Armed Services Committee he sees headway in breaking down longstanding divisions between the two countries, but remains troubled by China’s lack of transparency about its military programs. The Defense Department released its 2008 China Military Power Report earlier this month, noting that China spent more than...

If you've ever wanted to be the Bionic Woman or a Terminator, new research may at least let you see with their eyes. Scientists have taken the first step toward creating digital contact lenses that can zoom in on distant objects and display useful facts. For the first time, engineers have installed an electronic circuit and lights on a regular contact lens. The prototype they created does not actually light up or display information. But it proves that it is possible to build an electronic lens that is safe to wear and doesn't obstruct vision. "Looking through a completed lens,...

Researchers at the University of Warwick have uncovered a crucial signal that switches on eye development. This discovery will greatly assist researchers looking at stem cells connected to eye development and opens up an avenue of research that could eventually lead to an “eye in a dish”. The University of Warwick research team led by Professor Nick Dale and Professor Elizabeth Jones from the University of Warwick’s Biological Sciences Department have published their work today, 25th October 2007, in Nature in a paper entitled Purine-mediated signaling triggers eye development. The researchers were exploring whether release of ATP (an important signaling...

I just found one my dogs hanging from a fence. It's still alive but one of it's eyes is now protruding out of it's socket. I tried to push it back in a little but I got scared and I don't want to damage it. Is this something that will go away on its own? Or am I being to scared and can push it in on my own? I can't really afford a vet right now, but will if need be.

University of Queensland Date: February 25, 2007 No Single Gene For Eye Color, Researchers Prove Science Daily — A study by researchers from The University of Queensland's Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB) and the Queensland Institute of Medical Research is the first to prove conclusively that there is no single gene for eye colour. Says Dr. Rick Sturm, the IMB researcher who led the study: "... the model of eye colour inheritance using a single gene is insufficient to explain the range of eye colours that appear in humans. We believe instead that there are two major genes -- one...

A bionic eye implant that could help restore the sight of millions of blind people could be available to patients within two years. US researchers have been given the go-ahead to implant the prototype device in 50 to 75 patients. The Argus II system uses a spectacle-mounted camera to feed visual information to electrodes in the eye. Patients who tested less-advanced versions of the retinal implant were able to see light, shapes and movement. "What we are trying to do is take real-time images from a camera and convert them into tiny electrical pulses that would jump-start the otherwise blind...

Karachi - A Pakistani man sold his 10-year-old daughter for $500 to pay for his eye operation, a police official in the southern province of Sindh said on Friday. The father Noor Mohammad had agreed to hand his daughter over to a fellow villager, Gul Mohammad Kalohi, once she reached puberty, according to Abdul Hadi, district police officer for Badin, about 250km east of Karachi. "It is a shameful incident and has taken place," said Hadi. "We were informed about this incident from a complaint made by a relative of the father." Police have completed their investigation of the case,...

A bionic eye implant that could help restore the sight of millions of blind people could be available to patients within two years. US researchers have been given the go-ahead to implant the prototype device in 50 to 75 patients. The Argus II system uses a spectacle-mounted camera to feed visual information to electrodes in the eye. Patients who tested less-advanced versions of the retinal implant were able to see light, shapes and movement. "What we are trying to do is take real-time images from a camera and convert them into tiny electrical pulses that would jump-start the otherwise...

A silicon chip that faithfully mimics the neural circuitry of a real retina could lead to better bionic eyes for those with vision loss, researchers claim. About 700,000 people in the developed world are diagnosed with age-related macular degeneration each year, and 1.5 million people worldwide suffer from a disease called retinitis pigmentosa. In both of these diseases, retinal cells, which convert light into nerve impulses at the back of the eye, gradually die. Most artificial retinas connect an external camera to an implant behind the eye via a computer (see 'Bionic' eye may help reverse blindness). The new silicon...

Police Eye Money Trail in Airliner Plot Saturday August 12, 2006 12:46 AM By JENNIFER QUINN and PAUL HAVEN Associated Press Writers LONDON (AP) - Investigators on three continents worked to fill in the full, frightening picture Friday of a plot to blow U.S. jetliners out of the Atlantic skies, tracking the money trail and seizing more alleged conspirators in the teeming towns of eastern Pakistan. One arrested there, a Briton named Rashid Rauf, is believed to have been the operational planner and to have connections with al-Qaida in Afghanistan, Pakistani and U.S. officials said. British and Pakistani authorities have...

