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Ophthalmologists, Physicists Design Bionic Eye
InfallibleLies writes "For the first time ever, those who have been blind since birth will have a chance to see the world. It's still in the early stages, but this is a giant leap forward in medical science." From the linked BBC article:
"U.S scientists have designed a bionic eye to allow blind people to see again. It comprises a computer chip that sits in the back of the individual's eye, linked up to a mini video camera built into glasses that they wear. Images captured by the camera are beamed to the chip, which translates them into impulses that the brain can interpret."
Would it be possible to make it "see" infared. Then it would translated it to false color? It would be like the first upgrade in Rouge angent.
I'm not so sure that people bling from birth will benefit from any such device. That part of their brain is not even developed, you can't just "plug in" some video feed and expect them to see, do you?
The cookie told me to.
Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da...
See close-up view of its license plate.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Certainly I hope it doesn't run windows... we don't want the blind people to see only a blue screen all the time, right?
If I recall correctly, people who have been blind their whole lives can never really 'learn' to see, after age 3 or so. At least, not on anywhere near the same level that people can see naturally, even assuming that they had an absolutely perfect prothesis. Who this will benefit are people who have went blind at some point during their adult life due to injury, glaucoma, diabetes (yes, it can make you go blind), drinking too much rubbing alcohol, or something similar.
---- I'll take you in a Hunt deathmatch any day.
It may help people that were blinded later in life through an accident or cataracts. However, if someone is blind from birth then their visual cortex never develops and vision would be impossible even with an artificial eye. Many studies have been done. Click here here and here for more info.
So, how long until someone is able to boot linux on it? >_>
Hero of Allacrost, a FOSS RPG for *NIX/*BSD/OS X/Win
> Who this will benefit are people who have went blind at some point during their adult life due to injury, glaucoma, diabetes (yes, it can make you go blind), drinking too much rubbing alcohol, or something similar.
You forgot masturbation.
It's not made into a stylish visor.
How do we expect Star Trek to hold any weight if we do an end run around the technology!
Some related recent press releases about this kind of technology :
- Emory Eye Center Implants Its First Retinal Chips In Patients With Retinitis Pigmentosa
- Ophthalmologists Use Artificial Silicon Retina Microchip To Treat Vision Loss
Eureka Science News - automatically updated
So how long before upgrades make this "bionic eye" significantly better than a human eye?
Will we reach a point where attaching this bionic eye becomes an elective surgery where someone wants to simply improve their eyesight beyond 20/20; beyond what a mere "human" can see?
Breast inlargements, designer babies, bionic implants....where is it all going?
Sugapablo
I recall during my 4th grade year (about 4 years ago), scientists devised a method for an Indiana man who was blind to see again. What they did, IIRC, was create a pair of glasses that fed the digitized data through a wire to a processor worn around his waist, which in turn transferred the data as electrical signals into his brain directly (as you can guess, they had to drill a hole in his head; a small one though). This method allowed the once-blind man to see about 20 feet in front.
Soon after, they ended up innovating that even more.
Not really close to the bionic eye idea, but close; earlier in the generations.
Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Bugs are good for building character in the user.
They were stimulating nerves in the eye with tiny electrodes, although they had to ask the patient where in his field of vision he saw the phosphene as they stimulated him. From this they created a "mapping" of sorts.
This sort of research was frowned upon on the US, and so it had to be carried out overseas. Check out the article -- more info than the linked BBC one.
I once saw a recognisable picture of old Abe Lincoln in approx 16x16 pixels IIRC. This is not enough for pron or to driving etc, but is probably enough to make a vast difference to a blind person's life: being able to see some of the local environment can help a lot eg:Where's the coffee cup on the table? Where's the phone? Is the door open/shut? Am I about to fall in a hole? Is the lid up or down when I go for a pee?
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Some people who have been blind since birth get very depressed when their vision is medically restored and they see the world as it actually is. It doesn't correspond at all to the colorful paradise their hardware has come up with in lack of sensors.
I guess it's like realizing there is no god after having been brought up in a religious home, or finding out that W. Gates III isn't the saint he has been described to be after filling his pockets for twenty years.
Or maybe it is like Neo finally seeing the rotting world after swallowing the blue pill.
