SCIENCE BRIEFING
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
Italian and British scientists want to exhume the body of astronomer Galileo Galilei for DNA tests to determine if severe vision problems may have affected some of his findings. Galileo, who lived from 1564 to 1642, had eye problems in the second half of his life and was blind for his last two years.
Dr. Peter Watson, president of the Academia Ophthalmologica Internationalis, suspects Galileo may have had an inflammation of the eye’s middle layer, a condition called creeping angle closure glaucoma. One “error” that may have been due to his bad eyesight is that he believed Saturn did not appear perfectly round.