SOMETIMES all it takes is a quick hug, and everything looks different. Now a shape-shifting lens has been developed that alters its focal length when squeezed by an artificial muscle, rather like the lens in a human eye. The muscle, a ring of polymer gel, expands and contracts in response to environmental changes, eliminating the need for electronics to power or control the devices. "The lenses harness the energy around them to control themselves," says lead researcher Hongrui Jiang at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, US, where the device has been developed (Nature, vol 442, p 551). "This would be useful...

WASHINGTON - On the eve of the nation's noisiest holiday, the Consumer Product Safety Commission responded to growing fireworks injuries by quietly reopening the question of how it should police explosives for backyard entertainment. Without a public meeting, the three commissioners voted unanimously by ballot late Friday to begin a study of whether to tighten their regulation of fireworks, commission spokesman Scott Wolfson announced Monday. Their notice seeking public comment will appear soon in the Federal Register. The notice cited a disturbing increase in injuries and a decrease in compliance with safety regulations as reasons for the first major review...

We humans customarily assume that our visual system sits atop a pinnacle of evolutionary success. It enables us to appreciate space in three dimensions, to detect objects from a distance and to move about safely. We are exquisitely able to recognize other individuals and to read their emotions from mere glimpses of their faces. In fact, we are such visual animals that we have difficulty imagining the sensory worlds of creatures whose capacities extend to other realms--a night-hunting bat, for example, that finds small insects by listening to the echoes of its own high-pitched call. Our knowledge of color vision...

MOSUL, Iraq (Army News Service, June 5, 2006) – The use of eye protection became a matter of life or death for 1st Lt. Anthony Aguilar while on a routine combat patrol last February. As his company moved through Mosul, an unusually large improvised explosive device detonated and shot a bomb fragment into Aguilar’s glasses. “The force of the blast was so powerful that it knocked me back into the Stryker vehicle,” said Aguilar, platoon leader, Company C, Task Force 2-1, 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team. “When I picked the glasses up and put them back on, I could feel...

WASHINGTON, May 22, 2006 – Defense Department officials are weighing the potential benefits of merging the three military medical commands into one, unified command that would oversee all military health care as well as the training of military medical professionals. The concept, if adopted, would bring together the Army, Air Force and Navy medical commands, enabling DoD to provide better care while keeping costs in check, Dr. David Tornberg, deputy assistant secretary of defense for clinical and program policy, told American Forces Press Service. The DoD medical community is generally supportive of such a realignment, which Tornberg said would ensure...

Doctors at a clinic in Kragujevac, central Serbia, have removed an 11 centimetre-long intestinal worm from a woman's eye socket. According to preliminary results, the worm taken from the 37-year-old patient's eye belongs to the Ascaris family, a common intestinal parasite in pigs that is also found in humans. No similar case has ever been recorded in Serbia and probably in Europe, Radomir Stojicevic, a doctor at the Kragujevac clinic, told the Tanjug news agency. The parasite had probably travelled through the patient's blood from the digestive tract into the eye socket, doctors at the clinic believe.

CAMP TAQADDUM, Iraq (Jan. 24, 2006) -- A Marine moves swiftly from the CH-46E helicopter’s drop door as he continually scans the surrounding area for potential danger. His job is to protect the commanding general in his charge if a situation requiring immediate aid should arise. This Marine is with the Personal Security Detachment, 2nd Marine Logistics Group (Forward), providing continual protection for the commanding general and staff day in and day out. “My training has prepared me well on several occasions,” said Sgt. Eddie T. Hedgepeth, a PSD Marine with 2nd MLG (Fwd), who was formerly a shoulder-launched multipurpose...

Dragon Eye Protects Troops, Improves Recon The easily-transportable unmanned aerial vehicle gives troops up-to-date reconnaissance over a wide area of terrain. By U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Robert M. Storm JALALABAD, Afghanistan, Nov. 4, 2005 — U.S. Marines and sailors from 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, Marine Corps Base Hawaii, use the Dragon Eye to minimize friendly casualties and maximize surveillance during missions in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. The Dragon Eye is the smallest functioning unmanned aerial vehicle. "The Dragon Eye is a good tool if used properly. It's excellent for short range reconnaissance and can easily...

MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va. (Nov. 3, 2005) -- The Marine Corps is searching for a larger, more capable combat transport to replace the Humvee. The Fires and Maneuver Integration Division of Marine Corps Combat Development Command is outlining the requirements for its future vehicle, dubbed the Combat Tactical Vehicle, with the goal of fielding the first CTVs in 2011. Kevin M. McConnell, deputy director of the Fires and Maneuver Integration Division, said the Humvee, while a battle-proven tactical vehicle, is beginning to show its limitations in Iraq and Afghanistan. “The Humvee A2 is a great vehicle, [but] it has...

