eyes in Biological News

Our brain looks at eyes first to identify a face

A study by the University of Barcelona (UB) has analysed which facial features our brain examines to identify faces. Our brain adapts in order to obtain the maximum amount of information possible from each face and according to the study the key data for identification come from, in the first plac...

'The Vision Revolution': Eyes are the source of human 'superpowers'

Troy, N.Y. For Mark Changizi, it's all in the eyes. About half of the human brain is used for vision, and sight is the best understood and most thoroughly investigated of the five senses. This is why Changizi, a neurobiology expert and assistant professor in the Department of Cognitive Science...

Rice eyes risks of quantum dots

Quantum dots have the potential to bring many good things into the world: efficient solar power, targeted gene and drug delivery, solid-state lighting and advances in biomedical imaging among them. But they may pose hazards as well. A team of Rice researchers has been working to discover th...

Pain is in the eyes of the beholder

By manipulating the appearance of a chronically achy hand, researchers have found they could increase or decrease the pain and swelling in patients moving their symptomatic limbs. The findingsreported in the November 25th issue of Current Biology , a Cell Press publicationreveal a profound top-do...

Study says eyes evolved for X-Ray vision

Troy, N.Y. The advantage of using two eyes to see the world around us has long been associated solely with our capacity to see in 3-D. Now, a new study from a scientist at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has uncovered a truly eye-opening advantage to binocular vision: our ability to see through ...

New fossil tells twisted tale of how flatfishes ended up with two eyes on one side of head

CHICAGOA newly identified fossil and the reinterpretation of previously known fossils, all from Europe and about 50 million years old, fill in a "missing link" in the evolution of flatfishes and explain one of nature's most extraordinary phenomena. All living flatfishes, which include halibut, ...

All eyes and ears on the corn genome

A consortium of researchers led by the Genome Sequencing Center (GSC) at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., announced today the completion of a draft sequence of the corn genome. In the fall of 2005 the NSF, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department...

Zoologists challenge longstanding theory that 'eyespots' mimic the eyes of predators' enemies

Circular markings on creatures such as butterflies are effective against predators because they are conspicuous features, not because they mimic the eyes of the predators own enemies, according to research published today in the journal, Behavioral Ecology[1]. Zoologists based at the University of...

Looking through the eyes of a mouse, scientists monitor circulating cells in its bloodstream

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 A team of researchers from the Wellman Center for Photomedicine at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School (HMS) have developed an optical device that allows them to peer through the eyes of a mouse and monitor the cells passing through its bloodstream. ...

Monitoring water through a snake's eyes

Although most Americans take the safety of their drinking water for granted, that ordinary tap water could become deadly within minutes, says Prof. Abraham Katzir of Tel Aviv University's School of Physics and Astronomy. To combat the threat of contamination due to industrial spillage, natural ...

Behind closed eyes

Even when our eyes are closed, the visual centers in our brain are humming with activity. Weizmann Institute scientists and others have shown in the last few years that the magnitude of sense-related activity in a brain that's disengaged from seeing, touching, etc., is quite similar to that of one...

Spookfish uses mirrors for eyes

A remarkable new discovery shows the four-eyed spookfish to be the first vertebrate ever found to use mirrors, rather than lenses, to focus light in its eyes. Professor Julian Partridge from the University of Bristol, said: "In nearly 500 million years of vertebrate evolution, and many thousand...

Researchers create mathematical model of fruit fly eyes

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Many researchers have tried to create a mathematical model of how cells pack together to form tissue, but most models have many different complicated factors, and no model is universal. Researchers at Northwestern University have now created a functional equation -- using onl...

'The eyes have it' -- Autism research yields surprising results

Autistic children are able to interpret the mental state of others by looking at their eyes, contrary to previous research, a new University of Nottingham study has found. In findings that contradict previous studies, psychologists found that autistic children can ‘read?a stranger’s mental state ...

