All in the Mind - The eyes have it! Deep time and future vision

Interesting stuff.

The eyes have it! Deep time and future vision

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Some call the eyes the window on the soul. Trevor Lamb has been gazing into the eyes of living fossil 'fishy' beings, and deep into evolutionary time to unravel the beginnings of our incredible seeing organ. And what about its future? A myopia explosion in East Asian cities has folk worried, and there's good evidence for a surprising cause.

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Guests

Professor Trevor Lamb
Research director,
ARC Federation Fellow
ARC Centre for Excellence in Vision Science
Australian National University
Canberra, Australia
http://www.vision.edu.au/people/lambt.htm

Professor Ian Morgan
Chief Investigator, ARC Centre of Excellence in Vision Science
Senior Fellow, Visual Sciences Group
The Australian National University
Canberra, Australia
http://www.vision.edu.au/people/morgani.htm

Dr Krisztina Valter
Chief Investigator, ARC Centre for Excellence in Vision Science
Research Fellow, Research School of Biological Sciences
Australian National University
http://neuroscience.anu.edu.au/EIN_CIs/KrisztinaValter.html

Further Information

All in the Mind blog - Add your comments and contribute to the discussion about the show
NB: Email addresses are not made public. All ABC blogs are subject to the ABC's Conditions of Use.

Indoors, and short-sighted
Peter Lavelle, ABC Health and Wellbeing online, February 2009

Myopia on the rise
Peter Lavelle, ABC Health and Wellbeing Online, 2005

Cambrian Explosion Explained
Zoologist Andrew Parker's book, In the Blink of an Eye, presents his theory that the proliferation of life that defined the Cambrian Explosion was triggered by the development of the eye.

More articles about the eye, from ABC Health and Wellbeing online

Evolution of the eye (PBS TV, USA)

Blast from the Past! Richard Dawkins in 1987 on the evolution of the eye
From Youtube

Wikipedia page on the Hagfish
The ABC cannot vouch for the accuracy of content on the web or wikipedia.

Wikipedia page on the Lamprey
The ABC cannot vouch for the accuracy of content on Wikipedia. Browse with that in mind.

The Blind Brain - Part 1 of 2 (All in the Mind, 2007)

The Blind Brain: Part 2 of 2 - The bionic eye

Publications

Title: How genetic is school myopia?
Author: Ian Morgan, Kathryn Rose
Publisher: Progress in Retinal and Eye Research 24, 2005 1-38
URL: http://w3.csmu.edu.tw/~pcl/handout/optometrynews/How%20genetic%20is%20school%20myopia.pdf

Title: In the Blink of an Eye
Author: Andrew Parker
Publisher: Basic Books, 2003

Title: Outdoor Activity Reduces the Prevalence of Myopia in Children
Author: Kathryn A. Rose, Ian G. Morgan, Jenny Ip, Annette Kifley, Son Huynh, Wayne Smith, Paul Mitchell
Publisher: Opthamology, Volume 115, Issue 8, Pages 1279-1285 (August 2008)
URL: http://www.ophsource.org/periodicals/ophtha/article/S0161-6420(07)01364-4/abstract

Title: Evolution of the vertebrate eye: opsins, photoreceptors, retina and eye cup
Author: Trevor D. Lamb, Shaun P. Collin & Edward N. Pugh, Jr
Publisher: Nature Reviews Neuroscience 8, 960-976 (December 2007)
URL: http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v8/n12/abs/nrn2283.html

Title: Evolution of Vertebrate Retinal Photoreception
Author: Trevor D Lamb
Publisher: Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B (2009), 364, 2911-2924
URL: http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/364/1531/2911.abstract

Title: The Origin of the Vertebrate Eye
Author: Trevor D. Lamb, Edward N. Pugh Jr, Shaun P Collin
Publisher: Evolution: Education and Outreach, Volume 1, Number 4 / October, 2008
URL: http://www.springerlink.com/content/n4t036300571k8j4/

Presenter

Natasha Mitchell

Tags: All in the Mind, The eyes have it!, Deep time and future vision, Trevor Lamb, Natasha Mitchell, Psychology, evolution, brain, eyes