Plastic Cornea Restores Vision to Blind Dog
	It is said that dogs live in a world of scents. Imagine that, in humans, the olfactory mucosa is about 10 square centimeters, and in dogs of 150! Their hearing is also sharper than ours and they detect ultrasounds (the bats' sonar must be a nightmare for them). But this does not mean vision is not important for them. Dixie, a 7-year-old Mountain Cur from Runnells, Iowa, became less active and adventurous since she went blind. Now, ... [read more >>]
	14 May 2008, 16:41GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Fly-Inspired Robot Eyes Are Faster and More Accurate
	For most of us, a fly is a pest but, it turns out, its eyes could revolutionize robot vision (employed for unmanned vehicles, guided missiles, and high-speed industrial inspection robots in medical, commercial, industrial, and defense areas), improving and speeding up the detection of edges and boundaries of objects situated far beyond the capacities of traditional sensors – as is the case with tiny, moving objects. A team from the Nava ... [read more >>]
	12 May 2008, 04:21GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Colossal Squid Could Grow to 1,600 Pounds (750 Kg)
	The analysis of the largest colossal squid ever caught (and largest invertebrate ever captured) has provided some first spectacular results - this is also the largest invertebrate species known to have ever existed. In February 2007, a New Zealand fishing crew off the coast of Antarctica (in the northern Ross Sea), that was out fishing Patagonian toothfish (Chilean sea bass), accidentally caught the 1,089-pound (490 kg), 26-ft (8.6 m) long ... [read more >>]
	05 May 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How Birds See the Earth's Magnetic Field
	Earth's magnetic field is known to influence the behavior of living creatures, from bacteria to plants and animals. Fish (including sharks), whales, dolphins, bats, sea turtles and birds, many animal species are known to detect the magnetic field of the planet. A new research published in the Sc ... [read more >>]
	05 May 2008, 04:29GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Largest Animal Eye: 11 in (28 cm) in Diameter
	Squids and their relatives, cuttlefish and octopuses, have the most complex eyes in the invertebrate world, closely resembling in structure the eyes of vertebrates. On top of that, the eyes of these animals are relatively large compared to their size. These things considered, it’s no wonder that the examination that started last week, of the largest colossal squid ever caught (and largest invertebrate ever captured) has revea ... [read more >>]
	05 May 2008, 02:47GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Pioneering Bionic Eye Implants
	We are stepping into the era of science-fiction technologies very fast. The first advanced "bionic eyes" have been implanted in the UK at the Moorfields Eye Hospital in London, during two successful surgeries. The pioneering bionic eye comprises a wireless video camera and transmitter mounted on a pair of glasses. The minicamera transmits images to a cellphone-sized computer in the patient's pocket. This wirel ... [read more >>]
	23 April 2008, 14:11GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How Blue or Green Eyes Appeared
	Blue or almost black, slate-gray, golden or violet or fainted green. Our eye color depends on that of our parents or grandparents. This is one of the strictest genetically inherited traits. No matter the hues, eyes are divided in two types depending on their color: dark (brown or black) and light (blue or green). The eye color is given by the amount of melanin, the same pigment from hair and skin. The higher the melanin amount, the dar ... [read more >>]
	04 April 2008, 21:21GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

New Type of Vision: It Detects Circular Polarized Light
	There are various types of vision, from the one detecting visible light to the others detecting ultraviolet light and linear polarized light. A new research published in the journal "Current Biology" describes a fourth type of vision never seen before in any animal: mantis shrimps (Stomatopods), a type of sea crustaceans, detect circular polarized light. Stomatopods, which are not real shrimps, are characterized by their vivid co ... [read more >>]
	21 March 2008, 03:54GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How Does Your Computer Impact Your Health?
	Your life is made of web chatting, navigation, PC games and the list is endless. Some spend hours and even days without moving from the front of the computer; shower and food are skipped and only physiological needs force them for a few seconds out. But do you think that so much staring at a computer screen does not affect you? Here is just a part of the effect: the "computer vision syndrome" comprising tired dry eyes, blurred vi ... [read more >>]
	19 March 2008, 15:51GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Formula for the Perfect Woman
	Let's get rid of foolish misconceptions: no, men don't look for intelligent women! What they want, and most of us know it, is a blue-eyed, blond-haired woman who gains less than her boyfriend or husband, not touching this way his masculine pride (now we know why we don't find Paris attractive). The latest research, carried out by the online dating site ukdating.com, was made on a poll of 66,000 men, who appeared to be ea ... [read more >>]
	17 March 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