Blue eyes -- A clue to paternity

Before you request a paternity test, spend a few minutes looking at your child's eye color. It may just give you the answer you're looking for. According to Bruno Laeng and colleagues, from the University of Tromso, Norway, the human eye color reflects a simple, predictable and reliable genetic p...

Why Popeye only has eyes for spinach

Eating spinach could protect your eyes from the leading cause of blindness in western society, say experts at The University of Manchester. With the aid of a new eye instrument, they have launched a study to see if the vegetable that endows Popeye with his super-human strength could also explain...

A protein in the eye may prevent immune response and protect eyes from disease

Scientists at The Schepens Eye Research Institute have discovered that a protein known as F4/80 found on immune cells in the eye and other parts of the body may have a function in the regulation of the body's immune response and protect delicate tissues that cannot survive the "inflammation" inhere...

Toxic molecule may help birds 'see' north and south

...in a biochemical process involving the protein cryptochrome in a bird's eye. Cryptochrome is a blue-light photoreceptor found in plants and in the eyes of birds and other animals. Schulten was the first to propose (in 2000) that this protein was a key component of birds' geomagnetic sense, a proposal ...

New supplement may help slow sight loss in elderly

... the expensive treatments that are needed to deal with the condition. "Up to 500 people a year in Northern Ireland will lose sight in one or both eyes as a result of late AMD. "We wanted to carry out the study as prevention of progression to late AMD can result in a reduced financial and societal ...

7th annual [BC]2 Basel Computational Biology Conference 'Molecular Evolution' June 18-19, 2009

...er J. Gehring, opening the conference with a keynote lecture, "Evolution of eyes and Photoreceptors", is Professor at the Biozentrum of the University of Ba...same master control gene, that is, Pax6 can induce the formation of ectopic eyes in both insects and vertebrates, necessitates a reconsideration of the dogm...

Major breakthrough in early detection and prevention of AMD

...gy and inflammation program at the National Eye Institute. Ambati's research team was able to detect these same abnormal blood vessels in the living eyes of mice by attaching anti-CCR3 antibodies to tiny semiconductor nanocrystals called "quantum dots" and injecting these into the mice. The antibodies c...

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

...tellite GeoEye-2, which is expected to be launched around 2012 and would have a ground resolution twice as fine as GeoEye-1. These powerful public eyes in the sky have already had an impact. Madden says for instance, a researcher at the University of California, San Diego is using satellite imagery to...

Genital stimulation opens door for cryptic female choice in tsetse flies

... the 30-minute ritual during which the male rubs the underside of the female's abdomen with his hind legs, sings to her by buzzing his wings, rubs her eyes with his front legs, and so on. With Daniel Briceo, professor of biology at the University of Costa Rica, Eberhard modified male genital structures...

Dolphins maintain round-the-clock visual vigilance

...t the dolphins' vigilance while they continued listening to the repetitive beeps. Knowing that the dolphins' binocular vision is limited because their eyes are situated on opposite sides of their heads, Kamolnick trained one of the dolphins, SAY, to recognise two shapes (either three horizontal red bars o...

Some short-term memories die suddenly, no fading

... The human brain stores some kinds of memories for a lifetime. But when our eyes are open and looking at things, our gray matter also creates temporary memories that help us process complex tasks during the few seconds these visual...

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

... of these structures and discuss her plans to work out their physiological purpose. "We have already found many specializations and adaptations in the eyes and olfactory systems of deep-sea fishes; it is reasonable to think that their hearing should also be important in the dark," says Deng. The talk ...

When every photon counts

... This release is available in German . The eyes of nocturnal mammals contain particularly large numbers of the highly light-sensitive rods, the photoreceptor type used for night vision. This allows ...

CSHL-led team identifies key decision-point at which cells with broken DNA repair themselves or die

...lleagues identify a protein with the unlikely name eyes Absent, or EYA, as performing a critical role in s...rishnan, Ph.D., of the Tonks lab, showed that when eyes Absent was not present in damaged cells grown in c...eir structure, including that oddly named protein, eyes Absent. Why that one? As Tonks explains, "EYA is...

