http://www.physorg.com/ en-us Physorg.com internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Our brain extracts important information for face recognition principally from the eyes, and secondly from the mouth and nose, according to a new study from a researcher at the University of Barcelona. This result, published March 27th in the open-access journal PLoS Computational Biology, was obtained by analyzing several hundred face images in a way similar to that of the brain. http://www.physorg.com/news157354785.html Biology Fri, 27 Mar 2009 06:40:31 EST news157354785 Among zebrafish, the eyes have it. Inside them is a mosaic of light-sensitive cells whose structure and functions are nearly identical to those of humans. There, biologists at The Florida State University discovered a gene mutation that determines if the cells develop as rods (the photoreceptors responsible for dim-light vision) or as cones (the photoreceptors needed for color vision). http://www.physorg.com/news157126463.html Medicine & Health Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:14:53 EST news157126463 Blindness in millions of people with diseases that starve eye tissue and nerves of oxygen might be averted with a procedure being developed by researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the University of Southern California and the University of Tennessee. http://www.physorg.com/news156711842.html Medicine & Health Thu, 19 Mar 2009 20:05:24 EST news156711842 One by one, 13 sick and traumatised Asian black bears squeezed into tiny cages are pulled from a truck, a lifetime of agonising torture now over. http://www.physorg.com/news155992932.html Biology Wed, 11 Mar 2009 12:22:42 EST news155992932 (AP) -- A one-eyed documentary filmmaker is preparing to work with a video camera concealed inside a prosthetic eye, hoping to secretly record people for a project commenting on the global spread of surveillance cameras. http://www.physorg.com/news155989930.html Technology Wed, 11 Mar 2009 11:32:40 EST news155989930 Individuals with no or inconsistent health care coverage appear less likely to regularly seek eye care, even if they are visually impaired, according to a report in the March issue of Archives of Ophthalmology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. http://www.physorg.com/news155844749.html Medicine & Health Mon, 09 Mar 2009 19:13:14 EST news155844749 Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Washington University School of Medicine have identified a key to eye development - a protein that regulates how the light-sensing nerve cells in the retina form. While still far from the clinic, the latest results, published in the Jan. 29 issue of Neuron, could help scientists better understand how nerve cells develop. http://www.physorg.com/news155831839.html Medicine & Health Mon, 09 Mar 2009 15:37:45 EST news155831839 More and more information is being gathered about how human genes influence medically relevant traits, such as the propensity to develop a certain disease. The ultimate goal is to predict whether or not a given trait will develop later in life from the genome sequence alone (i.e. from the sequence of the bases that make up the DNA strands that store genetic information in every cell of the body). http://www.physorg.com/news155819821.html Biology Mon, 09 Mar 2009 12:20:09 EST news155819821 (PhysOrg.com) -- A University of Arizona research team recently completed a study looking at the DNA blueprint of almost 1,000 individuals and comparing that to detailed measurements of their hair, skin and eye color. http://www.physorg.com/news155239299.html Chemistry Mon, 02 Mar 2009 18:03:01 EST news155239299 (PhysOrg.com) -- Already Charles Darwin investigated facial expressions of monkeys in order to find out how closely related humans and monkeys really are. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics have now shown that rhesus monkeys and humans employ the same strategies to process faces of conspecifics: both species look first at the eyes of conspecifics, whereas for non-conspecific faces they let their gaze wander over the whole face. http://www.physorg.com/news155234440.html Biology Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:41:21 EST news155234440 A layer of "dark cells" in the retina that is responsible for maintaining the health of the light-sensing cells in our eyes has been imaged in a living retina for the first time. http://www.physorg.com/news154869888.html Medicine & Health Thu, 26 Feb 2009 11:26:58 EST news154869888 Research on the sleeping brain has revealed some fascinating stage-dependent interactions between areas involved in formation and storage of long term memories. The study, published by Cell Press in the February 26th issue of the journal Neuron, may also provide a framework for further understanding the role of sleep in memory. http://www.physorg.com/news154787161.html Medicine & Health Wed, 25 Feb 2009 12:26:43 EST news154787161 (PhysOrg.com) -- A team of astronomers, led by Loretta Dunne from the University of Nottingham, have found some very unusual stardust. In a paper to be published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Dr Dunne and her team find new evidence for the production of copious quantities of dust in the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant, the remains of a star that exploded about 300 years ago. http://www.physorg.com/news154709258.html Space & Earth Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:48:14 EST news154709258 (PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers from the University of Arizona have created a fluid-based opthalmic lens in which the amount of fluid can be constantly adjusted to provide customized eye correction. The lens may one day be incorporated into the tools that eye doctors use to determine prescription strength. http://www.physorg.com/news154705159.html Physics Tue, 24 Feb 