World's First Eyeball Tattoo!
	Skin tattoos are obsolete. Even savage tribes in the jungle can do them. But this new tattoo reinforces the idea that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Imagination gone wild (or wrong?) has come with the world's first ever eyeball tattoo. Now, those dreaming on having blue eyes can do it. The procedure changed the volunteer's eye blue following 40 insertions of the needle. The blue ink was mixed with antibiotic ... [read more >>]
	29 February 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Viagra Can Make You See in Blue!
	Since it was launched in 1998, Viagra has been consumed by over 20 million men just as a prescription. Many others, especially young, take it for fun. This should be the last resort. And its use must be carefully controlled. The side effects of the Viagra can be very nasty. Studies show that sildenafil (the active ingredient of Viagra) and similar chemicals (like tadalafil from Cialis and vardenadil from Levitra) damage the i ... [read more >>]
	28 February 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

See the Cyclops Child!
	You may think that cyclopes are found only in ancient Greek legends and myths. But the reality can beat the fiction. In 2006, medics at Kasturba Gandhi Hospital for Women and Children in Chennai, India, witnessed the birth of this cyclops child. The cause was not found, but Cyclopamine, a drug believed to be a powerful anti-carcinogenic chemical, was the main suspect. The couple turned to IVF treatment because of failing ... [read more >>]
	25 February 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Solar Cells of the Future Will Mimic Moth Eyes!
	The idea of solar cells is so cool! They would come with such cheap energy, and everybody would be a Captain Planet fighting pollution. But what many people still do not understand is that they are so inefficient at this moment. A new research published in "Applied Physics Letters" could come with a step further to the moment when solar energy will be most of the energy we use daily. "Some of that inefficiency is due to ... [read more >>]
	23 February 2008, 06:33GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

A Two-Faced Cat!
	Another freak in the gallery of odd cats: a two-faced one! They may live nine lives, but with a face from SF movies. Renee Cook of Amarillo, Texas, got a real shock when her three-year-old Persian and Calico mix cat Amber delivered this two-faced kitten. "I picked it up and said, 'Oh my goodness, two faces'. I thought it was dead at first because it was cold. But then it started to wiggle and it kept wiggling a ... [read more >>]
	21 February 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How Can Your Brain Be Fooled to See What You Believe
	We already know, at least from the movies, that human witnesses are not always reliable. This new research made by a team at the UCL (University College London) and published in the journal "PLoS Computational Biology" has encountered a connection between what we expect to see and what our brain actually records, when reality is different. It appears that the context surrounding what we see, in many cases, results to sh ... [read more >>]
	20 February 2008, 02:49GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How Do We Perceive a Stable World While Our Eyes Are Moving?
	Have you ever wondered how we can see a still image of the environment, while constantly shifting our gaze? A new research carried out at the University of Münster, Germany, and published in "PLoS Comput Biol" shows that this shift in attention induces a short compression of visual space. The team has found a model of brain function using eye movement signals to create a cerebral representation of objects placed at ... [read more >>]
	19 February 2008, 04:48GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

4 Amazing Bat Senses
	1. In the depths of the caves, where current airs, temperature and humidity are practically constant, bats seem to know exactly when it's time to go hunting. In fact, when atmospheric pressure decreases (before a rainfall), the insects gather at low altitude and are easier to be preyed. The atmospheric pressure varies both inside and outside the grottoes inhabited by bats. Bats know that low atmospheric pressure means more food and th ... [read more >>]
	02 February 2008, 07:19GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Lens of the Eyes Can Be Read to Tell Your Age!
	The age of trees or fish is not the only one that can be determined through the analysis of specific elements, like growth rings or scales. A radiocarbon dating technique can use special proteins in the crystalline lens of the eye for determining a person's age. The method developed by a team at the University of Copenhagen and Aarhus and published in the journal 'PLoS ONE" can determine with high precision when you were b ... [read more >>]
	31 January 2008, 05:50GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Blue Eyes: A Mutation Appeared 10,000 Years Ago!
	Nature played with one of our ancestors, and it caused the blue eye color to appear; and now, women are in love with the blue eyes of Brad Pitt and men with those of Kristanna Loken. And that ancestor lived 6,000-10,000 years ago, as found by a research carried out at the University of Copenhagen. "Originally, we all had brown eyes. But a genetic mutation affecting the OCA2 gene in our chromosomes resulted in the creation of a � ... [read more >>]
	31 January 2008, 03:46GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

