Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/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
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 - 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.
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 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”. ®