Japanese Scientists Create Artificial Eyeballs

MikeyMars writes: "CNN is reporting that Japanese scientists have grown artificial eyeballs [cnn.com] for tadpoles. This is the first time in the world something like this has been accomplished. 'Since the basics of body-making is common to that of human beings, I think this might help enable people to regain vision in the future,' Asashima was quoted as saying."

Comments

Re:fake eyeballs

[Docrates]

I think you misunderstand this technology

It's not like they designed eyeballs from scratch. They took undiferentiated cells, which already had the information on how to become regular eyeballs, and then made them grow in that direction. Going from this to actually changing the ways those eyes work would be like engineering eyeballs from scratch. We're not even close to having the information or technology required to get there. Sure we know how eyes work, but changing genes to make them produce different results is NOT where we are right now.

Besides, if we had the ability to do this, I wouldn't consider it a misuse, although I can see why a lot of people would. Besides, all of the applications you mention are already available, cheap and common through different gadgets