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Seeing With Your Skin?

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the eyes-in-the-back-of-my-head dept.

Iddo Genuth writes to tell us that a researcher from Tel Aviv University is exploring the possibility that humans may be able to "see" via their skin. Professor Leonid Yaroslavsky hopes to utilize this possible technology to find solutions for the blind in addition to new types of image capture that might be able to work where conventional lenses fail. Unfortunately he has a long uphill battle ahead to convince others that his theories are possible. "The lenses currently used for optics-based imaging have many problems. They only work within a limited range of electromagnetic radiation. Relatively, these are still costly devices greatly limited by weight and field of view. The imaging Professor Yaroslavsky has in mind has no lenses and he believes the devices can be adapted to any kind of radiation and wavelength. They could essentially work with a 360-degree field of view and their imaging capability will only be determined by computer power rather than the laws of light diffraction."

138 comments

  1. My eyebrows are raised by BWJones · · Score: 4, Insightful

    As a vision scientist, my eyebrows are raised. I am highly skeptical for a variety of really, very good reasons...

    --
    Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
    1. Re:My eyebrows are raised by philspear · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yes, but does that increase or decrease what you're seeing with your forehead?

    2. Re:My eyebrows are raised by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As a vision scientist, my eyebrows are raised. I am highly skeptical for a variety of really, very good reasons...

      You should get that checked out by a medical doctor or a good hair waxing specialist.

    3. Re:My eyebrows are raised by Psychotria · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I have read your comments before and can infer that you're very good in your field. You have pretty cool monitors anyway. My question is this: _Assuming_ that it is possible to "see" with skin, my guess would be that the 'resolution' would be the limiting factor. Obviously the skin can detect many wavelengths of light--I am having trouble jumping from this thought to the thought of the skin resolving those sensations into an image. You, rightly I think, say that you're skeptical, but you don't expand on any of your "very good reasons". I, for one, would love to hear some of these very good reasons (seriously).

    4. Re:My eyebrows are raised by MichaelSmith · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The article doesn't say what the resolution is supposed to be. Most of us could detect a light globe a short distance behind us. Thats a kind of vision. Our skin reacts to infrared photons.

      My mother is a teacher and used to work with children who were totally deaf and blind. I was amazed to see how aware they could be of their surroundings, and how much they could learn, though all of their communication was based on touch.

      --
      http://michaelsmith.id.au
    5. Re:My eyebrows are raised by Psychotria · · Score: 3, Insightful

      He said he was skeptical. All good scientists must be skeptical. It has nothing to do with having "faith in your fellow scientists".

    6. Re:My eyebrows are raised by dreamchaser · · Score: 1

      But surely as a scientist you have an open mind? I don't think they are talking about 'seeing' the way we see to read. The forms of 'skin vision' cited are all ways to detect electromagnetic radiation but none of them would allow one to, for example, read Slashdot. There is vision and there is vision. I think in this case they are just using the term a bit loosely. I'm a bit skeptical about some of the forward looking claims as well, but this might just bear further research.

    7. Re:My eyebrows are raised by BWJones · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Argh, too many windows open on the desktop and I clicked submit accidentally before elaborating.

      My first concern is that this little "story" or press release has been either re-released or duplicated on various sources verbatim for weeks if not months and I've yet to see anything in the scientific literature about it. Publishing scientific progress in the popular press before peer review typically means bogus science to me.

      There certainly are photoreceptive skin cells in "lower" vertebrates and invertebrates that do transduce photosensitive information. However, any experiments I've seen in the literature or in popular press (or even weird Soviet 1960s "dermo optical" experiments that have attempted to evaluate "skin vision" in humans have failed or not accounted for temperature or other confounds.

      --
      Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
    8. Re:My eyebrows are raised by MichaelSmith · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Obviously the skin can detect many wavelengths of light--I am having trouble jumping from this thought to the thought of the skin resolving those sensations into an image.

      Blind people seem to be able to do that with braile. Maybe a pattern of bumps can work in a similar way to a pattern of warm spots on the skin.

      --
      http://michaelsmith.id.au
    9. Re:My eyebrows are raised by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Blind people seem to be able to do that with braile. Maybe a pattern of bumps can work in a similar way to a pattern of warm spots on the skin.

      In my family, we had a game where someone would write letters one at a time on your bare back with a fingernail and you had to identify the word.

    10. Re:My eyebrows are raised by CorporateSuit · · Score: 1

      It seems to hearken back to the evolutionist hypothesis that the eye is an evolved version of a light-sensitive cell (like, for example, melanin) that became more specialized through time. Skin cells don't seem to react to light in the visible or infrared spectrums -- rather just ultraviolet. It's definitely sensitive to reflected ultraviolet light which means the sense is there, the information simply isn't transferred quickly or coherently enough to the brain to register it. There's no lens to define where the light is coming from when it's reflected to hit the skin, so it seems even if the brain were wired to pick up when skin is exposed to UV light, it would read nothing but static that could be coming from any direction, possibly filtered by calculating the parallax signal from other patches of skin cells. The sense, in this case, would be less like seeing and more like hearing ultraviolet light to know where which direction reflecting surfaces are, and the skin sensitivity would have to be amped to become so severe that a slap on the wrist would probably be mentally crippling and physically incapacitating.

      I am not a vision-rocket guy, but the basic biology and basic physics of it all seem to add up with an adaptive-enough brain to mix it together -- but since it's not what happens to blind people naturally, when the physics and biology don't prompt the automatic switch to a lesser, but also feasible method of interpreting light, it's unlikely the human body can register the sense well enough for it to be survivably effective. Not impossible, though. Neither measurable success or ultimate failure would surprise me.

      --
      I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
    11. Re:My eyebrows are raised by Kagura · · Score: 1

      Have you heard of the mapping hardware that military divers can use by placing a special plate on their tongue to feel the map?

    12. Re:My eyebrows are raised by ardle · · Score: 1

      I didn't RTFA but the idea seems plausible.
      I recall Richard Dawkins saying that eyes tend to evolve from photoreceptive skin cells.
      The brain is the most important organ that "sees"; it's the thing that does the image processing. Or, if you look at it another way, the brain constructs the image from available data.
      If it were medically possible to stimulate a patch of skin cells to transmit more light information to the brain - and correspondingly stimulate a neural pathway (who knows, maybe even all the way to a "visual" area) - then the subject might be able to form a usable "image" of their surroundings by "scanning" (moving their stimulated skin around ;-).

    13. Re:My eyebrows are raised by MichaelSmith · · Score: 1

      It might be a bit like echolocation. We all use it to some degree without being aware of it and some blind people have learnt to use it as a substitute for vision.

      --
      http://michaelsmith.id.au
    14. Re:My eyebrows are raised by mikael · · Score: 1

      I remember reading about this in one of those X-files type books in high school ("Strange Energies - Hidden Powers" and "Mysteries of the Undead").

      One of the claims was that people could tell which colour a sheet of paper was, even with their eyes closed. They said that blue or purple would "feel colder" than a colour such as red or orange. Since skin can feel infra-red radiation (heat), maybe this was possible.