New Lenses Give Superhuman Vision and Immerse You Into a Virtual World!
	One day you could say "Hasta la vista, baby!" while zooming in on far-off scenes. Virtual displays could correct vision-impairment, drive holographic control panels and could be even a mean of navigating the Web. A team at the University of Washington could bring to reality this SF technology, operating at microscopic scales to add to contact lens an imprinted electronic circuit and lights. "Looking throug ... [read more >>]
	18 January 2008, 03:01GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Smoking Causes Blindness!
	Four million people die annually because of diseases caused by tobacco smoking, one person every 8 seconds. Tobacco smoking is the main cause of diseases worldwide and if the current tendency is maintained, by 2020, smoking will kill more persons than AIDS, tuberculosis, maternal mortality, car accidents, suicides and murder, as 35 % of the adults worldwide smoke. The risk for a smoker to die because of smoking is 50 %. The habit has b ... [read more >>]
	15 January 2008, 04:56GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How Are Animated Cartoons Made?
	The original animation was a kid toy, a book whose leaves could be scrolled rapidly. On each page there were figures slightly different from the previous ones, and through the rapid scrolling they merged one with the other. It was an optic illusion. Modern technology is much more evolved, but it works on the same principle: static images presented rapidly and successively. Using a camera, any object can be animated, from plasticine fig ... [read more >>]
	12 January 2008, 05:26GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

11 Amazing Facts and Myths About Eyes
	1.About 80 % of what we perceive comes through the eyes. Our memories are made 80 % by images. The eye comes with information about the depth, distance, shape, color and movement of the objects. 2.The human eye is one of nature's wonders and functions like a photo camera. Only that is much more complex. An adult eye has about 24 mm (1 inch) in diameter and about 12 million photoreceptors (light sensitive cells) and six muscl ... [read more >>]
	27 December 2007, 16:56GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Eyes Replacing ID Cards: Soon, Iris Scanning Will Be a Reality
	Not only Tom Cruise could praise with this. What you've seen in movies, like "Minority report" and other fiction films, could turn into reality. "It is not science fiction to think that our eyes could very soon be the key to unlocking our homes, accessing our bank accounts and logging on to our computers", said researcher Sammy Phang, of Queensland University of Technology. Her team at QUT's Fa ... [read more >>]
	17 December 2007, 02:41GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How Do Most People Get Blind?
	The cataract represents an opacity of the crystallin lens produced by the accumulation of insoluble proteins. A teenager's lens contains 3 % of those proteins, while in a person in his/her 80's it can form 40 % of the proteins. This is the main cause of blurred vision and blindness worldwide. Today, in 10 minutes, the opaque lens can be substituted by an artificial implant and annually 5 million people do this. Now, ... [read more >>]
	12 November 2007, 06:20GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

What Does a Dog See At Night?
	Dogs have evolved from wolves. And wolves are nocturnal predators; you can see that very well by analyzing the behavior of stray dog packs. The same dogs that seem very quiet and calm during the day will attack any human passing through their "territory" at night. Indeed, at night or in a forest, eyesight does not help much during the hunt, but smell does. Dogs "see" a world of smells. In humans, the olfactory mucos ... [read more >>]
	09 November 2007, 06:08GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Why Are We Fooled by Ventriloquists?
	In many cases what you see is not what you hear and what you hear is not what you see. This is how many tricks work, like ventriloquists making people believe the dummy is speaking. Now, a monkey brain has revealed us how this can happen: due to a brain nucleus involved in sight and sound simultaneously. "The prevailing wisdom among brain scientists has been that each of the five senses—sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste—is gov ... [read more >>]
	09 November 2007, 02:43GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Want a Mate? Then Look Him/Her Straight Into the Eyes
	What would you prefer? The shy geek avoiding your look or the daring punk? The stupid bimbo not daring to look at you or the vivid girl piercing you with her eyes? Maybe the folk wisdom already knows it, but a new research strengthens it: look directly at someone if you want to appear more attractive, say the results of a new study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. Most of the studies ... [read more >>]
	08 November 2007, 16:31GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Why Do We Shed Tears?
	Not only humans, but animals too shed tears when experiencing powerful pain excitations. Such a reaction of the lachrymal (tear producing) glands cannot be explained just by the function of the tears of protecting the eye; in the case of the lachrymal glands there must be admitted the existence of an also specific endocrine function, connected to the process of healing. Experiments made on rats suggest this. Lab rats and Guin ... [read more >>]
	05 November 2007, 14:51GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How Does the Retina Turn Light into Brain Visual Images?
	90 % of the information we get about our environment comes through our eyes. Humans are visual beings. But how light turns into visual sensations is hard to explain. A new research published in Neuroscience sheds light on how the human and primate retinas turn light into signals going to the brain. The team funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) discovered a cell type in the output (ganglion cell) layer of the retina ... [read more >>]
	30 October 2007, 08:08GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How to Grow an Extra Eye
	They may not produce eyes that have the color you prefer, but researchers have found a method of generating eyes starting with stem cells. At least eye tissues (like retina) could replace damaged parts in cataract, glaucoma, macular degeneration and other ocular conditions that impair vision, leading even to blindness. The research team at the University of Warwick has found a genetic key for making tadpoles grow three eyes. ... [read more >>]
	25 October 2007, 05:13GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

