Free Republic

Joe Paterno doesn't need glasses anymore. What will he get rid of next? The rolled-up pants? The Penn State football coach underwent eye surgery last month and said he no longer needs to wear his iconic, thick-lensed glasses. But Paterno, 83, told the Web site fightonstate.com Thursday that he had auxiliary pair made because he feels awkward without them

The Great Recession of 2008 and 2009 could be a turning point in history. It could be the event that shocks us into a new vision of ourselves, our past, our future, our mission, and our destiny. Or it could be the prelude to a long decline. Will that turning point be for better or for worse? Will it be a new beginning, a new opportunity to see what we've achieve with brand new eyes and to build on our foundations brilliantly? Or will it be the end? The beginning of the Chinese Century? The answer depends on something that...

A Glimpse into the Future By Norma Zager “Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parent, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers” Socrates(470-399 B.C.) Despite the constant egregious flow of rhetoric from our obnoxious politicians, the voice of reason occasionally emerges like a small flower through the weeds in surprising places. Last evening in my university classroom, I was taken by the fresh bloom emerging through the dense grass of our all-too-common uncivil social discourse. Although narcissistic politicians would have us all believe the American people condone their vision for future generations, I was quite hopeful to hear the...

To the surprise of the majority of Americans and the entire world, on 10/9/09 U.S. President Barak H. Obama was chosen to receive this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. It is no secret to any who follow politics or world events on the Right that the Nobel Peace Prize Foundation is an elitist, secular liberal body with a secular liberal utopian vision for the world and pushes a godless leftist agenda (Isaiah 30:1). The past recipients of this Award undoubtedy reveal this organization’s leftist leanings. All one has to do is to listen to President Obama’s acceptance speech today to understand...

These timeless words from the Bible have inspired mankind throughout the ages, reminding us of the necessity to think about the future and our role in it. As a parent, it's easy to forget the vision part as we are caught up in the "tyranny of the urgent" and the day-to-day challenges of raising children. Many overwhelmed parents institute a bunch of rules and routines to help get through each day. But don't mistake having a list of "dos" and "don'ts" for parenting - it's more like policing. Having rules without telling our children what they mean in context of...

Has anyone experienced this or heard of God giving someone much better eyesight where everything becomes much clearer temporarily? I am talking about physical eyesight. I mentioned this has happened to me many times at a ministry meeting this week and one person said it has happened to him once after a dream he believes was from God. I have experienced this after dreams, during fellowship with God, while in the Word of God, approximately 20 to 40 times in the last 25 years. Everything becomes clearer, crystal clear instantly. You can just see a lot better. My normal eyesight...

Congress is debating a bill that would open up oil and natural gas platforms just ten miles from portions of Florida's Gulf and Atlantic coasts. It's putting pressure on state lawmakers to decide how close is too close to search for new energy sources. As it stands, oil and natural gas exploration is limited to dozens of miles away from Florida's beaches and some in the state worry that allowing access just ten miles away, in Federal waters, puts Florida at risk environmentally without any of the financial windfalls.

People with a sunny outlook absorb more visual information from the outside world, proving that a positive attitude really can improve performance. Brain scans of volunteers shown a series of images found a good mood helped them see more while those who were down in the dumps suffered from tunnel vision. It is the first direct evidence showing how our mood literally changes the way our visual system filters our experience. Volunteers were shown a series of images designed to generate a good, bad or neutral mood while undergoing scans to examine how their brain responded. Professor Adam Anderson, psychologist...

LUCKNOW, India — At least 22 elderly people in northern India have lost vision in one or both of their eyes after undergoing free cataract surgery at a state-owned clinic, a government official said Wednesday. Health Minister Anant Kumar Singh said initial reports suggested they may have gone blind from infections caused by contaminated eye drops used during surgery. The case marks the second time in three months that mass blindness has been reported after free government surgeries in the impoverished state of Uttar Pradesh. Nine people went blind after treatment in December.

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...