      But they never tested it with a sheet of paper underneath a plastic cover, so the case remains unsolved.

      --
      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
    15. Re:My eyebrows are raised by HTH+NE1 · · Score: 1

      There's no lens to define where the light is coming from when it's reflected to hit the skin

      Sweat can bead on the skin and act as a lens, though for evolution of sight it would probably have to be from an aquatic genesis to have become such an ubiquitous solution on Earth, perhaps a membrane protecting sensitive nerve cells becoming progressively thinner generation after generation, improving both in sensitivity and ability to focus as it becomes naturally selected for improved chances of survival both offensively and defensively.

      --
      Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
    16. Re:My eyebrows are raised by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have you got a sister? Is she single and hot?

    17. Re:My eyebrows are raised by philspear · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Actually it should: science doesn't work through faith. The word or untested hypotheses of even the most distinguished scientists isn't good for anything besides deciding what to test next. If Stephen Hawkings said Hawkin's radiation leaks out slightly faster from black holes than he thought and didn't offer proof, there would be plenty of people who would investigate I'm sure, but it wouldn't be accepted as more than conjecture, even though it's named after him.

    18. Re:My eyebrows are raised by OeLeWaPpErKe · · Score: 2, Informative

      It's nothing like echolocation. First of all, echolocation is active scanning, vision is passive scanning (nobody can detect you're looking at them, however you can tell if someone's using echolocation). Echolocation is dependant upon 1 or 2 sensors, while vision needs thousands (and prefers millions) of sensors.

      The calculations are explained in this link :

      arXivBlog

      The article makes several good points. After minimal practice you are able to identify the location of the sun blindfolded.

      A bit more practice and you can find people in closed rooms. Or behind you. This is trivially easy if the person behind you is really close, but with training you can increase the range quite a bit. It's impossibly to "feel" further than 2 or 3 meters or so, however, so while it beats our eyes in low light conditions at short ranges, it's not useful to see very far (the article explains this : it *is* possible to make skin vision work for very, very long distances, but the computational cost is off the scale).

      Not only do we have skin vision, the article claims, but we use it often. To avoid staring into the sun for example, but also to detect hot objects before touching them.

      Do an experiment. Heat up your stove. Hold your hand above it. It's quite clearly there isn't it ? Surely this must be the heated air rising, right ? (even though if you calculate how fast the heat transfers into your hand it doesn't quite make sense, and you don't actually feel air rise)

      So now try the same with a pot. Try to identify if it's hot or cold, by just holding your hand close to it (don't touch it). You should, again, with a little concentration, be able to do this with 100% accuracy. Nevertheless, with a vertical surface, there is hardly any heated air coming to your hand, yet you're able to identify the heat from about the same distance.

      We're not only able to see with our skin, but we see more than we see with our eyes. No amount of visual inspection with your eyes would tell you a cooking pot is hot or cold : the radiation that gives it away is outside of the spectrum of our eyes (this is due to the limitations of the lens "assembly"). Nevertheless clearly we can detect that radiation.

      The theory goes that this is how eyes developed. Skin is sensitive at very short range, and can actually form images of very close objects. But even with the huge brain humans have it only works for at best a few meters.

      However a dimpled piece of skin will see more, due to it's shape and will be able to focus further. Making that dimple moveable is an obvious next step.

      From there it's a short step to what amounts to a pinhole camera.

      Fill a pinhole camera that is round with a drop of water and you've got basic optics (that aren't very stable).

      Put a transparent layer of skin above the droplet of water and you have reptile eyes, much, much more stable than the pinhole kind and not nearly as prone to infection.

      Let the skin immediately above the hole in the skin grow a little bit and you've got mammal eyes. Add a muscle within that loose hanging skin and you've got human eyes.

    19. Re:My eyebrows are raised by Psychotria · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I agree 100%; it's exactly what I was saying. You have to be skeptical. Reputation goes a long way, but it would be foolhardy to accept something that someone says based on their reputation -- no matter how good their reputation is. Being skeptical is part of the bargain and necessary. "Necessary" is probably too light a word. Without skepticism everything falls apart.

    20. Re:My eyebrows are raised by Psychotria · · Score: 1

      Further, I would say that being open to criticism and being able to accept that, move on and improve (based on the criticism) separates the mediocre from the brilliant. It doesn't matter how much knowledge you have. We all make mistakes and we all overlook things. We all say silly things now and again. Far too often I have met people who cannot accept criticism -- they take it as a personal attack. These people never make good scientists (in my opinion). Being sceptical also means that you have to be willing to provide constructive feedback. Often this can be done anonymously. It doesn't have to be anonymous, but for some reason (human nature?) anonymous review seems to work well -- perhaps it's because it seems less personal (it's not personal, it is commenting objectively, which is why I said "seems"). If we were not sceptical we wouldn't need peer review.

    21. Re:My eyebrows are raised by Kleen13 · · Score: 0

      Do scientists even have "faith"?

      --
      That sinking feeling deep in your gut when you KNOW you screwed up bad summed up with: {head desk} {head desk}
    22. Re:My eyebrows are raised by Original+Replica · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I am having trouble jumping from this thought to the thought of the skin resolving those sensations into an image.

      As I understand it, that's more of a matter of the brain rewiring itself to interpret the signals coming from that patch of skin differently than any limitation of the nerves in the skin itself. There is an interesting account of what this is like in an old Wired article around page 5 the author experiences a rather sudden shift as his brain learns to interpret visual signals differently.

      --
      We are all just people.
    23. Re:My eyebrows are raised by J+Story · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Further, I would say that being open to criticism and being able to accept that, move on and improve (based on the criticism) separates the mediocre from the brilliant. It doesn't matter how much knowledge you have. We all make mistakes and we all overlook things. We all say silly things now and again.

      This is what makes the "science" of Global Warming so frustrating. Criticism or scepticism is anathema, and we hear the constant chant that "the debate is over". Real science thrives on argument and experiments, and not on ad hominem attacks.

    24. Re:My eyebrows are raised by BungaDunga · · Score: 2, Informative

      They've actually done that. Big mechanical bunch of pins or something in the back of a chair. A camera that makes each pin act as a pixel and poke into the subject's back. Terribly unwieldy, but it does give people an image in their mind's eye.

    25. Re:My eyebrows are raised by tenco · · Score: 1

      After minimal practice you are able to identify the location of the sun blindfolded.

      Some people actually have to practice that? Simply turn around until your face gets warm.

      Nevertheless clearly we can detect that radiation.

      I dont' think we detect the radiation. We detect the warmth the radiation produces in our skin. So it's not really different from feeling warmth by touching a hot object (both rely on our skin getting warmer). For the rest: i think it's quite possible put maybe this is a differen effect. In pitch-dark rooms you sometimes can "feel" close walls or large solid objects.

    26. Re:My eyebrows are raised by Psychotria · · Score: 1

      In pitch-dark rooms you sometimes can "feel" close walls or large solid objects.