One Eye Is Blue, the Other One Is Brown: a Mysterious Disease
	Heterochromia is a condition best recognized by the different coloring of one’s eyes, hair or skin. The most common type is heterochromia iridis or heterochromia iridium, where the irises can either have an entirely different hue from one another (complete heterochromia) or only differently discolored spots (partial heterochromia or sectoral heterochromia). These differences in color are determined by variations of the melani ... [read more >>]
	04 October 2007, 14:51GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Human Sperm; Blonde, Blue Eyed Children and the Mad Cow
	Mad cow hits hard in our plans of spreading the European seed. American families that want to have the blond, blue-eyed Scandinavian toddler find it now harder to get that sperm. In May 2005, the FDA banned sperm import from any European country with cases of mad cow disease, from Denmark to the UK. Now even the best-stocked sperm banks are affected by this decision. "We still have a little bit left, but not much," said Claus Rod ... [read more >>]
	02 October 2007, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Summer Babies More Likely to be Short Sighted as Adults
	A baby may be sunshine for the parents, but sunshine for the baby is really harmful. There is a higher risk of myopia later in life. About 25 % of myopia cases seem to be caused by a too great exposure to sunlight in the first weeks of life. It was already known that over-exposure to sunlight caused myopia in animals. But a new research, the largest of its type, made on about 300,000 young adults, Israeli soldiers aged 16 to 23, reveal ... [read more >>]
	25 September 2007, 03:41GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Why Can't We Take Our Eyes Off Attractive People?
	She scorns you because you don't miss any pretty face on the street. Don't worry: she too does the same. The truth revealed by a new Florida State University research is that no matter if we are looking for a mate or assessing a potential rival, beautiful people capture our attention nearly instantaneously. "It's like magnetism at the level of visual attention," said Jon Maner, an assistant professor of psychology ... [read more >>]
	19 September 2007, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Can Adult Human Brain Change?
	It is said that our brain can organize itself only during our childhood, when it forms connections and pathways between different groups of neurons (brain cells that form the gray matter of the brain). The plasticity of the young brains enables them to change or adapt. This is how children struck by polio can still walk afterwards. But a new case on a stroke patient points that adults' brains could be as plastic (capable of making ... [read more >>]
	13 September 2007, 05:45GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Telescopes Against Blindness
	These new tiny telescopes will not help people to see to the stars, but at least will save them from blindness. This could be so when it comes to advanced macular degeneration, the main factor of age-related blindness and starting its development usually after 55 years. The new optical prosthetics significantly improved the vision of about 70 % of the 206 patients monitored in a 24-month clinical trial. "This is a good device a ... [read more >>]
	17 August 2007, 04:36GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Why Does Our Vision Adapt to the Dark so Slowly?
	All men who go clubbing know it: in the dark, all the girls are pretty. That's another story during daylight. Try the opposite and it will also result tricky: from the outdoors on a bright sunny day into a dark room, we can hardly distinguish anything at first. But we gradually start to detect the room's contents, a phenomenon named "dark adaptation", which takes 20 to 30 minutes. We have two types of light-sensi ... [read more >>]
	15 August 2007, 04:52GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

