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Medicine Technology

Make Those Brown Eyes Blue 208

randomErr writes A new procedure has been developed that can turn any brown eye to blue. The procedure uses a laser that disturbs the melanin in the pigmented part of the eye. Over the course of a few weeks your body would eliminate the disturbed pigment revealing the blue layer below all people have. The procedure costs about $5,000 and only takes a few second to complete. You can't get it yet in the U.S. because it still going through clinical trials and some ophthalmologists fear that process could increase pressure in the eyes.
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Make Those Brown Eyes Blue

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  • Filed under... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kuzb ( 724081 ) on Friday March 06, 2015 @10:29PM (#49202481)

    ...things not worth $5000

    • Indeed. Stupid ways to spend $5K ...

      * Laser Blue Eye Surgery
      * Watches

    • Re:Filed under... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by BoRegardless ( 721219 ) on Friday March 06, 2015 @10:43PM (#49202531)

      And people with blue eyes get more eye damage from bright sunlight.

      Messing with my eyes is not my idea of being safe.

    • You could easily spend more than $5000 getting braces or plastic surgery.

      • Re:Filed under... (Score:5, Informative)

        by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Saturday March 07, 2015 @07:20AM (#49203935)

        There is plastic surgery (reconstructive surgery)and a subset is cosmetic surgery.
        I had plastic surgery, I had a cyst on my jaw line that was infected. So a plastic surgeon removed it in a way that it didn't scar or damage all the nerves in my face.
        Then there is cosmetic surgery where people get procedures done for no medical reason other to match what is currently fationable.

        • It's not necessarily to match "what is currently fashionable"": lots of studies have found that there is an objective measure of beauty in humans, and that's symmetry. Humans who look more symmetrical are perceived as more attractive; it's hard-wired into our brains as a measure of reproductive fitness. So any plastic surgery to make you look more symmetrical (such as removing moles or other facial blemishes) isn't a matter of fashion, it's a matter of beautification according to our biological preference

          • Perfectly symmetrical faces look weird. Try it in your favourite image editor.

            • Try making the face symmetrical vertically not horizontally.

    • How do you know?

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Alex, what is... a year of feeling like a princess paying $5 for $0.50 coffees at Starbucks?

    • by UncleTogie ( 1004853 ) on Saturday March 07, 2015 @02:47AM (#49203351) Homepage Journal

      ...things not worth $5000

      ....unless you're a criminal trying to change your identity...

      • ....unless you're a criminal trying to change your identity...

        Or a fake blonde going the extra mile to fake being natural.

    • You might be able to get the procedure sponsored if you choose to have a particular motif. I'm assuming that it's possible to selectively etch away the melanin. So this breakthrough opens the way to eye tatoos.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    There's no need for it. At all. It serves no medical good.

  • It's like a tattoo that won't come off until the next machine comes along.
    The experience should be something like a face tattoo.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    I heard about this being developed a long time ago, and when I did, my best friend and I both said this would turn into a gold mine in Japan. They'll go nuts for the ability to give themselves real and for true blue eyes without having to wear contact lenses.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 06, 2015 @10:44PM (#49202541)

    I'm an older gent (I'm in my late 70s). I've witnessed a lot of change of my life, including the rise of computers and the Internet. But nothing amazes more more than medical science. Here we are, able to turn brown eyes blue. I never would have thought that would be possible during my lifetime. And I've also heard that thanks to modern surgical techniques, it's possible to turn a woman into a man, and a man into a woman. Sometimes the surgery is so effective that it's nearly impossible to tell the difference! Back when I was a young man, if somebody had blue eyes, it's because they always had blue eyes. And if somebody had a penis, it's because they always had a penis. But thanks to advancements in medical science, what I knew to be true when I was a young man is no longer the case now. Brown eyes can become blue. Penises can be surgically crafted, and be indistinguishable from the real thing. Medical science: it's amazing!

  • by Anonymous Coward

    And is it permanent, or does the brown pigment return eventually?

  • by Anonymous Coward

    To imagine that changing their eye color will make them happier.

    I have brown eyes. Of my 8 great-grandparents, only 1 had brown eyes. Of my 4 grandparents, only 1 had brown eyes. Of my parents, 1 had brown eyes. These are the eyes I was born with and these are the eyes I will die with.

    Of all the things one could change, eye color would be way down on the list. Perhaps someday one will be able to buy intelligence or self-respect.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      To understand this as some 'great quest in life' to change eyes is short sighted. There are plenty other 'things' on this earth we can achieve with 5,000 $

      Most people that can afford something like this would do it 'just because they can' and consider it around the same as a 'tattoo' or a 'really good night out'.

      Just because they can.

      That is how much free resource and energy is out there. In the system. It's honestly far greater then it ever was. Think Zorg from 5th element. But much more banal.

      Judge and eq

  • Not at the same time :( but I found that if we had a all-night fuck session, their hazel eyes would turn greyish-blue as they got more tired. A good all nighter with an 8-ball would do the same thing, too.