      Are you talking about rooms you're familiar with or unfamilar rooms? For example, say I blindfolded you and stuck you in with zero light and did not allow you to speak ('cause that may mean that you can use echoes as a cue) would you be able to tell where the walls were? If the answer is yes, then that needs to be investigated. Note also that, perhaps, your walking may produce subtle echo effects.

    27. Re:My eyebrows are raised by Psychotria · · Score: 1

      Air flow may also play a role

    28. Re:My eyebrows are raised by Psychotria · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Radiant heat and reflection may also play a role. The list goes on. All this stuff needs to be eliminated or accounted for when you design your experiment. I am not disagreeing with you btw... just interested :-)

    29. Re:My eyebrows are raised by philspear · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well, that's because it's no longer an academic question. SOME of the skepticism is "economically motivated" and therefore impossible to satisfy. There's also the factor of "if it's right, then waiting until it's a fact will be too late." As someone who won't lose money directly from cutting our use of fossil fuels, of course I'm going to say we should cut them now and potentially have done it for nothing than not cut them now and wish we had.

      The science of global warming is now only used as a bat in the debate because there are larger issues.

    30. Re:My eyebrows are raised by Psychotria · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I cannot believe I am replying to this.

      a) Where did I say that I have an "education"?
      b) Why do you think that being sceptical is bad?
      c) If you think that by typing "skeptical" (mirroring the OP) was bad, then you miss the point.
      d) What did I say that sounded "elitist"?
      e) Where did I imply that all good scientists must think like me? (Apart from adhering to basic principles)

    31. Re:My eyebrows are raised by Metasquares · · Score: 1

      Each scientist has a certain balance between open-mindedness and skepticism. I personally favor open-mindedness, even if it comes at the cost of adopting the occasional wrong idea, but I think skepticism is more common. More open-mindedness can improve the uniqueness and number of your ideas, more skepticism their chance of success and the rigor with which they are pursued.

      Or, to put it another way, there is an ROC curve for accepting ideas. People who are more skeptical are gaining specificity (less acceptance of what is false) at the cost of sensitivity (less acceptance of what is true too), while less skeptical people trade off in the other direction.

      Just being open-minded doesn't mean you automatically accept any idea, though. It still has to make sense. I guess for the GP, this one didn't, although I'm curious why he didn't explicitly state his reasoning.

    32. Re:My eyebrows are raised by NimbleSquirrel · · Score: 0

      As a theatre lighting designer, I'm not skeptical at all. In fact I have made use of this very phenomena.

      As part of a workshop for a contemporary dance show I set up a bunch of tightly focussed beams and pools of light and then had the performers navigate around the space with their eyes closed. In a suitably darkened space, you can feel when the light hits you. I'd say the sesitivity is more the infrared portion of the spectrum, but it does work.

    33. Re:My eyebrows are raised by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 0

      My eyebrows are raised, too, but for other reasons. Considering the scandals involving prestigious "peer-reviewed" journals over the past decade or two, my respect for them has dwindled to a fraction of what it once was.

      If you would like citations I can supply some, but really they are easy to find.

    34. Re:My eyebrows are raised by Psychotria · · Score: 1

      Jane, what are you talking about? Peer review means that others looked at your hypothesis, your methodology, your results and your conclusion. These peers could not see any obvious flaws and, therefore, it can be published. "Peer review" does not mean that any of the paper is correct; nor should the published paper be taken as gospel truth. It merely means that there were no obvious flaws in the preparation. Feel free to object or supersede it with your own studies. This is not new to "the past decade or two". It has always been the way.

    35. Re:My eyebrows are raised by andy_t_roo · · Score: 1

      The ability of the brain to interpret signals which do not originate from the retina as (roughly) visual signals has been known for a while - http://www.seeingwithsound.com/ is one application which maps visual to audable signals.

    36. Re:My eyebrows are raised by philspear · · Score: 1

      Or at least google "passive voice."

    37. Re:My eyebrows are raised by cytg.net · · Score: 1

      indeed .. but how cool would it be?.. and while we problary dont have the brainpower to process a full 360 field of view, a little neural implant will fix that...
      .. goddamnit i live in the wrong decade!

    38. Re:My eyebrows are raised by foobsr · · Score: 1

      I am having trouble jumping from this thought to the thought of the skin resolving those sensations into an image

      It need not necessarily be an image — a representation of the environment would (does) suffice (and of course it needs a lot of practice to achieve). On a side note, the formulation using the concept of an 'image' (to me) supports the idea that perception is very heavily biased towards vision (which, if you think that balance and adequate proportion are crucial has implications on its own).

      Besides, the idea that one could 'see' (e.g.) a person coming up from behind does not seem to be that uncommon.

      CC.

      --
      TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
    39. Re:My eyebrows are raised by foobsr · · Score: 1

      In pitch-dark rooms you sometimes can "feel" close walls or large solid objects.

      Microgravity

      CC.

      --
      TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
    40. Re:My eyebrows are raised by Sardaukar86 · · Score: 1

      ..and by the grace of Gawd Almighty, our Psychotria finds himself duly rewarded for feeding the troll. :)


      (have to admit though it's pretty hard to ignore them when they make their attacks so personal)

      --
      ..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
    41. Re:My eyebrows are raised by foobsr · · Score: 1

      but also to detect hot objects before touching them

      From quite a distance ! Just imagine you live on a tree and only realize that it is burning right under you — would'nt it be of some 'evolutionary advantage' if you were able to detect the fire earlier (without actually seeing it)?

      CC.

      --
      TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
    42. Re:My eyebrows are raised by John+Allsup · · Score: 1

      Faith, to a certain degree is absolutely necessary. One must have faith in the reliability of reason itself, the foundations of mathematics and effectively believe that, if basic physics isn't on sound footing as it stands, then it can in principle be placed on sound footing given sufficient information... or something like that.

      That said, the amount of stuff that is done based on faith in one's fellow 'scientists' is scary, and I'm not going to name names here.

      --
      John_Chalisque
    43. Re:My eyebrows are raised by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That all depends on if BWJones has had a facelift. I would think that wrinkles would affect vision.

    44. Re:My eyebrows are raised by John+Allsup · · Score: 1

      Whilst I'd agree that vision in the sense that we know it is unlikely to be replicated through the skin, the sensitivity of the skin and of the body in general allows a great deal of information from the body's environment to be perceived and, effectively 'seen'. For practical evidence you only need to look into areas such as internal martial arts, where such perception is often deliberately trained to some degree or other.

      --
      John_Chalisque
    45. Re:My eyebrows are raised by ultranova · · Score: 1

      This is what makes the "science" of Global Warming so frustrating. Criticism or scepticism is anathema, and we hear the constant chant that "the debate is over". Real science thrives on argument and experiments, and not on ad hominem attacks.

      Global temperature can and is being constantly monitored by satellites, which measure the infrared radiation from Earth's surface; these measurement show that the global average temperature is increasing. Numerous indirect observations also support the same: the Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets are shrinking, the Golf stream is slowing down, permafrost is melting, methane is being released to the atmosphere deposits, it hasn't been a cold winter here where I live for almost a decade now...

