Health insurance and eye traits exploration

Health insurance coverage is critical for ordinary people in receiving health care including eye care. From 1997 to 2005, the National Health Interview Survey has gotten responses from 290,000 adults about eye care use rates. The survey reveals that the majority of people without health care coverage do not resort to regular eye care even if there are obvious visual problems. The longer time without health insurance, the lower rate of eye care utilization. In addition, low education and male gender also play a role.

Eye color can be predicted simply by DNA analysis now, even if human eye color has long been considered as a complex trait. This result comes from a new study of DNA analysis of more than 6,000 Dutch people. The study also finds out that the prediction accuracy varies between different color groups. For instance, the prediction accuracy can reach 90% while assessing blue or brown. And intermediate color prediction can be accurate only at a percentage of 75. The study still has other contributions. It indicates that DNA examination may also be used to predict disease risks. Criminal investigational can also benefit from this eye color prediction from DNA found at crime scenes.

Recent discoveries by University of Bristol involve certain eye features of spookfish, which live in a deep and dark ocean environment. Mirror-like function of the spookfish eye is actually used to reflect light onto the retina and help these spookfish adapt to the dark environment. With mirror-like eyes, spookfish can scan for possible threats from the otherwise dark environment below. This ability to make an image using a mirror is the only one case in nearly 500 million years of vertebrate evolution.

Paintball injuries are found to be severe and visual devastating. While proper eye protection can prevent 97% of paintball eye injuries, paintball played without eye shields or safety goggles can bring ruptured eyeballs and detached retinas. Paintballs feature high velocity so that they can cause severe damage to vital ocular structures, which in most cases require extensive surgical intervention.