Later this evening I’ll be giving a talk to a group of astronomers on what its like to see like an alien. The beauty of this is that I can speculate until the cows come home without fear of any…

Dear Hugh Hefner: Ever wondered  why you’re rich?   Yes, yes, you’re a savvy businessman who succeeded where thousands have failed.   But there are deeper reasons underlying why your…

Individuals use a variety of cues to identify their own kin and humans can also detect resemblances in families other than their own, in defiance of 'you all look alike to us' jokes.   A new…

In a survey conducted about patients’ expectations of electronic retina prostheses (retina implants) a decade ago, visually impaired or blind patients with degenerative retina conditions stated they…

Reading pervades every aspect of our daily lives, so much so that one would be hardpressed to find a room in a modern house without words written somewhere inside. Many of us now read more sentences…

Male anglerfish are born with an innate desire to not exist. As soon as a male reaches maturity, he acquires an urge to find a female, sink his teeth into her, and grow into her. This evolved because…

As the story was told to me, the realization that my eyes were “different” wasn’t discovered until I’d been home from the hospital for a couple weeks. You know how it is - newborns sleep a lot, and…

Fish and some amphibians possess a unique sensory capability that allows them to 'feel' objects around them without physical contact and see in the dark. Colloquially this is called a 'sixth sense'…

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.  This surprising adaptability comes a…

A new class of antibody drugs may help in treatment of childhood eye diseases but specialists need to be alert for the possibility of serious side effects, according to an editorial in the August…