      At this point, being sceptical of Global Warming is basically equivalent to claiming that tens of thousands of people are active in a conspiracy. And even that isn't enough in here where you can simply look outside your window and see how there isn't snow on the ground for most of the winter anymore. There comes a point when the debate really is over; and at this point, denying global warming is pretty much the same as denying evolution: a downright delusional standpoint. Unfortunately, however, some people have vested interests in denying them, and so we have Intelligent Design on one matter and the International Conspiracy of Climate Scientists Against America on another.

      At some point, as evidence keeps on piling up and is far beyond the point of reasonable doubt, saying "these people are nuts or lying" about those who keep on arguing against it stops being an ad hominem attack and becomes a statement of fact. The debate is over, unless a debate against a thermometer counts.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    46. Re:My eyebrows are raised by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      c) If you think that by typing "skeptical" (mirroring the OP) was bad, then you miss the point.

      I agree with everything you said (other than you didn't recognize the parent as being an obvious troll...don't feed the trolls, man). However, skepticism is an accepted spelling, and is in fact the most common spelling in the United States based on my experience.

  2. Hey! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You see with your eyes, not your hands!

    Oh, wait.....

    1. Re:Hey! by SlashWombat · · Score: 1

      Well, the scientist obviously talks through his arse, so he probably can see with his skin. The issue will be one of resolution. How many nerve endings per square centimeter is there on a patch of skin?

  3. Hope springs eternal by overshoot · · Score: 2, Funny
    I remember reports like this from the 60s.

    Of course, like any memories from the 60s ...

    --
    Lacking <sarcasm> tags, /. substitutes moderation as "Troll."
    1. Re:Hope springs eternal by philspear · · Score: 1

      ...it makes you want to smoke something and listen to the beatles?

    2. Re:Hope springs eternal by dreamchaser · · Score: 1

      Was that YOU with the groovy acid at Woodstock??? Long time no see! Let's go burn one man.

    3. Re:Hope springs eternal by Emperor+Zombie · · Score: 2, Funny

      Long time no see! Let's go burn one man.

      I know you feel like celebrating, but that's no excuse to go around burning people.

      --
      I'm so excited I just made water in my pantaloons!
  4. Done before, using different sensory organ by glueball · · Score: 4, Informative

    Dr. Paul Bach-y-Rita who was at UW Madison has done something with vision being projected via electrical stimulation on the tongue. It is called sensory substitution.

    I've seen it first hand. It works.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_substitution

    1. Re:Done before, using different sensory organ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't you mean - you've seen it first tongue ;)

    2. Re:Done before, using different sensory organ by lcampagn · · Score: 2, Informative

      Sensory substitution is old (but cool) news, but from TFA it looks like this guy is claiming some inherent ability of the skin to detect light, rather than delivering an image-driven stimulus to the skin. If this is the case, then he's got a lot of work to do. Like stop running simulations and start checking premises.

    3. Re:Done before, using different sensory organ by Macman408 · · Score: 2, Informative

      ...and a project (also from the UW) involving several guys I know, called Visual Taste does that as well. There are pictures and videos, if the average slashdot reader can be troubled to follow the link...

    4. Re:Done before, using different sensory organ by Psychotria · · Score: 1

      "Vague gray shapes. Big dots. Blurry edges."

      "Can you see the door? Could you walk to the door?"

      "Yeah, I could, if you want me to trip over things and fall down."

      "That's a 5-by-5 display. Hold on," says Weiland, "I'm going to up your pixel count to 32 by 32."

      Ok, it lost me there. Anyone who can assert where a door is using 25 pixels, without prior knowledge, is obviously delusional. :-)

    5. Re:Done before, using different sensory organ by Psychotria · · Score: 1

      Oops... sorry, must have hit reply to the wrong message :-/

    6. Re:Done before, using different sensory organ by cytg.net · · Score: 1

      the basic idea could be that you'd have to work your way up to your personal limit .. starting low and advance as you adjust.

    7. Re:Done before, using different sensory organ by PhasmatisApparatus · · Score: 1

      Except that the human brain isn't some cheap CPU. Given a little information, we can extrapolate a whole hell of a lot. For example, by rotating the camera back and forth a litle bit, I am sure that the "25 pixels" would become much, much more information in your brain.

  5. Sir, Put Your Shirt Back On. by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 4, Funny

    "I'm just having a look around."

    Seriously, though:

    These theories may lead to future devices with practical applications. He says that such devices will end up having distinct advantages over conventional optics-based imaging. He expects these devices to have special sensors for detecting radiation at sea and in airports to indentify terrorist threats, innovative night vision devices or near-weightless mechanisms to steer spaceships in space.

    Did anybody else read this, "Homeland Security grants, DARPA grants, or NASA grants would all be just fine."

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    1. Re:Sir, Put Your Shirt Back On. by HTH+NE1 · · Score: 1

      He expects these devices to have special sensors for detecting radiation at sea and in airports to identify terrorist threats, innovative night vision devices or near-weightless mechanisms to steer spaceships in space.

      Did anybody else read this, "Homeland Security grants, DARPA grants, or NASA grants would all be just fine."

      My spidey sense is tingling.

      --
      Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
    2. Re:Sir, Put Your Shirt Back On. by pushing-robot · · Score: 1

      And did else anyone read this...

      "The lenses currently used for optics-based imaging have many problems. They only work within a limited range of electromagnetic radiation. Relatively, these are still costly devices greatly limited by weight and field of view. The imaging Professor Yaroslavsky has in mind has no lenses and he believes the devices can be adapted to any kind of radiation and wavelength. They could essentially work with a 360-degree field of view and their imaging capability will only be determined by computer power rather than the laws of light diffraction."

      ...and think of this?

      --
      How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
    3. Re:Sir, Put Your Shirt Back On. by TrekkieGod · · Score: 1

      And did anyone read this...and think of this?

      Sigh...Geordi's VISOR doesn't use his skin. They translate the electromagnetic spectrum to signals the brain can interpret directly.

      However, there's an earlier device that did use the skin though. It's not what the guy in the article is proposing, but it is like some other much more promising devices that translate information into tactile information, and the user can train himself/herself to use that information.

      Since you're a TNG fan (what self-respecting trekkie isn't), you should also note that Dr. Miranda Jones is oddly reminiscent of Dr. Katherine Pulaski :) You might also want to look up Dr. Ann Mulhall.

      --

      Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.

  6. Roald Dahl told me about this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar

    You can train yourself to see with your skin, man!

  7. Hmm. by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 1

    The skin vision thing strikes me as highly unlikely in the "I would expect to have seen some evidence of it occurring, given the amount of time that people have had their eyes close, covered, or damaged" not the "It is a violation of $SOME_PHYSICAL_LAW as we know it" sense.

    Light sensitive cells are common enough in various organisms, including in configurations with rudimentary or nonexistent lens structures, so there is no reason to believe that humans having some light sensitive structures on their skin is impossible, I'd just have expected to see more evidence, or even anecdotes, if it were the case.

