She has lived behind a veil for the past two years, but today Charla Nash, the woman who survived a vicious attack by her friend's chimpanzee, has revealed her new face for the first time.

Ms Nash, who was left permanently blind, and lost her nose, eyes and lips in the attack, received a ground-breaking face transplant in May.

Speaking of her incredible recovery in an interview for the Today show, she said that for the first time since the horrific ordeal she can smell, eat solid food and feel sensation on her face. And remarkably, her new features are beginning to show.

'I’m beginning to feel my jaw and chin. And I can move my mouth and smile. I still feel weak. But little by little I’m getting stronger,' she said off air. Her first meal after the surgery, she said, was eggs and cream cheese.

In May, a team of more than 30 surgeons, nurses and anaesthetists at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, led by Dr Bohdan Pomanhac, painstakingly rebuilt her face. They kept the date secret to protect Ms Nash's privacy.

Plumes from Icelandic volcano likely will disrupt some flights, experts say

The main ash cloud released from this weekend's eruption of an Icelandic volcano is creeping toward Scandinavia, while a smaller plume is nearing Scotland, raising concerns that the ash could affect air travel in Europe.

Britain's Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said it was likely that flights from parts of the country would be disrupted as early as Monday night. "That's the way it's looking certainly at the moment," a CAA spokesperson said.

Britain's Met Office is predicting a plume of ash from the Grimsvotn volcano would cover all of Ireland, Scotland and parts of northern Britain by midnight EDT on Tuesday. The Met office told NBC News it does not want to speculate about concentration levels and what they could mean for air travel.

The April 2010 eruption of another Icelandic volcano prompted aviation officials to close Europe's airspace for five days out of fear that the ash could harm jet engines. Thousands of flights were grounded, airlines lost millions of dollars and travelers were stranded, many sleeping on airport floors across northern Europe.

The impact of Grimsvotn was expected to be far smaller because the larger cloud was moving far north of most flight paths, but travelers and aviation officials were still watching nervously.

Danish air traffic officials said the main ash plume reached eastern Greenland, a semiautonomous Danish territory. Air Greenland said its Monday flight between the island's main airport and Copenhagen was canceled as a result.