Yes, this jibes with what I've heard too. Google for "Parmelee Sigman kitten" and you find references to a study in which kittens were blindfolded from birth to adulthood; when the blindfolds were removed, they were unable to see and never gained the ability to see, despite the fact that their eyes were physically normal - their brains simply weren't wired for it. Still, we've discovered that the adult brain is more plastic than we used to think, so I wouldn't totally rule out the possibility. They mention macular degeneration in the article, and this is a big one, since it's a major cause of blindness in the elderly (my grandmother and great-aunt were both legally blind in their old age because of it). Something that can fix that would help make living longer better, instead of just longer.
Masturbation can only possibly cause night blindness if your diet does not have enough zinc or vitamin A. Zinc is needed to transport vit. A to the retina, where it is needed for the rods that provide black-and-white night vision, but it is excreted in relatively high amount with the semen.
Apparently you don't see to well.
Your bionic eye may need a firmware update.
I'll bet you win at Balderdash all the time.
The US RDA (diet guideline) says you need 15 mg per day. Wikipedia says you lose 5 mg each time you abuse yourself. So, at a rate of 3 squirts/day, you'll have no zinc left for your eyes. You'll go blind, just like your momma told you.
Now a good excuse/reason to tell the girls
:-)
"Have you had your zinc supplement today?"
3 rations sounds good, morning, evening, late evening.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
I was an interpreter for some time, and learned one magic thing about implants adding abilities missing from birth or from accidents... it only works to the degree that the person accepts the information. If the blind person (from birth) *WANTED*, they would most definitely train their brain to use the data. maybe not perfectly, but they would have some sight. I knew deaf people who WANTED to hear with their implant, and could quite well after a few years of training.. others who never did get the hang of it. Its like trying to train someone to smell music... if some device provided the input, and you really wanted it, you'd learn. with much dammit and aggrivation, but you'd do it.
meh
Now the world has gone to bed.
Darkness wont engulf my head.
I can see by infrared.
How I hate the night.
Now I lay me down to sleep.
Try to count electric sheep.
Sweet dream wishes you can keep.
How I hate the night.
- Marvin the Paranoid Android.
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
...what causes the hair to grow in your palms?
I'm not so sure that people bling from birth will benefit from any such device.
Bling from birth?! That's the shit fer shizzle, ma nizzle!
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
It takes you to a star trek site
In late 2002 this method was up to 68 implanted electrodes (which would be about equal to an 8x8 matrix)
HOWEVER, you need more than 1000 (say 32x32 or 1028) or above for any really useful vision With 8x8 you might recognize one or two ASCII characters. A Face??? Only if it's an emoticon.
Now granted these are implants in the retina and not the visual cortex, but I have seen other claims for retinal implants over the last five years.
Why is this research taking so long to bear fruit? In 1978 progress was limited by the available CPU horsepower to translate images into usable grid stimulation patterns. Now it seems we are stalled out with our ability to put electrodes in organic systems.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this is easy, but why doesn't this stuff scale like Moore's Law with integrated circuits? Given the state of research over a decade ago we should be up to VGA quality arrays of 640x480 by now.
In general prosthetics systems always seem to be on the verge of some "Steve Austin" "Million Dollar Man" arrival and then never makes it. I assure you when we watched Lee Majors in the early '70s wha-na-na-na-na'ing all over the place we assumed such feats would be common place by the year 2000. What the hell happened? Is this just hard like AI, or under-funded and poorly organized?
Letter To Iran
Now a good excuse/reason to tell the girls
:-)
"Have you had your zinc supplement today?"
3 rations sounds good, morning, evening, late evening.
You meant that as a joke, but serious medical studies have found that depressed girls who start swallowing are made less depressive from the semen intake. The hormones and zinc in the ejaculate counteract deficiencies and improve the woman's mood.
Actually, there is a scenario they have experimented with. Some people are born with severe cataracts. Surgery can remove those cataracts now, but 20 years ago when they started doing this, they found that if they did not remove the cataracts within a certain amount of time, the brain did not develop sufficiently for eye-sight to be restored. A friend of mine has this problem (she is legally blind). Her daughter was born with the same defect but this time they were able to operate quickly after birth, remove the damaged lenses and replace them with special contacts. When the child is 6 or 7 they will replace the contacts with new lens implants.