A surprising vitamin A discovery is changing what scientists know about vision

Scientists at Johns Hopkins University have uncovered a surprising process that helps humans develop sharp vision before birth, challenging decades of assumptions about how the eye forms. Using miniature human retinas grown in the lab, researchers discovered that a vitamin A derivative and thyroid hormones work together to shape the foveola, the tiny region at the center of the retina responsible for our sharpest vision. A surprising vitamin A discovery is changing what scientists know about vision.

Their research reveals how this molecule works alongside thyroid hormones to help form the part of the eye responsible for our sharpest sight, challenging a scientific explanation that has stood for roughly 30 years. The discovery centers on an unexpected transformation that occurs in the developing retina before birth. Certain cells that initially detect blue light appear to change into cells sensitive to red and green light, helping create the specialized arrangement needed for clear central vision.

Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the findings could reshape scientists’ understanding of how human eyes develop. They may also help advance research into future treatments for macular degeneration, glaucoma, and other conditions that cause vision loss. "This is a key step toward understanding the inner workings of the center of the retina, a critical part of the eye and the first to fail in people with macular degeneration," said Robert J.

Scientists have recreated a primordial state of matter from the dawn of the universe by colliding oxygen nuclei at nearly the speed of light. The surprising results show that this exotic substance can form in smaller, lower-energy collisions than previously demonstrated, challenging the known boundaries of early-universe physics.

Scientists smash oxygen nuclei to recreate matter from the Big Bang. The jet near the edge of the plasma, upper right, escapes easily while the jet moving a longer distance through the plasma loses energy, or gets "quenched," as it interacts with the soup of quarks and gluons.

Lentz/Brookhaven National Laboratory New findings from the STAR experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) suggest that scientists can recreate an extraordinary form of matter from the earliest moments of the universe using surprisingly small atomic collisions. By smashing oxygen nuclei together at nearly the speed of light, researchers have uncovered strong evidence of quark-gluon plasma (QGP), an extremely hot and dense state of matter that existed shortly after the Big Bang.

The findings, published in Physical Review Letters, reveal that high-energy streams of particles lose energy as they travel through the material created by these collisions. This effect, called jet quenching, provides an important clue that quark-gluon plasma has formed.

Scientists have previously observed jet quenching in collisions involving much larger atomic nuclei at RHIC, a U.S.