    On the other hand, given the development of clever stuff like the single pixel camera, synthetic aperture radar, and other examples of clever-DSP-making-seemingly-implausible-vision-systems-work-quite-well I would not be at all surprised if the researcher in TFA has some clever ideas about getting usable information out of large, irregular arrays of lensless sensor elements.

    1. Re:Hmm. by Nyeerrmm · · Score: 1

      But generally, in all the work I've done (my graduate thesis is focusing on optical imaging with a lensless system) most of those kind of things, where you detect the magnitude of the wave-pattern, which in the far field is the Fourier transform, and then reconstruct the phase, it relies on having a relatively well-defined maximum region. I haven't looked at this yet, but I can't see this using techniques like those of X-Ray crystallography or SAR.

    2. Re:Hmm. by dotancohen · · Score: 1

      The skin vision thing strikes me as highly unlikely in the "I would expect to have seen some evidence of it occurring, given the amount of time that people have had their eyes close, covered, or damaged" not the "It is a violation of $SOME_PHYSICAL_LAW as we know it" sense.

      Are you aware of how REM was discovered? Sometimes these things hide in plain view.

      --
      It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
  8. Ummm it's called a sunburn by gregbot9000 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Seriously anyone who has had a 2nd degree sunburn will tell you the burns sensitivity to light is amazing. I had a redhead friend who had a burn and he could tell when light was on his back while walking under trees, and even if you were passing your arm over it.

    That's probably how the eyes started, as a sensitive patch of skin. Sight would be a different interpretation of pain, with color being different degrees of pain.

    1. Re:Ummm it's called a sunburn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      More likely it would have been felt as something like heat, rather than pain. Intensity (temperature?) maps to brightness, not color. Color probably didn't come until something more eye-like had evolved - you wouldn't get color sensitivity from skin, only intensity/temperature. AFAIK color isn't as useful until after you have certain other things - light sensitivity first, to know if something's there. Then directionality, to know where. Then resolution, to know what is is. Color is an additional refinement of what. Recall that natural selection works in tiny tiny steps, and each step must be beneficial enough on its own to spread through the population.

    2. Re:Ummm it's called a sunburn by evilviper · · Score: 1

      sensitivity to light is amazing.

      No it isn't. Sun-burns make your sensitive to HEAT, not light. It just happens that sun-light is a common cause of your skin heating up... Of course your sun-burned skin ISN'T sensitive to indoor lighting. You might just as well have said that sun-burn makes your skin sensitive to WATER, since taking a hot shower is painful...

      Being able to feel heat is a long, LONG way from being able to perceive light. And if we did actually evolve that way, why can't we see infrared-spectra light today? It would be a natural capability if eyes evolved from heat-sensing organs, and certainly a HUGE competitive advantage.

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    3. Re:Ummm it's called a sunburn by gregbot9000 · · Score: 1

      I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that infrared works different underwater. In fact, since WE don't see it, I am going to assume it doesn't work at all. See eyes probably evolved in water and if we don't have IR vision its probably because when the bulk work of eye generation was going on it wasn't a app worth having.

    4. Re:Ummm it's called a sunburn by evilviper · · Score: 1

      Actually, you've got it backwards. Infrared (generally) penetrates further through water than any other wavelength.

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    5. Re:Ummm it's called a sunburn by gregbot9000 · · Score: 1

      Actually, you've got it backwards. Are you sure you aren't thinking of UV? I looked it up right now, and my little assumption about IR seems completely accurate. According to everything on Google water absorbs IR like dirt. In fact, in the IR pictures bodies of water looked just like the soil around them, thats how little the IR penetrated. A fish giving off IR would be view able for about 2 inches.

    6. Re:Ummm it's called a sunburn by ultranova · · Score: 1

      A fish giving off IR would be view able for about 2 inches.

      Fishes, being cold-blooded animals, don't give significant amount of IR radiation. Mammals and birds are AFAIK the only things that could be detected easily with IR receptors, and since both are relative latecomers to the game of life, it seems likely that eyes simply haven't have time to evolve IR vision.

      It should be noted, however, that several insects have ultraviolet vision.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    7. Re:Ummm it's called a sunburn by evilviper · · Score: 1

      Infrared is generally classified as being comprised of 3 different bands. One of the three is highly absorbed by water. The rest are not...

      I must also point out that humans don't see ultraviolet, either, so your this is an irrelevant argument, as your pet theory doesn't stand in either case.

      I have no desire to argue the point. Believe what you wish.

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    8. Re:Ummm it's called a sunburn by evilviper · · Score: 1

      Mammals and birds are AFAIK the only things that could be detected easily with IR receptors,

      You don't seem to know what infrared is. It's not thermal-vision (ala. Predator). It's just another wavelength of light.

      While it's peculiar that warm objects emit IR, that is most certainly not the only way to see an object. You'll still see the blocked and/or reflected IR signature of an object, hot or cold.

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    9. Re:Ummm it's called a sunburn by dp_wiz · · Score: 0

      Sight would be a different interpretation of pain, with color being different degrees of pain.

      It's also reflected in common language as "It's pain to see ....".

  9. This was a "psychic" trick in the 70s. by EWAdams · · Score: 1

    Back then it was called "demo-optical perception." It was complete crap that only worked if the person was wearing a poorly-designed blindfold. In a properly conducted test, this "power" disappeared entirely.

    --
    I piss off bigots.
    1. Re:This was a "psychic" trick in the 70s. by Psychotria · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Back then it was called "demo-optical perception."

      Citation needed. Oh wait.

  10. Let's see here... by IceFoot · · Score: 1

    From the article: ...humans have an ability to see through their skin...human skin can "see" colors and shapes...controversial ancient instinct...skin vision could lead to new therapies for helping the blind regain sight and even read...future devices with practical applications...special sensors for detecting radiation at sea and in airports to indentify terrorist threats...360-degree field of view....

    Verdict: Science fiction.

  11. Obvious in retrospect by David+Gerard · · Score: 4, Funny

    The next stage after talking out your ass.

    --
    http://rocknerd.co.uk
  12. But? by Groggnrath · · Score: 1

    Isn't this a sort of redundant, since a technological advancement to create a device to see through skin cells would probably post date finding a way to replicate an actual human eye?

  13. Skin can see... sort of by Cousarr · · Score: 1

    The skin already senses a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. It senses in the infrared what we interpret as heat. All the wiring is probably there for the skin to be able to deliver signals for things higher up in the electromagnetic spectrum but I am doubtful the tissue itself has the capability, even with some extreme re-working.

  14. That was the most content-free science article... by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) · · Score: 1

    ...ever.

    There's no mechanism proposed, just some vague waffle about some organisms having IR sensitive skin and some nonsense about computer simulation. I wonder if there's even anything sensible behind this article or if it's a bogus article about some bogus science.

    --
    Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
  15. I see with my skin, on a ladies.... by Neanderthal+Ninny · · Score: 1

    Yes I can see with my skin when it touches my wife (use can your imagination, not too much imagination).

