内容摘要：When these fast-moving space rocks enter Earth’s atmosphere, the debris encounters new resistance from the air and becomes very hot, eventually burning up.

When these fast-moving space rocks enter Earth’s atmosphere, the debris encounters new resistance from the air and becomes very hot, eventually burning up.

Today, transplants of the cornea — the clear tissue in front of the eye — are common to treat certain types of vision loss. But transplanting the whole eye — the eyeball, its blood supply and the critical optic nerve that must connect it to the brain — is considered a moonshot in the quest to cure blindness.Whatever happens next, James’ surgery offers scientists an unprecedented window into how the human eye tries to heal.

“We’re not claiming that we are going to restore sight,” said Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez, NYU’s plastic surgery chief, who led the transplant. “But there’s no doubt in my mind we are one step closer.”This fall 2010 family photo shows Aaron James and his wife, Meagan, before his June 2021 high-voltage electricity accident. (NYU Langone Health via AP)This fall 2010 family photo shows Aaron James and his wife, Meagan, before his June 2021 high-voltage electricity accident. (NYU Langone Health via AP)

Some specialists had feared the eye would quickly shrivel like a raisin. Instead, when Rodriguez propped open James’ left eyelid last month, the donated hazel-colored eye was as plump and full of fluid as his own blue eye. Doctors see good blood flow and no sign of rejection.Now researchers have begun analyzing scans of James’ brain that detected some puzzling signals from that all-important but injured optic nerve.

One scientist who has long studied how to make eye transplants a reality called the surgery exciting.

“It’s an amazing validation” of animal experiments that have kept transplanted eyes alive, said Dr. Jeffrey Goldberg, chair of ophthalmology at Stanford University.“We’ve all spent hours wracking our brains why they would do this,” said Goldsborough.

The first baby-snatcher may have had a confused “caring motivation,” or parental instinct, because he showed gentleness interacting with the infants, she said. Then four other males copied his actions.The researchers said they don’t believe the capuchins harmed the babies on purpose. So far, only one group of capuchins has been known to kidnap.

The research shows the “remarkable behavioral variation across social groups of the same species,” said Catherine Crockford, a primatologist at the CNRS Institute for Cognitive Sciences in France, who was not involved in the study.The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.