lens in Biological News

DOE-funded research projects win 46 R&D 100 Awards for 2009

... devices in the same way a high-performance lens improves a camera's output. When combined with an ... Nev.) High-Resolution UV Holography lens - The lens will help scientists measure the size and ...

Illuminating biology: An evolutionary perspective

... Sharing and Evolution: Surprising Lessons from lens Crystallins Piatigorsky's lab has developed ... of "gene sharing" through their studies on lens crystallins, abundant water-soluble proteins of the transparent lens responsible for its optical, refractive ...

Telescope embedded in glasses lens promises to make driving easier for visually impaired

... is mounted through the top of the regular lens or above the frame. In both cases, the telescopic ... time, looking through the regular spectacle lens most of the time. While these bioptic ... To embed the whole telescope inside the spectacle lens they had to obtain the magnifying power from ...

Self-moisturizing contact lenses, naturally

... acid can be entrapped in existing contact lens material without affecting optical properties. ... the build up of proteins which can cloudy contact lens material, the cause of up to 30 per cent of all after-care visits by contact lens wearers to optometrists. [That's one less ...

Stanford researchers developing 3-D camera with 12,616 lenses

... The camera you own has one main lens and produces a flat, two-dimensional photograph, ... pixels each, and theyre preparing to place a tiny lens atop each array. Its like having a lot of ... now on phones. Heres how it works: The main lens (also known as the objective lens) of an ordinary ...

Structure of protective protein in the eye lens revealed

... The human eye lens consists of a highly concentrated mix of several proteins. Protective ... from aggregating and clumping. If this protective function fails, the lens blurs and the patient develops cataracts. Two research groups at the ...

Lensless camera uses X-rays to view nanoscale materials and biological specimens

... of the object, but their resolution has traditionally been limited by lens technology. The new lensless technique being developed at Argonne avoids this limitation. There is no lens involved at all, said Ian McNulty, the lead Argonne author on a new ...

American Chemical Society's Weekly PressPac -- Aug. 8, 2007

... journal. Such surgery corrects the vision loss that occurs when the lens of the eye becomes clouded. Christine Jr me and colleagues report ... states. During the operation, a small incision in the front of the lens capsular bag is used to remove the clouded crystalline lens. The IOL is ...

Jet-propelled imaging for an ultrafast light source

... Perhaps simpler is to use the ever-increasing power of the computer which for a lensless imaging system is where most of the functions of a lens reside. Computer systems have been developed that infer the orientation of the sample from the diffraction pattern itself, even when as few as four ...

Ecological Society of America announces 2009 award recipients

... biogeography, Hubbell's wide-ranging research career has investigated tropical biodiversity, sexual selection and resource competition through the lens of theoretical ecology. He has written three books and more than 160 scientific papers, and his work has received more than 60 National Science ...

Healing wounds with lasers, vehicles that drive themselves, other cutting-edge optics

... in the world. From its vantage point of 425 miles in space, the 4,300-pound GeoEye-1 satellite orbits the Earth and focuses its powerful lens on the surface below, snapping electronic images that can resolve objects on the ground as small as 41 cm across (16 inches). That's approximately ...

Laughing hyenas, wailing levees, the sound of cheese and blaring bagpipes

... volume of water. This optical compression happens because the intense laser light changes the properties of water so that it acts like a focusing lens and because slightly different colors of the laser travel at different speeds in water. The resulting explosion of steam it creates can generate a ...

No hiding place for infecting bacteria

... to build a protective biofilm making these infections very difficult to treat. P. aeruginosa biofilms cause disease in burns, wounds, contact lens infections and are particularly prevalent in the lungs of cystic fibrosis patients. "We specifically targeted the F-actin protein with a ...

Suppressing cancer with a master control gene

... from each other, until in an adult almost all cells are highly specialized to perform a specific function skin cells, liver cells, eye lens cells, nerve cells, etc. Cancer is a collection of cells without a function, which grow when normal genetic controls of cell division are ....

New York, Florida schools win awards at national student competition

... 2237. A hand-held "Personal Education Device," or PED, is the featured element of Farnsworth's communications system. The PED utilizes a contact lens to reconstruct important events into a video to help students learn. In addition, students can go on virtual field trips through holographic imaging. ...

2 genes influence social behavior, visual-spatial performance in people with Williams syndrome

... page (see figure). This strange mix of mental peaks and valleys drew Korenberg and Bellugi to the disorder. "Williams syndrome presents a unique lens for discovering the how genes form the brain circuitry responsible for human behavior," explains Korenberg. This prompted Korenberg's collaboration ...

What we don’t know still hurts us, environmental researchers warn

... in the years to come. A worldwide 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment enlisted hundreds of scientists to develop a view of ecosystems through the lens of services those ecosystems provide humanity, said Thomas Dietz, director of the MSU Environmental Science and Policy Program and professor in ...

Spookfish uses mirrors for eyes

... mirror's curved surface is perfect for focusing reflected light onto the fish's retina. The use of a single mirror has a distinct advantage over a lens in its potential to produce bright, high-contrast images. That must give the fish a great advantage in the deep sea, where the ability to spot even ...

Zoologists: Sea snakes seek out freshwater to slake thirst

... why some seawater lagoons, where the waters are calmer due to protection from reefs, are home to dense populations of sea snakes the freshwater lens persists for longer periods before mixing into saltwater. Rather than helping sea snakes gain water, the snakes' salt gland may help the snakes ...

Smart contact lenses

... that it could function as a simple pressure sensor. Glaucoma, a build-up of pressure in the eye, is a leading cause of blindness worldwide. A contact lens that could continuously measure pressure within the eye and relay the data to a computer would allow doctors to learn more about glaucoma and improve ...

