The crystalline lens in the cichlid fish Aequidens pulcher undergoes a transformation of its optical properties every dawn and dusk as the eye adapts to changes in light conditions. During dusk the transformation result in an increase of the refractive power in the lens cortex, the outermost 40 percent. The change is thought to match the optical properties of the lens to the requirements of the...

INTRODUCTION Heliotropium indicum has several uses in traditional medicine attributable to its numerous bioactive compounds. It is used as a traditional remedy for cataracts in Ghana without any scientific verification. This study aimed at verifying the anti-cataract properties of an aqueous whole plant extract of H. indicum. METHODS The effect (cataract score) of 30, 100, and 300 mg kg(-1) e...

BACKGROUND Age-related cataract (ARC) is the leading cause of visual impairment worldwide, and α-crystallin (CRYAA) is the predominant structural protein involved in the maintenance of lens clarity and refractive properties. We previously demonstrated that CRYAA genes undergo epigenetic repression in the lens epithelia in ARC. We further analyze the underlying mechanism in the current study. ...

To assess more fully the risk to normal tissue exposed to accelerated heavy particles in the space program and during radiotherapy on earth, the cytopathological effects of a variety of doses of accelerated (570 MeV/amu) Argon (40Ar) ions on the rat lens were investigated. Time-course analyses of lenses exposed to a 1 Gy (100 rad)-dose revealed that the effects of the particles on mitotic index...

The Euclidean algorithm in algebra is applied to a class of gravitational lenses for which the lens equation consists of any set of coupled polynomial equations in the image position. In general, this algorithm allows us to reduce an apparently coupled system to a single polynomial in one variable (say x in Cartesian coordinates) without the other component (say y), which is expressed as a func...