We performed a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial to clinically evaluate the protective and ameliorative effects of ellagic acid-rich pomegranate extract on pigmentation in the skin after ultraviolet ray (UV) irradiation, using female subjects in their 20s to 40s. Thirteen healthy volunteers per group were randomly assigned to three groups; namely, high dose (200 mg/d ellagic acid), low dos...

BACKGROUND The similar genetic background of a pair of twins, and the similar environmental impacts to which they are exposed allow an exact and objective investigation of various constitutional and environmental factors in naevus development. As far as we are aware, this is the first published survey that simultaneously examines cutaneous and ocular pigmented lesions in an appreciable sample o...

due to the destruction of the ozone layer. Our skin is more exposed to UV radiation and often suffers from various harmful effects of UV. Melanin prodcution in human skin is an important defense mechanism against UV and a major determinant of skin color. Melanocytes residing within the basal layer of the epidermis synthesize melanin in specialized organelles, designated as melanosomes, by coord...

We have previously shown that a quantitative-trait locus linked to the OCA2 region of 15q accounts for 74% of variation in human eye color. We conducted additional genotyping to clarify the role of the OCA2 locus in the inheritance of eye color and other pigmentary traits associated with skin-cancer risk in white populations. Fifty-eight synonymous and nonsynonymous exonic single-nucleotide pol...

AS OF MAY 30, 2012, THE CATALOG OF PUBLISHED GEnome-wide association studies (GWAS) lists an impressive 1269 GWAS, covering a broad spectrum of conditions including Alzheimer disease, breast cancer, and human immunodeficiency virus susceptibility. The catalog also contains studies on common traits such as height and freckles, as well as responses to drugs for various medical conditions. It is d...

BACKGROUND/PURPOSE In this work, we present a new and fast easy-to-use device that allows the measurement of color and the detection of spots on the human skin. The developed device is highly practical for relatively untrained operators and uses inexpensive consumer equipment, such as a CCD color camera, a light source composed of LEDs and a laptop. The knowledge of the color of the skin and th...

Facial marks (e.g. moles, freckles, and scars) are soft biometric traits that have limited utility in uniquely identifying individuals. However, facial marks can still play a crucial role both in filtering a large face gallery, as well as in distinguishing between ambiguous face comparisons such as identical twins. This research demonstrates that facial marks can indeed be used to speed up face...

licles pigmentation in mammals. Melanin biosynthesis or melanogenesis occurs in specialized organelles, called melanosomes, through a cascade of enzymatic reactions using the amino acid tyrosine as the initial substrate. The first two steps in the biosynthetic pathway, hydroxylation of tyrosine to L-3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine (L-DOPA) and oxidation of L-DOPA to dopaquinone, are catalyzed by tyr...

tertainment milestone in 1995 with the release of Toy Story, the first full-length movie animated using computers. But the digitally created characters and sets of such productions generally still have a distinctive look that sets them off from reality: everything is a little too smooth and perfect, a little too clean, as if freshly molded in plastic. What’s missing is dirt and dust, cracks and...

Unilateral sensorineural hearing loss (USNHL)/single-side deafness (SSD) is a frequently encountered disability in children. The etiology of a substantial portion of USNHL/SSD still remains unknown, and genetic causes have not been clearly elucidated. In this study, the authors evaluated the heritability of USNHL/SSD.The authors sequentially recruited 50 unrelated children with SSD. For an etio...