Science

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The amazing human eye. The eye is one of those human body parts that we take for granted. The human body has a few body parts that are only three letters long. I believe there are ten. You are welcome to count them and correct me if I am wrong. The eyes have been called the windows to the soul and have held a fascination for us for thousands of years. In the past people were even executed because they had evil eyes, what ever that means?

A racetrack worker who was blind in one eye, was putting a collar on a horse. The horse got upset and head butted him. He had been kicked by horses before, but never head butted. His eyesight returned immediately in the blind eye. In the Second World War shrapnel hit him in that eye and that caused him to lose sight in that eye. Things were so bad with the eye that the doctors wanted to remove it, but the man refused. He had gone over 60 years with no sight in that eye, before it came back because of the head butt. So what does the medical profession think happened to restore his sight? They feel that the shrapnel must have sightly dislodged the eye and the head butt returned it to a more stabilized position.

An English woman had been blind for over twenty years. She lost her sight due to a drug she was taking for epilepsy An ophthalmologist decided to take part of the root of her tooth and transplanted it to her eye as a reinforcement to her optic nerve. She is now able to see. A man died that was blind. He was only 27 years old and had been blind since age 5 months. Doctors noticed that his corneas were healthy even though he couldn't see. They used them for a transplant.

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The cornea is the outermost layer of the eye. It is very unusual. It is the only living tissue in our bodies that does not have blood vessels. So how does it survive? It survives on the nutrients in tears. The human eye can distinguish up to 1,000,000 colors. The average blink rate for a person is once every four seconds. This keeps our eyes clean. We blink so much that if we add up all our blinks they would equal from 1.5 to 2 years of blindness and yet we don't even notice it.

Scientists in Russia claim that they discovered a third eye exists in the human embryo. A third eye is often depicted in paintings and sculptures of people with supposed telepathic powers. What the relation of an eye to these powers would be is unknown.

The eye sees things by having light reflected off of them. Without light we wouldn't be able to see anything. One of the things that is so amazing about our eyes is that they have only one lens and yet can see things at any distance until the object is just too far away and keep that object in perfect focus. Scientists are trying very hard to create an artificial eye that would work as good as our natural eyes, but this is almost an impossible task. They have succeeded in creating a camera with a special curved lens that might allow for bionic implants in the future. The camera lens mimics the shape of the human eye.

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Speaking of bionic eyes, surgeons in England have carried out the first operations using an artificial eye. The operations took place in 2008. Two operations were conducted and both were successful. The device is highly unusual, it is a video camera mounted on a pair of eye glasses. The camera is then linked to an artificial retina and the moving images are then transmitted along the optic nerve to the brain. This may not be the end of this type of procedure. American doctors are working on a camera the size of a pea that can be transplanted directly into the eyeball. It is hoped that this will be available within the next 5 years.

It also turns out the the eye is not limited to white light. Recent tests have shown that with the correct diet and exercises, the eye is capable of seeing ultraviolet light. There is a man who is completely blind who can somehow see obstacles using some form of subconscious sight. He avoids obstacles without even realizing it. To see the video click on this link:

http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.htmlaction=1&t=1&islist=false&id=98590831&m=98590842

New research at the University of Rochester has enabled scientists to develop a new optical system that will dramatically improve vision for all, even those with 20/20 vision. The project is in its early stages right now, but will be quite a vision breakthrough when finished.

There may be people walking around that have extremely accurate vision, but we don't know it because most eye charts only go down to 20/10 and people are usually stopped at 20/20.

The human eye is a wondrous contraption and although we can magnify things far greater than an eye can, it is still capable of far more than a device, given its size.