The Implantable Miniature Telescope (IMT), invented by Israeli doctor Isaac Lipshitz is offering hope to the eight million Americans who suffer vision loss due to age-related macular degeneration, known as AMD. In clinical trials, VisionCare's revolutionary device drastically improved the vision of almost 200 patients, with the results paving the way for its imminent FDA approval.

LEE COUNTY? While watching NBC2 coverage of Hurricane Wilma about two dozen residents called the station reporting an unusual sighting. While watching a Doppler loop of Hurricane Wilma coming ashore, a number two appeared in the eye of the storm. In going back through the recorded Doppler loop, we found exactly what viewers were talking about. The image below was not altered in any way - it's a screen capture from the Doppler system. You can click 'play' above to watch the actual Doppler loop.

Paris - French President Jacques Chirac declared himself in good shape as he left a military hospital after seven days, but took doctors' advice by dropping plans to attend next week's United Nations summit of world leaders and also postponed a planned trip to Egypt. The 72-year-old leader's place will be taken at the United Nations by Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, his office announced on Friday. Villepin was roundly applauded at the United Nations for his 2003 speech against the invasion of Iraq. Chirac was hospitalised on September 2 after suffering a "small vascular accident" that impaired vision in...

Parts of the brain are temporarily "switched off" when we blink, scientists have found. Researchers from University College London found that the brain actively shuts down parts of the visual system for every blink - even if light is still entering the eyes. This could explain why people do not notice their own blinking. The study used a specially-designed device to study the effects of blinking on the brain. The device, made with fibre optic cable, was placed in the mouths of volunteers who were wearing light proof goggles and lying in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scanner....

The court-ordered removal of Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube was “an act of murder,” in the opinion of Rabbi Shlomo Yaffe, a member of the Lubavitch movement who spoke recently to a Montreal audience made up largely of lawyers. Rabbi Yaffe, spiritual leader of Congregation Agudas Achim in West Hartford, Conn., and a popular lecturer on the Torah perspective on modern ethical issues, was a guest speaker at the Westmount Chabad centre. The fact that Schiavo, who died in March almost two weeks after her gastric feeding tube was removed, was breathing on her own makes all the difference, Rabbi Yaffe...

DARWIN famously wrote in On the Origin of Species that the eye is so complex that its evolution by natural selection seems "absurd". The key to the puzzle, he argued, was to find eyes of intermediate complexity in the animal kingdom that would demonstrate a possible path from simple to complicated. Now, a detailed study of the eyes of the box jellyfish (Tripedalia cystophora) has thrown up one of these fascinating intermediate stages. Box jellyfish, or cubozoans, are bizarre, highly poisonous predators (New Scientist, 8 November 2003, p 34). "These are fantastic creatures with 24 eyes, four parallel brains and...

Our eye movements and their control: part 2 by Peter GurneySummary The first of these two papers concentrated on the muscles moving the eyes and their mechanics.1 The purpose of this second paper is to give an outline of the physiology of the brain”s control of eye movements as an outstanding example of a biological computerised control system. As such, we shall consider the system”s software, i.e. the information determining its behaviour and performance, rather than its “hardware”, the latter being beyond the scope of a paper such as this; and so little attention will be given to neuroanatomy, although...

Our eye movements and their control: part 1 by Peter GurneySummary This is the first of two papers whose aim is to review briefly how our eyes move and how eye movements are controlled, as another example of awe-inspiring precision engineering by the Almighty. Evolution cannot begin to account for such coherent integrated complexity. This paper will consider the extraocular muscles and the mechanics of eye movements while the paper to follow will consider their cerebral control. For most of us who are fortunate enough to enjoy normal binocular vision, we perhaps give little thought to the wonder of what...

DHAKA (Reuters) - A Bangladeshi woman desperate for money after she was abandoned by her husband has offered to sell one of her eyes. "I desperately looked for a job to live with my two-and-half-year-old daughter, Meem," the woman, 26-year-old Shefali Begum, told Reuters Thursday at her slum dwelling in Dhaka. "But I could not find any ... and decided to sell one of my eyes. What do I do with both eyes while my daughter will die for want of milk and food?" Bangladeshi men have been known to advertise their kidneys for sale to generate cash, but Shefali...