2009 13:40:08 EST news154705159 Taking a combination of vitamins B6 and B12 and folic acid appears to decrease the risk of age-related macular degeneration in women, according to a report in the February 23 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine. http://www.physorg.com/news154633640.html Medicine & Health Mon, 23 Feb 2009 17:47:50 EST news154633640 A green-tinged comet is now buzzing by Earth, and the best chance to see this space oddball might be Monday night. http://www.physorg.com/news154623859.html Space & Earth Mon, 23 Feb 2009 15:05:13 EST news154623859 Starting with the tiny fruit fly and then moving into mice and humans, researchers at VIB and K. U. Leuven show that expression of the same gene suppresses cancer in all three organisms. Reciprocally, switching off the gene - called Ato in flies and ATOH1 in mammals - leads to cancer. The authors show there is a good chance that the gene can be switched on again with a drug. They report their findings in two papers in the leading online open access journal PLoS Biology. http://www.physorg.com/news154618409.html Medicine & Health Mon, 23 Feb 2009 13:33:57 EST news154618409 (PhysOrg.com) -- To recognize faces in a crowd, the brain employs tiny eye movements called saccades and microsaccades to help us search for objects of interest. While researchers know that these movements are involuntary and vary in magnitude, they still do not fully understand how saccades and microsaccades work. http://www.physorg.com/news154327802.html Medicine & Health Fri, 20 Feb 2009 04:51:04 EST news154327802 University of Liverpool scientists claim that the degeneration of sight, caused by a common eye disease, could be reduced by up to 20% by increasing the amount of fruit, vegetables and nuts in the diet. http://www.physorg.com/news154202638.html Medicine & Health Wed, 18 Feb 2009 18:13:10 EST news154202638 A work accident leaves a woman blind in one eye. As she copes with the loss, within months the vision in the other, previously uninjured eye begins to blur, and the eye becomes red and inflamed. http://www.physorg.com/news154186359.html Medicine & Health Wed, 18 Feb 2009 13:33:12 EST news154186359 Our eyes are in constant motion. Even when we attempt to stare straight at a stationary target, our eyes jump and jiggle imperceptibly. Although these unconscious flicks, also known as microsaccades, had long been considered mere "motor noise," researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies found that they are instead actively controlled by the same brain region that instructs our eyes to scan the lines in a newspaper or follow a moving object. http://www.physorg.com/news153670434.html Medicine & Health Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:14:50 EST news153670434 Scientists studying an inherited condition resulting in blindness and crumbling teeth have found a single defective gene can affect both eye function and normal tooth development. http://www.physorg.com/news153660817.html Medicine & Health Thu, 12 Feb 2009 11:34:12 EST news153660817 A topical eye emulsion consisting of cyclosporine (a medication used to reduce transplant rejections or to treat arthritis and psoriasis) may be a cost-effective treatment for dry eye syndrome that does not respond to other therapies, according to a report in the February issue of Archives of Ophthalmology. http://www.physorg.com/news153419053.html Medicine & Health Mon, 09 Feb 2009 16:25:01 EST news153419053 Though based on mouse studies, the research bolsters the idea that humans suffering from these and other eye conditions may be able to help preserve function by adding antioxidants to their diet, and explains why this would work. The team also devised a new cell-based gene therapy technique that could eventually offer another option for arresting vision loss from these diseases. http://www.physorg.com/news153210537.html Medicine & Health Sat, 07 Feb 2009 06:29:37 EST news153210537 A new study in Psychological Science reveals that nonverbal cues can give away a person's socioeconomic status (SES). Volunteers whose parents were from upper SES backgrounds displayed more disengagement-related behaviors compared to participants from lower SES backgrounds. In addition, when a separate group of observers were shown 60 second clips of the videos, they were able to correctly guess the participants' SES background, based on their body language. http://www.physorg.com/news152973534.html Medicine & Health Wed, 04 Feb 2009 12:39:16 EST news152973534 Paintballs can cause severe and 'visually devastating' eye injuries, especially when used in unsupervised settings without proper eye protection, reports a study in the February issue of the American Journal of Ophthalmology (www.AJO.com), published by Elsevier. http://www.physorg.com/news151234650.html Medicine & Health Thu, 15 Jan 2009 09:37:30 EST news151234650 A compact fiber-optic probe developed for the space program has now proven valuable for patients in the clinic as the first non-invasive early detection device for cataracts, the leading cause of vision loss worldwide. http://www.physorg.com/news150993396.html Medicine & Health Mon, 12 Jan 2009 14:36:36 EST news150993396 (PhysOrg.com) -- Elizabeth Goldring smiles as she shows a visitor photos she's taken - and can see - with her blind eye. http://www.physorg.com/news150990251.html Technology Mon, 12 Jan 2009 13:44:11 EST news150990251 (PhysOrg.com) -- A naturally occurring DNA repair system that normally protects cells from damage can cause retinal degeneration and blindness when overstimulated, according to a new study by MIT researchers. http://www.physorg.com/news150727857.html Medicine & Health Fri, 09 Jan 2009 12:50:57 EST news150727857 Silicon Valley historian John McLaughlin figured maybe it was time to update his work. http://www.physorg.com/news150573101.html Technology Wed, 07 Jan 2009 17:51:41 EST news150573101