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Monday, 21 May 2012

The oceans are filled with exquisite examples of how different animals' eyes use light for survival - and knowing how these eyes work is useful for understanding and even improving human vision.A free public lecture at 6pm on Thursday (24 May) at The University of Western Australia will examine what constitutes an ‘eye' and compare the eyes of ocean and land-living animals.

WA Premier's Research Fellow and Winthrop Professor at the UWA Oceans Institute, Shaun Collin, will discuss how the eye, and ultimately the brain, mediates the detection of light using a range of organisms as models.

"Eyes are all different and the levels of light available for vision vary enormously in different environments," he said.

"My lecture will examine the range of functions an ‘eye' has in image-formation and setting circadian rhythms."

Professor Collin's UWA Neuroecology Group has traced the evolution of the vertebrate eye, the origins of colour vision and the environmental influences on spectral tuning, focussing on representatives of the earliest vertebrates.

Professor Collin is the author of more than 160 international scientific publications, including two books, on sensory systems (vision, electroreception, lateral line, olfaction, gustation and audition) of primarily aquatic vertebrates.  As a Premier's Fellow, he has introduced innovative technologies combined with both basic and applied research to trace the evolution of light detection and image formation in order to explore the impacts of light on biodiversity, sustainability of animals native to Western Australia and (animal and human) health.  His research combines existing strengths in eco-physiology, neuroscience and marine science.

His lecture, "Light and the Sea:  An Ocean of Opportunities to Understand the Eye and Brain", is at 6pm on Thursday 24 May in the Webb Lecture Theatre.

Media references

Winthrop Professor Shaun Collin (UWA Oceans Institute,  (+61 8)  6488 2632
School of Animal Biology, and Neuroecology Group)
Michael Sinclair-Jones (UWA Public Affairs)  (+61 8)  6488 3229  /  (+61 4) 00 700 783

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