Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/07/turn_brown_eyes_blue_with_laser/
If thine brown eye offend thee, blast it with a laser
And it will turn blue. And still work, for sure!
Posted in Science, 7th November 2011 09:41 GMT
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Those who wish they'd been born with blue eyes may shortly have access to a innovative laser technique that will burn the melanin off the front of their irises and turn them blue.
Dr Gregg Homer of Laguna Beach in California is seeking funding of £500,000 to start a human trial of the eye colour changing procedure which he has been working on for 10 years.
Dr Homer - a former entertainment lawyer according to the Mail [1] - patented the idea in 2005 and reckons it's a commercial goer. Homer would charge $5000 for the procedure and says he has already received thousands of emails expressing interest. Some 80% of the world's people have brown eyes, 17% have blue eyes - a trait believed to have come from one ancestor with a pigment mutation 6-10,000 years ago, according to 2008 research from the University of Copenhagen [2].
The procedure takes just 20 seconds to perform, though the blue colour only fully emerges after a couple of weeks. The procedure is irreversible, so just go for those contact lenses if you're not sure about it.
Some doctors have expressed doubts about the idea, ABC news [3] quoting a NYC surgeon who said that you couldn't be guaranteed that it would result in blue eyes:
“What’s to ensure there’s definitely blue pigment underneath?" Dr. Conswalla Shavers told the site.
"You could remove brown pigmentation and there’s just more brown pigmentation underneath”. ®