Saltwater sleuths: Seeking clues to help determine the ages of fish and shellfish populations

... Fishery biologist Sandy Sutherland looks through the lens of the microscope at tiny sections of fish earbones, known as otoliths, each showing annual bands of growth. She carefully counts the bands to ...

St. Jude defines eye cancer gene's role in retinal development

... N-myc coordinates the growth of the retina and other eye structures to ensure the retina has the proper thickness necessary to convert light from the lens into nerve impulses that the brain transforms into images. Until their study, reported in the Jan. 15 issue of Genes & Development, almost nothing ...

Accu-Time Systems, Inc. Announces Launch of Next Generation Human Capital Management (HCM) solutions: Global Series(TM)

... devices (badge, proximity, smartcard and biometric readers), memory, and displays. In addition, it utilizes a customizable keypad overlay and display lens that allows for customer-specified graphics which creates a unique branding opportunity. Maximus is designed to be extremely easy to deploy, ...

The conservation lens

... have provided the theme for guided field tours involving ecotourists, government authorities, school teachers and others. The tourism with a hand lens and the miniature forests of Cape Horn tour programs proved a great success, says Rozzi. Activities at the Reserve have combined scientific ...

UD leads $5.3-million research project on rice epigenetics

... to acquire a comprehensive picture at fine detail, Meyers said. It's like looking through a high-powered telescope--but now we have a wide-angle lens on that telescope to take in a view with both breadth and depth. Besides studying the state of the genome using a variety of different strains of ...

UD leads $5.3-million research project on rice epigenetics

... to acquire a comprehensive picture at fine detail, Meyers said. It's like looking through a high-powered telescope--but now we have a wide-angle lens on that telescope to take in a view with both breadth and depth. Besides studying the state of the genome using a variety of different strains of ...

Migrating squid drove evolution of sonar in whales and dolphins, researchers argue

... fossil skeletons do not have the scooped forehead of today's echolocating whales, which cups a fatty melon-shaped ball that is thought to act as a lens to focus clicking noises. Skulls with the first hints of a concave forehead and potential sound-generating bone structures arose about 32 million ...

Restoring sight, advances in fertility treatments and better visibility for pilots at FIO

... of more desirable faster from slower sperm. Shao's team used special cone-shaped lenses called "axicons," which, when combined with a standard lens and a laser, form a ring-shaped focus (an annular laser trap). Such an arrangement has been used for laser machining as well as for trapping atoms. ...

Key gene controlling eye lens development identified

... of the earliest critical regulators controlling lens development in the eye of the mammalian embryo. ... to remove Six3 activity from the presumptive lens ectoderm (PLE)--the area of the developing head where the lens will ultimately form in response to a series of ...

First human trial of antibacterial contact lens

... safety performance of an antibacterial contact lens to that of a standard contact lens. The ... involving ten people will evaluate eye health, lens performance on the eye and wearers' subjective ... can cause blindness, occurs in one in 500 contact lens wearers per year if they sleep in lenses. There ...

New 'implanted contacts' designed to fix nearsightedness

... in the area to insert a new type of implanted lens to fix nearsightedness. "Think of it as a contact lens inside your eye," said Dr. Wayne Bowman , who is ... placing the specially fitted artificial lens in front of the eye's natural lens, rather than ...

Insight into our sight: A new view on the evolution of the eye lens

... of special proteins called crystallins found in lens cells. Fish, frogs, birds and mammals all ... an image. This has lead to the view that the lens evolved within the vertebrates early in ... that also respond to the factors that control lens development in vertebrates: The researchers ...

Scientists focus on 'dwarf eye'

... growing, which changes the distance between the lens and the retina, the light-detecting layer of ... Once the retina is the right distance from the lens for proper focus of images on the retina, a ... the retina is too close to the lens, but the lens and cornea, the eye's outermost layer, are of ...

Artificial cornea offers better results for infants, some blind patients

... the recent studies of infants and adults, is about the size of a contact lens and is sewn into the patient's eyeball with a piece of donor tissue to ... than previous designs. The latest procedure also includes a large contact lens placed over the cornea to help protect it from inflammation and scarring. ...

An artificial cornea is in sight, thanks to biomimetic hydrogels

... the "homes" he built for cells that need to infiltrate the artificial lens and integrate it with surrounding natural tissue. "If you build it, ... layer can be scraped away and replaced with a hydrogel contact lens. The lens becomes biointegrated when clear epithelial cells grow over the top of the ...

Researchers publish first marsupial genome sequence

... kangaroos. "Marsupials are the closest living relatives of placental mammals. Because of this relationship, the opossum genome offers a unique lens though which to view the evolution of our own genome," said Kirstin Lindblad-Toh, Ph.D., co-director of the Broad Institute's genome sequencing and ...

Leading reason for corneal transplants comes into focus

... for corneal transplantation in the United States. In one form or another, FCD's trademark deterioration of the cells covering the clear, outermost lens of the eye affects more than 4 percent of the population over 40. Late in life, the dystrophy causes swelling of the cornea and can severely affect ...

Inheriting a tendency to brain infection

... one copy of the mutation to show the predisposition. In his opinion, scientists will increasingly need to view common infectious diseases through the lens of such primary immunodeficiencies. "Understanding the genetic basis of the failure of the immune system should make it possible to devise novel ...

Toxic molecule may cause most common type of muscular dystrophy

... of body, Mahadevan said. Rather, it is produced in higher levels in muscle cells, in the heart and brain, in the lining of the intestines and in the lens and muscles of the eyes. ...