Stanford physicists and eye doctors have teamed up to design a "bionic eye," of sorts.On Feb. 22 in the Journal of Neural Engineering, Daniel Palanker, Alexander Vankov and Phil Huie from the Department of Ophthalmology and the Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory and Stephen Baccus from the Department of Neurobiology published a design of an optoelectronic retinal prosthesis system that can stimulate the retina with resolution corresponding to a visual acuity of 20/80—sharp enough to orient yourself toward objects, recognize faces, read large fonts, watch TV and, perhaps most important, lead an independent life. The researchers hope their device may someday...

Man Shoots Eye With Nail Gun, Pulls It Out Construction Worker Accidentally Shoots Himself in the Eye With Nail Gun, Then Pulls It Out The Associated Press Mar. 4, 2005 - A construction worker accidentally shot himself in the eye with a nail gun and then pulled the 2 1/2-inch nail out of his face, according to a police report and a co-worker. Joseluis Franco, 19, was using an air-powered, Hitachi nail gun to help build a home Wednesday when a nail bounced back and lodged in his eye, crew leader Rogelio Ocampo said. Franco was nailing a two-by-four to...

"R&B singer Houston has reportedly attempted suicide by gouging out his eye while on tour in London. According to reports, Houston tried to jump off a balcony, but was stopped by his security detail. After he was prevented from leaping, he then was locked in a bathroom, where he gouged out one of his eyes. Last year, the Hip-Hop oriented singer scored a major hit in 'I Like That' with Nate Dogg and Chingy. Earlier this month, Houston was nominated for 'Best New R&B Artist' by the 2004 T M H Honors. Winners were supposed to be announced on Jan....

Democrats eye softer image on abortion Leaders urge more welcome for opponents By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff December 19, 2004 WASHINGTON -- Leading Democrats, stung by election losses, are signaling they want the party to embrace antiabortion voters and candidates, softening the image of the party from one fiercely defensive of abortion rights to one that acknowledges the moral and religious qualms some Americans have about the issue. House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat who is one of the most ardent supporters of abortion rights in Congress, has encouraged Tim Roemer, a former representative with a strong voting...

President’s daughter applies for job at D.C. public school First daughters Jenna Bush, left, and her twin sister Barbara, right, speak to supporters and volunteers at Bush-Cheney campaign headquarters in Miami earlier this year. Jenna Bush, one of President Bush's two daughters, has applied for a teaching position at a public school in Washington, D.C., according to a report in the Washington Post.The president’s daughter wants to teach at Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom Public Charter School in the Mount Pleasant/Columbia Heights neighborhood of the capital. The school serves low-income children and has 250 pupils enrolled in kindergarten through sixth...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

<p>PRING, Tex. - In front of her gated apartment complex, Courtney Payne, a 9-year-old fourth grader with dark hair pulled tightly into a ponytail, exits a yellow school bus. Moments later, her movement is observed by Alan Bragg, the local police chief, standing in a windowless control room more than a mile away.</p>

Darwin's greatest challenge tackled The mystery of eye evolution Researchers provide concrete evidence about how the human eye evolved When Darwin's skeptics attack his theory of evolution, they often focus on the eye. Darwin himself confessed that it was 'absurd' to propose that the human eye, an 'organ of extreme perfection and complication' evolved through spontaneous mutation and natural selection. But he also reasoned that "if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist" then this difficulty should be overcome. Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory [EMBL] have now...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Many herbal remedies and nutritional supplements can damage the eyes, including some alternative therapies that are used by people trying to correct eye problems, new research reports. According to a review of reported cases and medical literature, commonly used supplements including chamomile, ginkgo biloba, licorice, vitamin A and echinacea can cause a myriad of eye problems. Study author Dr. Frederick Fraunfelder explained that supplements become dangerous to the eyes when people take them in large doses. They can cause problems including severe conjunctivitis, eye irritation, retinal bleeding and temporary loss of vision, the study found....

Hurricane Frances Advisory Number 13 Statement as of 11:00 PM AST on August 27, 2004 ...Frances on track...eye getting larger... interests in the northern Lesser Antilles and the northeastern Caribbean Sea should closely monitor the progress of Frances over the next several days. At 11 PM AST...0300z...the center of Hurricane Frances was located near latitude 16.3 north... longitude 50.5 west or about 750 miles...1205 km... east of the Leeward Islands. Frances is moving toward the northwest near 12 mph...19 km/hr. A motion between northwest and west-northwest is expected for the next 24 hours or so. Maximum sustained winds are near...