A team of Johns Hopkins neuroscientists has worked out how some newly discovered light sensors in the eye detect light and communicate with the brain. The report appears online this week in Nature. These light sensors are a small number of nerve cells in the retina that contain melanopsin molecules. Unlike conventional light-sensing cells in the retina—rods and cones—melanopsin-containing cells are not used for seeing images; instead, they monitor light levels to adjust the body's clock and control constriction of the pupils in the eye, among other functions.

WASHINGTON — Scientists are testing artificial retinas that they hope can restore partial sight to people who've lost their vision to the most common causes of blindness.

The man, a doctor left blind by two successive strokes, refused to take part in the experiment. He could not see anything, he said, and had no interest in navigating an obstacle course — a cluttered hallway — for the benefit of science. Why bother? When he finally tried it, though, something remarkable happened. He zigzagged down the hall, sidestepping a garbage can, a tripod, a stack of paper and several boxes as if he could see everything clearly. A researcher shadowed him in case he stumbled. “You just had to see it to believe it,” said Beatrice de Gelder,...

We've seen small scale liquid lenses progress from concepts to commerical applications, and now Joshua Silver, a retired physics professor at Oxford University, has perfected what he calls "adaptive glasses," applying similar tech in a singular and ingenious way. Aimed at helping developing nations where glasses are expensive and doctors are often in short supply, Silver's spectacles are made of tough plastic with with silicone liquid in the lenses. When purchased, each lense will have a syringe attached to it, and the wearer will be able to adjust the amount of liquid in the lenses -- which essentially changes the...

George Washington's vision is recorded at the Library of Congress "This afternoon, as I was sitting at this table engaged in preparing a dispatch, something seemed to disturb me. Looking up, I beheld standing opposite me a singularly beautiful female. So astonished was I, for I had given strict orders not to be disturbed, that it was some moments before I found language to inquire the cause of her presence. A second, a third and even a fourth time did I repeat my question, but received no answer from my mysterious visitor except a slight raising of her eyes. "By...

A Florida tourism group has dropped its long-standing opposition to offshore oil and gas drilling, saying that a cheap national fuel supply would trigger a boom for the Sunshine State's No. 1 industry. When gasoline prices skyrocketed to more than $4 per gallon this summer tourist spots such as Florida suffered, as would-be vacationers stayed home. So in response, the Florida Association of Convention and Visitors Bureaus (FACVB) has adopted a new policy that encourages a "comprehensive, long-term energy policy" that includes increased oil and natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico along Florida's coast.

Where our line of sight hits the horizon is the distance from our boat to the horizon. A small boat first coming into view is assumed to be at that distance. In the picture above, the sailor cannot see the island's palm trees. If an object, such as a large ship or a palm tree on an island, sticks up well above the water, we can see it from a further distance. Here is how we can calculate how far we can see from a boat on the sea. First let's assume that we are sitting in the cockpit of...

ScienceDaily (Aug. 5, 2008) — A growing number of the world's children are mildly to severely nearsighted (myopic), with rates especially high among urbanized East Asians. In addition to coping with poor distance vision, children with severe myopia are more prone to visual impairment and blindness later in life. Although genetic inheritance plays a role, the rapid rise of myopia suggests that environmental factors are driving the trend. Myopia usually begins and progresses during children's school years, but research on the role of intensive reading or other "near work" has determined that this is a minor factor. A new study...

What would you do if you had the bully pulpit? What policies would you promote. What are the best ways to preserve the US and make the world a better place for our children? This is obviously a vanity, but there is a wide range of opinion represented here and clearly not enough vision is coming out of our elected government. What would you do?

MOUNTAIN HOME, Ark. — When 9-year-old Kacie Sallee saw her father's face more clearly for the first time in her life, she had a question. "She said, 'Is that what he looks like?'" said her mother, Marinda Sallee. Kacie, who is blind, returned last week from China, where she received umbilical-cord stem cell treatment in hopes of improving her eyesight. The nearly four-week trip and medical treatment was paid through $60,000 in local donations. Kacie was born with septo-optic dysplasia, an underdevelopment of the optic nerve and pituitary gland. She could see bright colors out of her right eye but...