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People with blue eyes have a single, common ancestor, according to new research. A team of scientists has tracked down a genetic mutation that leads to blue eyes. The mutation occurred between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago, so before then, there were no blue eyes. "Originally, we all had brown eyes," said Hans Eiberg from the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Copenhagen. The mutation affected the so-called OCA2 gene, which is involved in the production of melanin, the pigment that gives color to our hair, eyes and skin. "A genetic mutation affecting the OCA2 gene...

KIRKUK, Iraq, Jan. 31, 2008 – They are known as the “commander's eyes on the battlefield.” Coalition forces have used them to find roadside bombs, track the enemy’s movement, clear convoy routes and locate key targets -- all without having to leave the relative safety of their bases. Army Sgt. 1st Class Nicholas Thornthwaite and Army Spc. William Arms, with the 10th Mountain Division's 1st Brigade Special Troops Battalion; and Dave Hill, a civilian field representative for Aircraft Armaments Inc., prepares a Shadow 200 unmanned aircraft system for launch. The unit has used the Shadow to monitor the battlefield...

January 22, 2008 It’s not often in this era of rampant technological innovation that a fundamentally new concept surfaces – with almost no limitations to what can be achieved with the myriad new technologies coming to market over the last few years, fundamentally new ideas of this magnitude are becoming increasingly rare, much less technologies with groundbreaking societal implications. Such a technology emerged this week when it was announced that engineers at the University of Washington have used microscopic scale manufacturing techniques to combine a flexible contact lens with an imprinted electronic circuit and lights. Though in its infancy, the...

AL ASAD, Iraq (Nov. 6, 2007) -- Being able to see and assess a situation in a combat environment is essential for success. Sometimes service members wish they had an extra pair of eyes, or eyes on the back of their heads. Thanks to one unit, the Al Qaim ground units have an extra pair of eyes. Those extra eyes are provided by the Marines and civilians that analyze information and operate the Scan Eagles flown by Marine Unarmed Aerial Squadron 2, Detachment B. “The basic mission here is to provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support via the Scan Eagle...

London, England (LifeNews.com) -- British scientists hope to use embryonic stem cells to cure blind patients age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of blindness among elderly people. However, other doctors have already used adult stem cell research to treat blind patients and their conditions have vastly improved. Retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells within the eye play a vital role in the survival and maintenance of the rods and cones that detect light and color. Death of RPE cells may lead to the condition known as AMD. The British researchers hope to develop the embryonic stem cells, which can only...

Cincinnati - Adult bone marrow stem cells may help cure certain genetic eye diseases, according to UC researchers. Scientists have completed a study using mice which showed that bone marrow stem cells can switch roles and produce keratocan, a natural protein involved in the growth of the cornea—the transparent, outer layer of the eyeball. This ability of marrow cells to “differentiate” into keratocan-producing cells might provide a means for treating abnormal corneal cell growth in people. Winston Whei-Yang Kao, PhD, professor of ophthalmology, and Hongshan Liu, PhD, research scientist in the department of ophthalmology, will present their findings at the...

Shifty eyes may be a sign of good memory By Roger Highfield, Science Editor Last Updated: 11:41pm BST 04/05/2007 Moving your eyes from side to side for 30 seconds can boost your power of recall, researchers say. Horizontal eye wiggles are thought to cause the two hemispheres of the brain to interact more, improving the ability to retrieve memories. Scientists at Manchester Metropolitan University found people who made horizontal eye movements recognised significantly more previously studied words than subjects who did not make such eye movements. They also had fewer errors in their recall. Dr Andrew Parker, whose findings are...

MELBOURNE, April 18, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A man's vision has been restored by a corneal patch grown from adult stem cells by a team at the University of Melbourne's Centre for Eye Research Australia (CERA) and the Bernard O'Brien Institute of Microsurgery (BOBIM). The patch, which replicates the cornea, was cultivated from a single stem cell from a donor eye and was transplanted to the surface of the man's eyes. The research team was led by Dr Mark Daniell (CERA) and Dr Erik Thompson (BOBIM). The process, known as a limbal stem cell transplant, is thought to be the first...

Reindeer Change Their Eyes for Summer and Winter, Study Finds James Owen for National Geographic News March 13, 2007 Reindeer have a different set of eyes for summer and winter, a new study suggests. Scientists say the animals change their eye color and structure with the seasons in Arctic regions where permanent summer sunlight is replaced by 24-hour darkness in winter. The visual alterations appear to be an adaptation to deal with polar light extremes, according to the researchers from Norway and the U.K., who add that the phenomenon has never before been recorded in mammals. The researchers studied reindeer...

