[R-sig-ME] Does lmer use Empirical Bayes to estimate random effects

[Christopher David Desjardins]

I noticed that HLM uses Empirical Bayes to estimate the random effects 
and I was curious if this is what lmer() does to? I came across this 
https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-sig-mixed-models/2009q1/002107.html
but it is unclear to me if it is correct to say that lmer() uses 
Empirical Bayes to estimate these effects.
Thanks,
Chris

-- 
Christopher David Desjardins, Ph.D. Student
Quantitative Methods in Education
Department of Educational Psychology
University of Minnesota
http://cddesjardins.wordpress.com/