  16. That will do, Mr. Mash by MattGWU · · Score: 1

    Eh, eh! Mrs. Slocomb could read two pages of the Times at once if she opened it up and sat down on it!

    --
    "These people look deep within my soul and assign me a number based on the order in which I joined" --Homer re:
  17. Follow the money. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If you would like to see with your wallet, here is the donation page. It's a press release of an organization that wants money. Does someone at Slashdot take money to pretend that these Tel Aviv University press releases are stories?

    1. Re:Follow the money. by eggnoglatte · · Score: 2, Informative

      WTF? Tel Aviv University is a very decent research institute that has made many important contributions to science. No, I am not and have never been affiliated with them, but the page you are referring to is obviously that of an alumni organization. And yes, they do raise money for the university, that is what alumni organizations do.

      As for Yaroslavsky (the prof working on this "seeing skin" project), I know neither him nor this project (at least not more than the press release states), but his publication list shows that he regularly publishes in top journals such as Applied Optics, Optics Express, and Optics Letters. Clearly he knows a thing or two about light.

      http://www.eng.tau.ac.il/~yaro/RecentPublications/index.html

  18. Sorry, misspelling. by EWAdams · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Meant to write "dermo-optical perception." As for citations, see Carl Sagan or Martin Gardner.

    --
    I piss off bigots.
  19. Disappointed. by geckipede · · Score: 1

    I was hoping that this would be some form of practical followup work to an experiment that was attempted a few years back involving a camera and a grid of electrodes placed on the human back or tongue. A small computer which the test subjects had to carry around translated camera input into signals to the electrodes, and after a while the subjects reported that they had not only learned how to gain useful image information from the electrodes but genuinely visualised it, as though it were equal to input as from the eye, although lower resolution.

    Bonus points go to anybody who can find a reference for this, because I can't be bothered.

  20. Cognitive Science: This sounds familiar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I recall a discussion about this in a cognitive science class I took about 3 years ago. Apparently, somebody developed an aparatus that was hooked to a person's back and used pins to provide a monochrome image of what a camera on the person's head was displaying. The interesting part was that they discovered that the visual part of the brain ended up being used to process the images. Eventually the person could see...sort of.

    Of course, this kind of trick won't work at all if the person is blind because of a brain problem rather than an eye problem. People who lose their sight overly early on in life will not necessarily develop their visual cortex enough for this type of technology to work. However, people who lose their eyes as adults or teens due to accidents will be fine.

    1. Re:Cognitive Science: This sounds familiar by PhasmatisApparatus · · Score: 1

      Which brings up another interesting application of this technology. If people could have their vision "remapped" soon after birth, they would grow up with completely normal vision.

  21. Am I the only one... by jflo · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Am I the only one in thinking that the ONLY logicial solution to helping the blind is for scientists to develope a Visor like Geordi Laforge had in ST:TNG... I mean seriously, Star Trek has called out almost every other obvious advancement, why not this one?

    --
    WWPD - What Would Picard Do?
  22. Probably nothing to get excited about, as usual. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The problem with this is that this ability, if it exists, cannot be very pronounced or useful in humans, because if it was we would already know we had it. It would be part of our natural sensory repertoire, along with the other five. It might exist, but I can't get excited about it.

  23. Can we mark this "Sudden Outbreak of Common Sense? by gravis777 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Bear with me, I am thinking out loud here

    Very interesting theory. So, we all know that what we see, hear, whatever, is caused by different wavelengths. So, why is it that we can only see in one wavelength spectrum and hear in another? Hmmm. So, if there is a way to slightly shift those wavelengths that another sensory in the body can understand, I doubt you could "see", but, with proper training, I guess it would be possible to train that sense to make sense (no pun intended) of the data.

    Then again, I may be totally forgetting something, and this doesn't make any sense at all and I could just be spouting off BS.

    However, if this is possible, then this could be a different way of recording data from the world around us. I understand how the eye works, and I understand how a camera works. But, if we use something different than optics to record wavelengths in the visual spectrum, and use a computer program to interperate that data into something we could see.... Hmmm, its a longshot, but it sounds highly fascinating to me.

  24. Re:Can we mark this "Sudden Outbreak of Common Sen by BungaDunga · · Score: 1

    Electromagnetic wavelengths != Sound wavelengths. Sound is vibration in matter, EM is a wave without a medium (or just streams of photons, depending...)

  25. Leonid Yaroslavsky? by dorianh49 · · Score: 1

    In Soviet Russia, pr0n watches you?

    --
    Gravity is a contributing factor in nearly 73 percent of all accidents involving falling objects. -Dave Barry
  26. Sort of... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I would not be surprised if one could thermally "see" a vague and (for obvious reasons) unfocused image of their surroundings for much the same reason as some blind people can hear their surroundings via ecolocation. Infared radiation bounces off off and is absorbed by objects, and if something is directing enough infrared radiation at you, you can most definately feel the direction it is coming from. But it would not replace sight by a long shot.

    It reminds me of eyespots, It's either light in that general direction, or dark in that general direction.

  27. I believe this is actually true. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Theres been many times i've been able to 'see' with my eyes closed. It bugs the shit out of me when i'm trying to goto sleep.

    Its not clear or sharp, but i can 'see' shapes and patches of light or dark. Larger objects ect..
    Even with a pillow totally covering my eyes. Eyes closed tight.

    If you think about it, it makes sense too. You have all kinds of waves hitting your skin all the time. Its not hard to believe that data could be interperted by the brain into something useful.

    Whatever the hell it is. It's damm annoying when trying to goto sleep. And it's why i sleep in a completely pitch black room nowdays. I really dislike being able to see with my eyes closed. As cool as that sounds.

    Heck. We may have always had this ability. But being so annoying that closing your eyes doesnt do anything..... we have all learned to ignore that extra input just for some darkness and rest.

    1. Re:I believe this is actually true. by xanadu113 · · Score: 1

      I hate to admit this publicly.. but I've experienced what you've experienced, seeing through my eye lids.. I've noticed this ever since I can remember..

      I've also been very tired on road trips, and dozed off, and "dreamed" the road ahead of us, and opened my eyes real quick and the road and everything else was exactly where I had "seen" them, only in full color now.

      I really have no explanation for any of this, the seeing with skin thing seems a likely explanation..

      --
      -Myke
  28. Crackpots and Marvel franchises by billcopc · · Score: 1

    Seeing with our skin... just because it makes "Star Trek Sense (tm)" doesn't mean it's possible. There are a million attention whores in every field of science. Most of them are full of shit. It's just the nature of science, everything comes with a proof, and those proofs can get to your head, make you think you can do anything... well we're not quite there yet, and this is too much of a leap to be believable. This guy's chasing funding so he can be in the spotlight and pretend to work for the next 10-15 years.

    Ever hear about that brown guy who believed his "ionic flanger" would enable space travel, cure all diseases and generate perpetual energy via "electromagnetic harmonics" ? No, you didn't, because they took away his funding and put him in a padded cell after he blew up his home!

    Wake me when someone has a working prototype. Actually scratch that, wake me when we get time machines so I can leap forward a few centuries and see if they finally invent skin sight. Frankly I think we'll have "conventional" cyborg vision way sooner, making skin sight irrelevant.