Stem cell therapy makes cloudy corneas clear, according to Pitt researchers

...'t trigger a rejection response when injected into eyes that are scarred and hazy, according to experiment...nts indicate that after stem cell treatment, mouse eyes that initially had corneal defects looked no different than mouse eyes that had never been damaged," Dr. Funderburgh said...

Two-day symposium in Baltimore to tackle the promises and perils of proton radiotherapy

... treatment of cancers of the lungs, skull, and prostate. The technology has proven particularly promising for treating small, shallow cancers near the eyes and spine, and for tumors in children, whose developing organs could be damaged by collateral damage. Speakers in a sister session will argue for ...

Mollusks taste memories to build shells

...ed by areas of inhibition. Local activation/lateral inhibition applies to many types of neuronal activity and underlies the extreme sensitivity of our eyes and visual system to edges the activation of cells at an edge inhibits neighboring cells, accentuating the discontinuity. Famed computer scientist...

Eye cells believed to be retinal stem cells are misidentified

... pluripotent stem cells could then be manipulated to develop into light-sensing photoreceptor cells that could then be transplanted into the patient's eyes to restore vision. "This approach would solve many problems of developing cell-based therapy for blindness," Dyer said. "First, these cells are imm...

Intruder alert: Tel Aviv University's 'Smart Dew' will find you!

...e would be so many tiny droplets over the monitored area that it would be impossible to find each and every one." Electronic Ears, Noses, Skin and eyes Unlike conventional alarm systems, each droplet of Smart Dew can be programmed to monitor a different condition. Sounds could be picked up by a mi...

New species of spiders discovered by UBC scientist in Papua New Guinea

... the Beaty Biodiversity Museum at UBC. Two of the jumping spiders' eight eyes have evolved to be large with high-resolution vision to spot prey. Female j...ays Maddison. "Jumping spiders with their remarkably miniaturized yet acute eyes could help us understand how to push the limits of vision. In addition to f...

New simulation shows consequences of a world without Earth's natural sunscreen

...ecades in the stratosphere before breaking down. In the 1980s, ozone-depleting substances opened a wintertime "hole" over Antarctica and opened the eyes of the world to the effects of human activity on the atmosphere. By 1987, the World Meteorological Organization and United Nations Environment Program...

MIT: Why we have difficulty recognizing faces in photo negatives

...nearly every normal lighting condition, a person's eyes appear darker than the forehead and cheeks. He the...in a third type of image in which the celebrities' eyes were restored to their original levels of luminanc...s because the light/dark relationships between the eyes and surrounding areas are the same as they would b...

Tall tale of giant stingray circles the globe

... RENO, Nev. If you couldn't believe your eyes when you saw the recent photo of a purported record-breaking 771-pound stingray, you may have been on to something. "While the photo is genuine a...

Interventional treatment can be recommended as first-line treatment for 'silent killer'

...y interventions were performed in 33 patients (7.2 percent), of which six (1.3 percent) were CT scan surveillance detected. "It is remarkable in my eyes that the 'silent killer,' abdominal aortic aneurysm, can be treated successfully by a minimally invasive procedure that eliminates the need to undergo...

Cats' eye diseases genetically linked to diseases in humans

...xcellent models because they have relatively large eyes that are comparable to those of human babies. The ...but develop early changes in the interior of their eyes by the time they are approximately 2 years old. Th...birth with severe changes in the interior of their eyes after only a couple of months. ...

DNA evidence is in, newly discovered species of fish dubbed H. psychedelica

...a year ago that the fish with rare, forward-facing eyes like humans and a secretive nature was the subject...47496 . The species has a flattened face with eyes directed forward. It's something Pietsch, with 40 ... in front, like it does in humans. Most fish, with eyes on either side of their head, don't have vision th...