In The News- Finally! A News Post that Doesn't have Anything to do with Animals!

New Eye Surgery causes stir

Dr. Gregg Homer of Stroma Medical in Laguna Beach, California thinks he's finally found a way to change brown eyes to blue after nearly 10 years of research. Using a laser, he's discoverd that he can remove brown pigment from the surface of the iris and leaves the blue pigment underneath exposed. 

Apparenlty it takes up to three weeks for the body to fully change and adjust to the blue color. While the Dr. says that there is no signs of tissue damage during testing, there could naturally be side effects yet unknown. Even though he has about a year left to finsih the remaining research, he says that the operation will be avaible in the world in 18 months and about three years for it to arrive in the States. It's $5,000 for the 20-second surgery. 

Since this sounds like something out of a sci-fi novel, we contacted Dr. Conswalla Shavers, a surgeon at Park Avenue Lasek in New York City, for a little medical insight. She laughed at the description of this procedure and said it was unnecessarily dangerous with many potential side effects. "I'd imagine that the risks would outweigh the benefits in a patient," she said. "It could release too much pigment into the anterior chamber that can clog up the draining system in the eye. This makes the pressure go up and causes glaucoma." 

Is the prospect of blue eyes worth permanent vision damage? We think not. And Dr. Shavers says there's no guarantee you'll even end up with baby blues. "What's to ensure there's definitely blue pigment underneath? You could remove brown pigmentation and there's just more brown pigmentation underneath." Blue eyes are a recessive trait, but even if your parents are carriers there's no way of knowing what shade, if any, lies at the bottom of the iris.

A far less risky option is contact lenses. And besides, with contacts you can get other colors besides blue. You can read the whole article here.

Jane Austen...Murdered?

 The famous author of Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Senseabilty, and Emma is believed to have died of bovine tuberculosis or Hodgkin's lymphoma (a type of cancer). But Lindsay Ashford, a crime writer, believes that famous author died of posion. When Jane Austen was in her 40s she had written six novels and while working on a seventh, she came down with a condition. Ashford read about the symptoms in some of Austen's letters where she states that she has been left with discolored skin. 

Because she had researched poison and contemporary forensic techniques for her crime novels, Ashford was able to identify Austen's symptoms as potential arsenic poisoning. Arsenic would also explain Austen's slow decline and fatigue. Asford's suspicions were heightened "after she learned that a lock of Austen’s hair on display in a museum tested positive for arsenic."

As Flavorwire reports, arsenic does not necessarily equate to murder, as we're so often led to believe, because "a doctor could well have prescribed a medicine containing the element." Still, Ashford wishes not to rule out the option.

You can read the whole article here.

Girl Survives being Stuck in a Car Wreck for more than Two Days. 
In North Carolina a nine-year-old girl was pinned in a car wreckage for almost two days, surviving off of pop-tarts and Gatorade. The crash unfortantly killed her father, thirty-nine-year-old Douglas Landon. Jordan Landon of Cove City was airlifted to a hospital Sunday night after she was cut out of her car that had been turned upside down since Friday night. 

Amazingly, the girl was able to stay calm throughout the ordeal and was reportd to be talkative. She is expected to fully recover. The police report that her father was going over 100 miles per hour but friends say that they don't believe that Douglas would ever speed. It appears to be unknown was caused the accident in the first place.  

You can read the whole article here.

Sincerely,
Sareh