    --
    -Billco, Fnarg.com
  29. Old news for me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Be skeptical all you want it to be with your 'empirical minded' brain but I believe human can 'see' without eyes. In my home country there's martial arts that can teach human to 'see' the surroundings from the object's color vibration . I've seen the real live demonstration. The 'sense' are the hand palms instead of eyes. The theory is that all our surroundings reflect color wave. Usually our eyes that capture this, but our skin( palms) can be trained to act as the eyes.
    This method is called 'vibration method'.
    Breathing is one of the major exercise for this method.
    For the martial arts practitioner, this method is only for the advanced but it has been developed also for blind people so that they can live almost normal as normal-sighted people.
    The blind people get the convenience to train this instantly, more intense, no-frill, straight-to-the-core type of training so they get the result in less than 2 years.
    Sadly it's unpopular,why?
    MA doesn't promote well or the skeptical blind/normal-sighted people or the quitting blind people (this method required time,energy and money effort )
    I'm not promoting this martial arts just want to share my opinion that yes, human has the potential 'seeing' with skin and without any high-tech device Prof. Yaroslavsky might developing.

  30. One of the oldest scams in the book. by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    Long before I was born (which was quite some time ago), this was a favorite trick among self-professed "psychics". Thoroughly blindfolded, they could "read" a book they had "never seen before" with their fingertips.

    Early psychic debunkers (among them Houdini) openly and convincingly duplicated these feats through trickery. And, under controlled conditions, NONE of the claimants were EVER able to tell the difference between anything less than the presence of very bright light at close range and utter darkness (which is explainable with temperature), much less read a printed page.

    I have an open mind, but if I were a betting person I would bet against this, offering high odds.

    Not to say that skin does not have light sensitivity... of course it does. But all past efforts have shown it to be a slow-acting, extremely low-resolution effect (like tanning). I do not see this evolving into a viable technology anytime soon.

  31. That will come in handy ... by PPH · · Score: 3, Funny

    ... as an excuse when I'm staring at some gal's tits while talking to her. Hey, they were staring at me first!

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  32. Roald Dahl by xpeeblix · · Score: 1

    For anyone who might be interested, there is a wonderful story based on this idea. Roald Dahl's, "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar".

  33. "My eyes are up here!" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So when I stare at a chick's tits, they stare back?

    Whoa.

  34. i know what peer review is!!! by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    Jesus, do you take me for an idiot?

    If you are not aware of the problems with peer-reviewed journals in the last decade or two, you only need google for "peer review" and "scandal", or "peer review" and "problem".

    In recent years it has failed to be a reliable system. All I can say is that when blatant scammers can repeatedly (and apparently easily) fool the New England Journal of Medicine, and Nature (to name just two popular peer-reviewed examples, and not to mention more field-specific journals which have been equally vulnerable), then the system has largely failed.

    1. Re:i know what peer review is!!! by philspear · · Score: 1

      ...the system has largely failed.

      Well, it's still less broken than "No seriously, this snake oil works!"

      I was in a lecture about research ethics, and the professor pointed out that research relies a lot on the honor system by necessity and also because it usually works. As I alluded to earlier, peer-reviewed is without a good alternative. What more can we do than peer-review? Lie detector tests?

      Hmm... actually...

      Well anyway, there's also the fact that few researchers intentionally fake their results (intentionally is key of course). You don't get into research for the money or fame. Most researchers get into it because they're genuinely interested and want to find answers, advance human knowledge, and help people. With that as your motivation, what point is there to lie? Sure, there are exceptions and extenuating circumstances, but researchers by and large don't lie.

    2. Re:i know what peer review is!!! by Psychotria · · Score: 1

      In recent years it has failed to be a reliable system. All I can say is that when blatant scammers can repeatedly (and apparently easily) fool the New England Journal of Medicine, and Nature [...]

      I read Nature and I still fail to see what you're on about. Give me specific examples that highlight the perceived "problems". If I google what you suggested I get a whole heap of results from popular media -- not exactly what I call reliable. Sure, journals (and peer-reviewed papers) are not immune to abuse; I just don't think this is a new "problem". To say that the system has "largely failed" is a bit extreme, in my opinion.

      Jesus, do you take me for an idiot?

      Of course not.

    3. Re:i know what peer review is!!! by Psychotria · · Score: 1

      You don't get into research for the money or fame. Most researchers get into it because they're genuinely interested and want to find answers, advance human knowledge, and help people. With that as your motivation, what point is there to lie?

      Nice. If I happened to intentionally lie, at the end of the day the journal that publishes my paper will not lose face. I will.

    4. Re:i know what peer review is!!! by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      I can agree with that. But the system is seriously flawed, and we should seriously consider how to do it better.

      But also, keep in mind that sometimes, peer-review serves to filter OUT perfectly legitimate research.

    5. Re:i know what peer review is!!! by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      Here is one:

      http://physicist.org/tip/INPHFA/vol-8/iss-6/p12.html

      Here is another:

      http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1994041

      I did not mean to imply that Nature was a particular problem. Rather, I meant more along the lines of "even Nature has been a victim". Nature has in fact been in the forefront of the whole peer review discussion.

      And maybe my statement was a bit strong, but I also object to another problem with peer review that often goes unacknowledged: that of rejecting research papers that contradict current popular trends. This has been an issue recently in such areas as global warming and cosmology.

      So, as a "filter" (which is what it is intended to be), peer-review has more than one serious flaw; it exhibits failures at both ends. Sometimes it lets fraud through, other times it does not pass legitimate research. The former is inevitable to some degree, the latter is more a matter of closed-mindedness and I believe is more a matter of attitude problem than situational (i.e., protecting one's own professional pride, or protecting that of one's peers). As such, while both areas can stand improvement, I think the latter is the area that should be focused on as most amenable to improvement. It is also the area where peer review most impedes Science.

      In any event: I agree with whoever said "peer review may have problems, but it's the best system we have." It certainly is. But that does not mean that there is not room for a lot of improvement.

    6. Re:i know what peer review is!!! by philspear · · Score: 1

      But the system is seriously flawed, and we should seriously consider how to do it better.

      I can see bigger problems with every possible alternative.

      Having no review at all would not only allow crap to get published with good results, the good studies would also get weakened. Often times, reviewers comments set a higher standard, and researchers strengthen their papers in response. We get better papers with peer-review and less bad ones. Generally it doesn't keep out legitimate research, it delays it at times, but what it contributes is more valuable.

      Having non-experts review papers would be a waste of time and would ultimately be much more arbitrary.

      Having a board of experts that are not peers would yeild the exact same problems as peer-review, and in most fields there aren't experts who aren't engaged in active research.

      The lie detector test would be a waste of time and, well, would never happen.

      Insisting that another lab repeat the experiments before publishing would at least halve the research at a funding, personel, and progress level.

      Refusing to publish anything is obviously the very worst option.

      I can't think of any more options. Can you?