What Makes a Good Baseball Hitter?
	Perhaps the aspiration of a not so literate father is to see how his son becomes a great hitter. Well, a new research shows that it is not all about training, but genes too play a role in tracking balls and other moving objects, as revealed by a new research. "Our results show that individuals vary tremendously in this ability to lock their eyes onto a moving object, called smooth pursuit, and that this variation relates strongly ... [read more >>]
	25 July 2007, 04:36GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How to "Fix" Your Vision?
	90 % of the way we perceive our environment comes through our eyes. We are mainly visual creatures. But modern lifestyle with so many hours spent in front of the TV or the computer’s monitor is a strenuous task for our eyes. At birth, the greatest danger for the baby is represented by the infections of the cornea or development of the strabismus. That's why even before bringing the child to the nursery, and even earlier if problem ... [read more >>]
	23 July 2007, 14:11GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Which Are the Dangers Menacing Our Eyes?
	Vision is our first sense. 90 % of the information processed by our brain is visual. But having a good vision in our times is increasingly difficult with so many hours in front of the TV or the computer. In the industrialized countries, 60 % of the persons need glasses. 25 % of the westerners suffer from myopia (the most common vision impairment), hypermetropia or astigmatism. To these cataract, glaucoma and macular degeneration can be add ... [read more >>]
	21 July 2007, 06:14GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Five Stupid Beliefs About the Eyes
	The human eye is one of nature's wonders. An adult eye has about 24 mm (1 inch) in diameter and about 12 million photoreceptors (light sensitive cells) and six muscles that move the ocular sphere with such a precision that it allows the eye to follow moving objects. Like a camera, the eye has a diaphragm (called iris), whose opening degree adapts to the brightness of the environment. The light rays that cross the opening of the ir ... [read more >>]
	12 July 2007, 13:11GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Half of the Women See More Colors Than the Rest of the People Do
	Normally, people have three types of cone cells for daylight, for detecting different colors. But some women can see extra colors as they have four types of cone cell receptors. They are called tetrachromats. Compared to them, we all are color blind. The first tetrachromat woman was discovered by researchers at Cambridge University in 1993. This is perhaps the most remarkable human mutation ever detected. The fact that all tetrachromats ... [read more >>]
	26 June 2007, 14:16GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

World's Biggest Holographic Screen Follows Your Eyes
	The word hologram comes from Greek, with holos meaning whole and graphe meaning writing. A hologram is an advanced form of photography that allows an image to be recorded in three dimensions, in fact a recording of an interference pattern made by the interaction of two beams of light. A company in Dresden, Germany, called SeeReal, developed a prototype holographic screen that generates a t ... [read more >>]
	16 June 2007, 06:54GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Bats Can See You in Colors and in the Daylight!
	We, humans, have in our retina two types of photoreceptor cells: the cones for daylight vision and color vision, and the more sensitive rods for night vision. This is also the case with most mammals. But nocturnal bats were traditionally believed to have just rods. Bats are assigned to two evolutionary groups (which many believe to have different origins): lesser bats (Microchiroptera) and Old World fruit bats or greater bats (Meg ... [read more >>]
	16 June 2007, 05:11GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

See the Nipple? It's Because of Your Jittery Eyes...
	Your jittery eyeballs enable you to notice the nasty pimples on the face of an attractive girl from a distance. The minute, involuntary movements of our eyes enable the brain to detect the smallest details of your looks, as found by a team at Boston University led by neuroscientist Michele Rucci. Animals with sharp tridimensional binocular vision, like humans, monkeys, felines and most birds, make continuous microscopic e ... [read more >>]
	14 June 2007, 05:34GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Stem Cells For New Eyes
	Stem cells are planned ultimately for treating everything: from new hearts to new testicles. British researchers at the University of Sheffield are now trying to make new eyes. Not exactly eyes, but retinal tissues, a fact that would restore vision to many blind people. A handful of patients with age-related macular degeneration have already benefited from positive results by employing cells from the patients' own eyes. [ADMAR ... [read more >>]
	06 June 2007, 06:37GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Contact Lens Linked to Eye Infection
	You want to show off the beauty of your eyes, so you prefer lenses instead of glasses. But this could harm your sight. A research made by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warns that a rare and severe eye infection, induced by the parasite Acanthamoeba keratitis, is boomed by the use of contact lenses. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning health care professionals and their patients wea ... [read more >>]
	28 May 2007, 06:53GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Power of the Eyes
	Most birds and mammals are intimidated when someone stares at them. When lemurs are in danger, they stare at their enemy with their big, round eyes trying to intimidate it. Generally amongst mammals, a subordinate individual will avoid looking the dominant individual in the eyes. This is valid from rats to carnivores (like tigers, wolves, dogs) and primates (from monkeys to gorillas), because staring is a means of defying, a challe ... [read more >>]
	25 May 2007, 17:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia