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Nanobatteries Power Artificial Eyes
Roland Piquepaille writes "A new U.S. research center, the National Center for Design of Biomimetic Nanoconductors, has been opened to promote new ideas in the field of nanomedicine. For example, a team of researchers at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) is developing a nano-size battery to be implanted in the eye to power artificial retina. But this center will also design and build 'nanomedical devices based on natural and synthetic ion transporters -- proteins that control ion motion across the membranes of every living cell.'"
short and simple answer is that the battery should be nearly harmless. If it breaks down it might be a bit of a drag on the local metabolism. And assuming that the protien isnt some sort of prion precursor (unlikely for a membrane protien) it should be safe.
Storm
1. They haven't developed the eyes any further than otherwise reported some time ago.
2. The batteries don't exist yet, really.
3. The batteries that don't yet exist are being designed for artificial eyes that don't yet exist.
I'm all for this technology to mature -- I have two blind relatives and it seems likely that others in my family will also have problems as they age. The kinds of work they're doing should help them if it matures. This article, however, doesn't actually show much advancement other than a new lab is working on a new thing, that could power a new device -- when they all get it figured out.
I wish
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
Only the rich will be able to afford this tech for the next 10-20 years. You know, some nations have socialized medicine...
Remember, though, that these artificial retinas will have some sort of computer control and some kind of programming. Lets sure hope that these things don't have a live-update feature for the software because that would mean a non-local connection. That'd lead to vulnerabilities. Just imagine your vision not only lagging and causing you pain, but it being used to carry out a spam attack. Lets hope M$ doesnt make any software for these things. I don't want to load "critical updates" into my eyes.
Medically safe batteries have been around a long time. Think about pacemakers and other implanted devices such as used to control seizures use batteries. Some of the batteries can be recharged thru the skin using RF.
3. The batteries that don't yet exist are being designed for artificial eyes that don't yet exist.
/.) from last May's Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology meeting about six previously completely blind patients have successfully used the referenced retinas to detect light.
RTFA: "starting with an artificial retina that has already been developed at the Doheny Eye Institute at the University of Southern California".
And with a little research, you can find reports (here and here, and even on
Anm
I'm still waiting for the rich to fund profound things like treatments for malaria
You seem to have the "rich" confused with "instant social panacea".
Trickle-down refers to the idea that the rich very, very rarely horde all of their money in a mattress to never, ever spend any of it. Even if a "rich" person were, for some reason, to save 100% of his wealth and subsist off of dirt and grubs, this wealth would still trickle down.
As I'm sure you already know, it is common for people - be they rich or poor - to save their money in a bank. It is from these savings that banks are able to provide loans - i.e., what allows the non-rich to buy houses, cars, and other things. Or, more importantly, what provides entrepreneuers with the initial investment they need to create the next Big Thing, like this new-fangled blindness-cure-thingy. In other words, banks make the wealth hording of the rich both productive and useful to society, and help wealth to "trickle down."
Effects are more obvious if we assume that the rich spend some of their money - if it was spent, someone had to have received it. In my experience, very rarely do the rich buy only from the rich, who in turn buy only from the rich, who in turn buy only from the rich, and so forth - they eat at expensive restaurants where the waiters are most likely not rich, buy expensive cars made by blue-collar workers, and generally like to flaunt their worldly posessions - all to the benefit of the middle-class workers who actually produce the posessions being flaunted. Wealth diffuses from high concentrations to low concentrations - or "trickles down."
Another related point is that just because someone has more doesn't automatically mean someone else has less - wealth creation isn't a zero-sum game. There isn't a fixed amount of cash in the world that we all have to divvy up - wealth is actually created when an entrepreneur assembles the factors of production (like auto parts) into a finished good (like an auto). Although the sum of the parts may be worth x, the auto is worth more than x, for an auto is far more useful to the average consumer than the individual auto parts.
Long answer made short - "trickle down" is not some mystical process by which the rich will cure malaria. It's an economic concept explaining the distribution of wealth.
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