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. In a developing animal, stem cells proliferate and differentiate to form the organs needed for life. A new study shows how a crucial step in this process happens and how a reversal of that step contributes to cancer. http://www.physorg.com/news180192279.html Medicine & Health Wed, 16 Dec 2009 13:27:15 EST news180192279 Myopia (nearsightedness) may have been more common in Americans from 1999 to 2004 than it was 30 years ago, according to a report in the December issue of Archives of Ophthalmology. http://www.physorg.com/news180035969.html Medicine & Health Mon, 14 Dec 2009 18:50:03 EST news180035969 Brain and spinal-cord injuries typically leave people with permanent impairment because the injured nerve fibers (axons) cannot regrow. A study from Children's Hospital Boston, published in the December 10 issue of the journal Neuron, shows that axons can regenerate vigorously in a mouse model when a gene that suppresses natural growth factors is deleted. http://www.physorg.com/news179584849.html Medicine & Health Wed, 09 Dec 2009 12:50:01 EST news179584849 An international team of scientists has rescued visual function in laboratory rats with eye disease by using cells similar to stem cells. The research shows the potential for stem cell-based therapies to treat age-related macular degeneration in humans. http://www.physorg.com/news179077159.html Biology Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:10:01 EST news179077159 Suddenly seeing floaters or flashes of light may indicate a serious eye problem that - if untreated - could lead to blindness, a new study shows. http://www.physorg.com/news178315342.html Medicine & Health Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:40:05 EST news178315342 (PhysOrg.com) -- The research, led by Wolfgang Fink, will aid both people with visual impairments and scientists involved in planetary exploration. http://www.physorg.com/news177152124.html Electronics Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:10:02 EST news177152124 Scientists at Schepens Eye Research Institute have found that when the eye is missing a diffusible form of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), i.e. one that when secreted can reach other cells at a distance, the retina shows defects similar to "dry" macular degeneration, also called geographic atrophy (GA). This finding, published in the November 3, 2009 print edition of PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences), not only increases the understanding of the causes of this blinding disease, but it may also impact the use of anti-VEGF drugs, such as Lucentis, which are designed to neutralize VEGF in eyes with "wet" macular degeneration. http://www.physorg.com/news176401950.html Medicine & Health Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:50:02 EST news176401950 Like all tissues in the body, the eye needs a healthy blood supply to function properly. Poorly developed blood vessels can lead to visual impairment or even blindness. While many of the molecules involved in guiding the development of the intricate blood vessel architecture are known, only now are we learning how these molecules work and how they might affect sight. http://www.physorg.com/news176131738.html Medicine & Health Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:29:29 EST news176131738 (PhysOrg.com) -- NEC and Brother are both developing wearable prototype devices that use Retinal Imaging Display (RID) technology to project images directly on the wearer's retina. NEC's gadget is designed to interpret foreign languages and project a translation onto the retina, making it possible to have a conversation without an interpreter. Brother's device will project images of documents, allowing the wearer to read them in complete privacy. http://www.physorg.com/news176111763.html Electronics Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:56:53 EST news176111763 (PhysOrg.com) -- The eyes may be the windows to the soul, but new research indicates they also may mirror a brain ravaged by Alzheimer's disease. http://www.physorg.com/news175347660.html Medicine & Health Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:54:21 EST news175347660 Scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have created a remote-controlled robot that is able to simulate the "visual" experience of a blind person who has been implanted with a visual prosthesis, such as an artificial retina. An artificial retina consists of a silicon chip studded with a varying number of electrodes that directly stimulate retinal nerve cells. It is hoped that this approach may one day give blind persons the freedom of independent mobility. http://www.physorg.com/news175183657.html Technology Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:08:24 EST news175183657 ANN ARBOR, Mich.---Biologists long have marveled at the ability of some animals to re-grow lost body parts. Newts, for example, can lose a leg and grow a new one identical to the original. Zebrafish can re-grow fins. http://www.physorg.com/news175173754.html Medicine & Health Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:22:54 EST news175173754 Ever wonder how your eyes adjust during a blackout? When we go from light to near total darkness, cells in the retina must quickly adjust. Vision scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified an intricate process that allows the human eye to adapt to darkness very quickly. The same process also allows the eye to function in bright light. http://www.physorg.com/news174663395.html Medicine & Health Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:37:50 EST news174663395 (PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research (part of the Novartis Research Foundation) have identified a new neural circuit in the retina responsible for the detection of approaching objects. Surprisingly, however, this is not the only function the circuit fulfills. The same nerve cells are also responsible for night-time vision. This is the first time such a dual function has been demonstrated, shedding new light on the nervous system's information-processing capacity. http://www.physorg.com/news174035179.html Medicine & Health Tue, 06 Oct 2009 08:07:04 EST news174035179 Do infants only start to crawl once they are physically able to see danger coming? Or is it that because they are more mobile, they develop the ability to sense looming danger? According to Ruud van der Weel and Audrey van der Meer, from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, infants' ability to see whether an object is approaching on a direct collision course, and when it is likely to collide, develops around the time they become more mobile. Their findings have just been published online in the Springer journal Naturwissenschaften. http://www.physorg.com/news173003137.html Medicine & Health Thu, 24 Sep 2009 09:26:38 EST news173003137 The detection of approaching objects, such as looming predators, is necessary for survival. Which neurons and nerve circuits mediate this function? A new