  • by andydread ( 758754 ) on Friday March 06, 2015 @11:06PM (#49202621)
    I'm not sure this is a good thing. The extra melanin apparently gives the eye extra protection from UV rays. I guess if you live in the far north its no big issue but if you live in the southern hemisphere near the equator you may want to thing twice about this. That melanin is there for a reason
    • Of course it's not a good thing. But as I see it... only people that worry more about "looks" (some people like blue eyes, especially in asia) will bypass thousands and thousands of years of evolution in favor of "looking good", and nature has a way of dealing with stupidity.

      • by Ogive17 ( 691899 )
        My wife is Japanese so her physical traits are quite easy to predict. I have dark brown hair and hazel eyes (brown or green depending on the light). Our son was born with blue eyes, which did not surprise me because I knew most babies were born with blue eyes (but I did not know why). Apparently in Japan (and the rest of Asia I assume) this does not happen. This makes me wonder if such a procedure would be successful there.

        I can definitely see it becoming very popular in S. Korea, though.
      • by chihowa ( 366380 )

        Yeah, functionally, blue eyes kind of suck. Sunny summer or snowy winter, I can't leave home without sunglasses. I remember the first time I went skiing with a guy from Korea and he found out that we don't just wear sunglasses to look "styling".

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by SoVi3t ( 633947 ) on Friday March 06, 2015 @11:06PM (#49202623)
    What's this you're doing to my brown eye?
  • I have green eyes, you insensitive clod!

  • When you could etch an image in blue and brown instead? Maybe like the All Seeing Eye of Horus or something.
    • by MrDoh! ( 71235 )
      YES! that was my second thought after first thinking it'd be cool to do a Bowie and just have one eye blue, but then.. yes, having a pattern in the eyes? Far cooler.
  • by staalmannen ( 1705340 ) on Saturday March 07, 2015 @12:11AM (#49202817)
    Anyone know how some animals get the golden yellow colour? That would be cool.
    • by slew ( 2918 )

      Anyone know how some animals get the golden yellow colour? That would be cool.

      Actually, wikipedia has a pretty good explanation [wikipedia.org]...

      Unfortunately, the appearance of yellow in the iris can sometimes be associated with macular degeneration in humans... That is definitely not cool...

  • There was a certain asshole in Germany back in the 40's who did similar research. It creeps me out a bit that people are attempting (and apparently have succeeded at) the very same thing.
    • by cfalcon ( 779563 )

      Why would this bother you? This is really cool for anyone who wants blue eyes.

      • I don't argue that it isn't cool, but the German I'm referring to is infamous for the cruelty of his experiments, thus the creepiness. It reminds one of the other.
        • As far as I know there weren't any Germans in the 1940s researching how to change eye color. Can you source that?
          • Yeah, sorry. Sometimes I think just because I know something that everyone does...I'm weird like that. Here you go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J... [wikipedia.org]

            "Mengele's experiments with eyes included attempts to change eye color by injecting chemicals into the eyes of living subjects and killing people with heterochromatic eyes so that the eyes could be removed and sent to Berlin for study."

            I heard from other sources that blue was his target color.
  • Blue eyes are universally more attractive to all humans at a subconscious level. That has been scientifically proven. It has to do with sensing pupil dilation easier with the high contrast of black and blue (or green or hazel or any other light color) to sense mutual attraction as nonverbal communication. If a person's irises are black, the signal to the other person's brain is that they're disinterested in them romantically.
  • This isn't "news", you can find articles stating the exact same information from like, 2011. Some due diligence please!

  • by itzly ( 3699663 ) on Saturday March 07, 2015 @04:10AM (#49203541)

    I used donuts. After all, just like Crystal Gale was singing: "donuts make my brown eyes blue..."

  • See, I'm only going to do one eye. That way I'll look really unusual (or worse terms :-) ) , plus I'll have 2500 to waste on hookers and blow.

  • I bet the Nazis would have loved a way to turn brown eyes blue.
    • by neminem ( 561346 )

      Know who would really have loved this - darkeyes: http://coppermind.net/wiki/Nah... [coppermind.net]

      Probably a good thing they don't have technology like this, or they'd go crazy. (But in our world, where your caste is *not* determined by the color of your eyes, I'm not sure why anyone would pay for something like this.)

  • Is it only half price, or is there some "set up" overhead?
  • by yakumo.unr ( 833476 ) on Saturday March 07, 2015 @02:17PM (#49205701) Homepage

    Here's an article on basically the same thing from 2011:

    http://news.discovery.com/huma... [discovery.com]

    Is this a new system of doing this, a new group following previous working, just rehashing old news?

    Or is it the same group getting a lot closer to being approved for use?

    • At $5,000 the price is identical same, as is the fact that it's a Californian company, the newer article just doesn't mention a specific doctors name.

      Is this just a slashvertisement ?

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