GALVESTON — Technology developed to keep track of prisoners by scanning their irises became available Thursday to identify missing children or elderly people afflicted with Alzheimer's disease in Galveston County. The Galveston County Sheriff's Department is the first sheriff's department in Texas and the 47th nationwide to join the Children's Identification Database, or CHILD Project. The addition of Galveston County is part of an effort to image the irises of 5 million children into a nationwide database over the next few years, said Robert Melley, vice president and CEO of Biometric Intelligence & Identification. "We have 1,800 sheriff's departments representing...

Transplant of limbal stem cells offers hope to patients with corneal disorders. Photo: K. GopinathanUnique capacity: A part of the eye constantly renews itself.CAN you imagine a part of your eye that constantly renews itself for the whole of your life? Half the cells are replaced every two months under normal conditions. The cells replicate fast and move across the surface at an incredible speed of 60 to 80 mm per hour. These are the properties of the Corneal epithelium — the outermost layer, or "skin" of your cornea, composed of five to six layers of specialised cells that...

Iran Press News: The inhumane judiciary of the Islamic regime in Mashhad issued an order to have a defandants’ eyeballs removed as punishment.The regime-run newspaper GHODS in its Tuesday, September 26th issue wrote: "The criminal court of Khorasan-Razavi province sentenced a man to have his eyeballs removed. His name is Amir. The order has been issued via branch 6 of the Mashhad court and will be carried out soon."

LONDON - Four men arrested on suspicion of organizing terrorist training camps in Britain were tracked by Spanish investigators earlier this year as they traveled through Spain from France en route to North Africa, officials said Monday. The statement from Spain's interior ministry was the first public indication of an international link to the probe, which led to the arrests late Friday and early Saturday of 14 people suspected of training and recruiting for terror attacks. British prosecutors, meanwhile, said eight other people allegedly involved in a separate plot to blow up U.S.-bound aircraft are unlikely to be brought to...

Like tiny automatons, the cells that form a fish embryo's eyes are chemically programmed to individually amass at the site where the eyes will develop, according to a new study that contradicts traditional views of how organs develop before birth. The study was done only on fish eyes and might or might not apply to humans. "We think organs might be forming by the individual movement of cells," says Martina Rembold, of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory and the study's lead author. Scientists previously thought that the eyes formed as cells at the sides of the tube-like structure that eventually...

Overweight and obese people should be aware that their unhealthy lifestyle could put their eyesight at risk, scientists say. It is common knowledge that expanding waistlines are linked to conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer. But research shows that obesity is also linked to eye problems, which could lead to loss of eyesight. Two Israeli ophthalmologists are now warning that the prospect of eye disease should also be a powerful incentive to lose weight. Professor Michael Belkin and Dr Zohar Habot-Wilner, from the Goldschleger Eye Institute at the Sheba Medical Centre, reviewed more than 20 studies involving thousands...

NEW DELHI: Age-related degeneration of vision has been a common problem, which so far has no cure. However, an ongoing stem cell study at AIIMS might just provide a solution. For about six months now, Dr Rajender Prasad Centre for Opthalmic Sciences at AIIMS has been studying the effect of stem cells in patients who suffer from degenerative vision disorders — the patients taken in the Phase I of study can’t see beyond 3 metre and according to the WHO classification are termed ‘blind’. The study is being conducted on patients who have age-related vision loss or are affected by...

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...

Col. Ra'ad, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 2nd Division Iraqi Army commander, leads American Soldiers through one of the few excavated areas in the Hatra ruins July 14. Ra'ad, whose brother-in-law work on the site in the 1970s, gave his endorsement to a coalition iniative to build a protective fence around the 2,000-year-old site to keep out looters. Story and photo by Sgt. Rachel Brune101st Sustainment Brigade,101st Airborne Division AL HADR -- Even as he is mired in the present concerns of coordinating logistics for Q-West Base Complex, Capt. Jesse Ballenger, 153rd Field Artillery Brigade, has one eye on the future,...

CENTRAL COMMAND THEATER OF OPERATION (July 11, 2006) -- Marines serving with Battalion Landing Team 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable), trained with the X-63 “Dragon-Eye” unmanned aerial vehicle June 11, as part of a training exercise in the Central Command theater of operation. The bungee-cord-launched “Dragon-Eye” provides organic aerial reconnaissance and surveillance at the small-unit level, giving Marine units the opportunity to observe real-time enemy movements beyond their traditional capacity. Whisper-quiet and weighing less than five pounds, the “Dragon-Eye” is able to navigate pre-assigned waypoints via a global positioning system while transmitting data...

The feeling of being watched makes people act more honestly, even if the eyes are not real, a study suggests. A Newcastle University team monitored how much money people put in a canteen "honesty box" when buying a drink. They found people put nearly three times as much in when a poster of a pair of eyes was put above the box than when the poster showed flowers. The brain responds to images of eyes and faces and the poster may have given the feeling of being watched, they say. Writing in the journal Biology Letters, the team says the...