type of nerve cell, sensitive to approaching motion, has recently been identified in mice. This new retinal function has been brought to light by Rava Azeredo da Silveira of the Laboratoire de Physique Statistique of the École Normale Supérieure (France) and a team of researchers from the Friedrich-Miescher Institute in Switzerland. Their work was published online on 6 September 2009 on the website of Nature Neuroscience. http://www.physorg.com/news172139706.html Medicine & Health Mon, 14 Sep 2009 10:00:01 EST news172139706 When the eyes move, objects in the line of sight suddenly jump to a different place on the retina, but the mind perceives the scene as stable and continuous. A new study reports that the brain predicts the consequences of eye movement even before the eyes take in a new scene. http://www.physorg.com/news170422607.html Medicine & Health Tue, 25 Aug 2009 12:50:01 EST news170422607 Scientists have discovered that even in adults born with extremely impaired sight, the brain can rewire itself to recognize sections of the retina that have been restored by gene therapy. http://www.physorg.com/news169316342.html Medicine & Health Wed, 12 Aug 2009 17:19:48 EST news169316342 Nearly all species have some ability to detect light. At least three types of cells in the retina allow us to see images or distinguish between night and day. Now, researchers at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine have discovered in fish yet another type of cell that can sense light and contribute to vision. http://www.physorg.com/news167838436.html Medicine & Health Sun, 26 Jul 2009 15:20:01 EST news167838436 Research performed at Caltech as part of a collaborative U.S. Department of Energy-funded artificial-retina project designed to restore sight to the blind has received one of R&D Magazine's 2009 R&D 100 Awards. The prize recognizes significant new technologies that exemplify the most innovative ideas of the previous year. http://www.physorg.com/news167582516.html Medicine & Health Thu, 23 Jul 2009 18:50:01 EST news167582516 Researchers of the University of Granada (Spain) have used a technique consisting of the induction of neuronal degeneration neuronal for intense light exposure in the mouse's retina that will be helpful for the study of retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a group of hereditary diseases which lead to blindness and affect more than one million persons a year all over the world. http://www.physorg.com/news166270657.html Medicine & Health Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:18:37 EST news166270657 Variations in how people perceive colors and how those same colors appear on TV, computers and other media have confounded broadcasters, Web designers and printers trying to reproduce lifelike hues. http://www.physorg.com/news165513181.html Other Sciences Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:10:01 EST news165513181 Mimicking the way in which a retina works is a hard as it sounds. Scientists from Stanford University, in the United States, have spent the past two years working on imitating the way in which information is processed in biological systems, in other words through the transmission of events in specifically connected networks (where information is captured and transmitted at the same time). http://www.physorg.com/news163666166.html Technology Mon, 08 Jun 2009 07:49:55 EST news163666166 Researchers at the Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience (CMBN) at Rutgers University in Newark have identified the need to develop a new framework for understanding "perceptual stability" and how we see the world with their discovery that visual input obtained during eye movements is being processed by the brain but blocked from awareness. http://www.physorg.com/news163177022.html Medicine & Health Tue, 02 Jun 2009 15:57:24 EST news163177022 The mystery of genetic disease is only partially solved with the identification of a mutated gene. Often, the pattern of disease - the features or disorders associated with it - vary in type and severity among those who are affected. Scientists, physicians and patients all ask why. http://www.physorg.com/news161182673.html Medicine & Health Sun, 10 May 2009 13:58:21 EST news161182673 Results of a study in mice by researchers at the University of California, San Diego strongly suggest that the protein kinase JNK1 plays a key role in the development of retinopathy in premature infants. Their findings, reported online the week of May 4-9 in advance of print in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), may lead to an effective way to treat the leading cause of childhood blindness in industrialized countries using JNK1 inhibitors. http://www.physorg.com/news160676679.html Medicine & Health Mon, 04 May 2009 17:25:22 EST news160676679 The eyes of nocturnal mammals contain particularly large numbers of the highly light-sensitive rods, the photoreceptor type used for night vision. This allows the detection of light levels millions of times lower than daylight. Researchers at the Ludwig Maximilians University Munich, the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research Frankfurt and the Cavendish Laboratory Cambridge have now shown that the nocturnal lifestyle and its visual challenges had a unique impact on rod nuclear organisation: The distributions of the densely packed inactive and the less densely packed active regions of DNA differ remarkably from those in other somatic cells of nearly all organisms from protozoans to multicellular animals, including the rods of diurnal mammals. http://www.physorg.com/news159452861.html Biology Mon, 20 Apr 2009 13:28:49 EST news159452861 Two medications used to treat erectile dysfunction in men (tadalafil and sildenafil) do not appear to have visual side effects when taken daily for six months, despite concerns about eye-related complications, according to a report in the April issue of Archives of Ophthalmology. http://www.physorg.com/news158862890.html Medicine & Health Mon, 13 Apr 2009 17:36:52 EST news158862890 Patients with a rare, blinding eye disease saw their vision improve after treatment with drugs to suppress their immune systems, according to researchers at the University of Michigan Kellogg Eye Center. Because autoimmune retinopathy (AIR) is difficult to diagnose, the biggest challenge now is to find biologic markers that identify patients who can benefit from treatment. http://www.physorg.com/news158862397.html Medicine & Health Mon, 13 Apr 2009 17:27:05 EST news158862397 About 1.25 million neurons in the retina -- each of which views the world only through a small jagged window called a receptive field -- collectively form the seamless picture we rely on to navigate our environment. Receptive fields fit together like pieces of a puzzle, preventing "blind spots" and excessive overlap that could blur our perception of the world, according to researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. http://www.physorg.com/news158303038.html Medicine & Health Tue, 07 Apr 2009 06:04:41 EST news158303038