    7. Re:i know what peer review is!!! by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      I did not say it should be replaced with an alternative. Just that it should be done better.

      There will always be the problem of deliberate, premeditated fraud. But there is a lot of room for improvement on the OTHER end: the effects of professional jealousy and "covering your neighbor's back", to mention just a couple of the causes of peer reviewers rejecting "unpopular" research, which happens more commonly than is often acknowledged.

      Education about this problem, and reminding those "peers" to be on the lookout for their own and others' (perhaps sometimes unconscious) "protectionist" behavior might help. But it must be accepted that sometimes, the reviewers are trying quite deliberately to protect their careers against competition, at the expense of true Science.

    8. Re:i know what peer review is!!! by philspear · · Score: 1

      Yes, but getting back to what I think was the point of this, the fact that "you can see with your skin" hasn't been published in any peer-reviewed journal and instead is being published through blurbs like this is a good reason to reject it. The asumption in cases like this should be that it's not published because it's crap, not that it's not published because of a flawed peer-review system.

    9. Re:i know what peer review is!!! by tabrnaker · · Score: 1
      Scientists might not get into it for the fame. However, working in the labs of some prestigious researchers, i've seen how much some will overlook to keep that top dog position.

      I think it seems to blind them to the bigger picture sometimes. They are human after all.

  35. Not to sound like a nutjob but... by Protometheus · · Score: 1

    I can do this, in a manner of speaking.

    I don't know if it's just that I have better proprioception than most people, but I can 'see' my body, without color, when I close my eyes. From what I can tell, it has nothing to do with light. It's more to do with my body knowing where everything's at, and assembling that information in my mind as a 'visual' data.
    This works no matter where the body part is. For instance, if I close my eyes and put my hand behind my back, I can still 'see' it.
    Moreover, it works to a limited degree for anything I'm touching as well. I can 'see' the areas of the object I'm holding. If I've touched the entire object, my mind retains the shapes it felt, and displays the whole object (as it was when I felt those areas) as if I were seeing it with my eyes.

    I hope this research goes somewhere. I'd like a scientific explanation for this phenomena.

    1. Re:Not to sound like a nutjob but... by greyhueofdoubt · · Score: 1

      I think you're describing a form of proprioception.

      I wouldn't call it 'seeing', though, since the object you were holding behind your back could change color or brightness without you knowing about it.

      -b

      --
      No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.
  36. Batman! Where are you? by Yeechang+Lee · · Score: 1

    Your arch-nemesis has escaped Arkham Asylum! No, not Joker or Two-Face. It's the Ten-Eyed Man! Someone forgot to lock up his hands!

  37. Re:seeing by Sardaukar86 · · Score: 1

    Heh, the homophobic trolls all seem obsessed with anal sex - they find a way to mention their own involvement in it every time (whilst accusing the OP of homosexuality).

    Now, do I intentionally raak-up an entirely different class of troll by suggesting this whole thing is a tad.. ironic.. ?

    --
    ..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
  38. This is old stuff by Time_Warped · · Score: 1

    I read an article a good 15 years ago about the skin on the back being light sensitive, and about stimulating it to produce a very crude form of "vision" (About the same level of granularity as say a game of "pong" or blocky Apple II graphics!) So I'm not sure what is new about this, except for maybe better image granularity...

  39. Poke by Kwesadilo · · Score: 1

    When you can see with your skin, every poke is a poke in the eye.

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    This space reserved for administrative use.
  40. shreedhar by shreedhar · · Score: 1

    I have gotten into the bad habit of reading /. articles for the Score:5 Funny replies.

  41. Re:Can we mark this "Sudden Outbreak of Common Sen by greyhueofdoubt · · Score: 1

    I'll add to the other poster who replied.

    1- You need to know how the ear works and how the eye works. Completely different mechanisms for sensing.

    2- If you need more proof of the difference between EM waves (like light) and sound, consider their speeds. All EM radiation travels at C (basically). Sound travels at, well, the speed of sound. And that speed changes drastically depending on the transmitting medium.

    3- Also: I think it's clear that when people can 'see' light with their skin (as in the example of the sunburned person), the skin is really sensing heat caused by the light. As in, the skin could also sense the same 'light' through a very thin but opaque layer. Even our best heat-sensing cameras suck right now and give very little detail; I'm not sure how well our skin would do.

    4- Also: most skin has very low nerve ending density relative to sensing organs.

    5- I think a more promising route would be a form of echolocation, since we already know that it works for many other creatures.

    best,
    -b

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    No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.
  42. learning braille lights up visual centers by peter303 · · Score: 1

    For both always-blind people and acquired-blindness people. This was in the same PBS special as the tactile-visual results. Apparently the brain is rather plastic in adapting other parts.

  43. Re:Can we mark this "Sudden Outbreak of Common Sen by bar-agent · · Score: 1

    5- I think a more promising route would be a form of echolocation, since we already know that it works for many other creatures.

    Including people, to some extent. Blind folks often tap their canes or make clicking noises, and by the sound they hear back, they can tell if there is some object nearby. I do that myself (though I can see). It's actually helped me navigate when the lights are out before.

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    i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
  44. Re:Can we mark this "Sudden Outbreak of Common Sen by bar-agent · · Score: 1

    Blind folks often tap their canes or make clicking noises, and by the sound they hear back, they can tell if there is some object nearby.

    BTW, if you are wondering, here's how I perceive the results: normally, people have a sense of space around them; an elevator, room, hallway, parking garage, outside, etc. feel differently. In a dark room, when I echolocate a bed-side table (for example), that area suddenly impinges a bit more on my awareness and I know there's something solid there. In terms of touch, it's like a raised section on a black velvet surface.

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    i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
  45. anopticon by darenw · · Score: 1

    "The imaging Professor Yaroslavsky has in mind has no lenses ..."

    Reminds me of a science fiction short story where someone mentioned some inventor's "anopticon" which the others heard as "an opticon" so off they went looking for some gadget with lenses - turns out some apparently useless object without any lenses was what they wanted.

    I remember not the author, year, or anything else about the story.

    yesterday's sci fi = tomorrow's gadgets

  46. To an extent... by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    I agree with you. But not to the extent that many others may agree.

    Once again, you must be careful not to tighten your filter so much that you filter out the good stuff... not all legitimate research is performed by educational institutions or corporate labs. In today's atmosphere, many of Edison's "breakthroughs" would be rejected... just as Scientific American awarded honors to someone else for inventing powered flight because it simply did not believe the accounts of the Wright Brothers, and their error was not corrected for years. Which simply illustrates that this is not a new problem, but it *IS* still a problem.

    Having said that, let me say that I have expressed my own skepticism about this particular item elsewhere in this thread. Above I was making general statements. This particular item I believe (based solely on personal knowledge and experience) to be bunk. But if someone can prove it... fine! I will continue to express my skepticism unless and until they do... but I would not deprive the researcher(s) a chance to prove their case IF they felt strongly enough about it to make the attempt.

    I am far less concerned about being taken for a fool, than I am about passing up the good stuff that falls through the cracks. History has demonstrated that the latter can be a very big mistake.