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Gene Therapy Cures Color-Blind Monkeys
SpuriousLogic writes "After receiving injections of genes that produce color-detecting proteins, two color-blind monkeys have seen red and green for the first time. Except in its extreme forms, color blindness isn't a debilitating condition, but it's a convenient stand-in for other types of blindness that might be treated with gene therapy. The monkey success raises the possibility of reversing those diseases, in a manner that most scientists considered impossible. 'We said it was possible to give an adult monkey with a model of human red-green color blindness the retina of a person with normal color vision. Every single person I talked to said, absolutely not,' said study co-author Jay Neitz, a University of Washington ophthalmologist. 'And almost every unsolved vision defect out there has this component in one way or another, where the ability to translate light into a gene signal is involved.' The full-spectrum supplementation of the squirrel monkeys' sight, described Wednesday in Nature, comes just less than a year after researchers used gene therapy to restore light perception in people afflicted by Leber Congenital Amaurosis, a rare and untreatable form of blindness."
What about those crazy women with 4 color receptors. They are real life mutants! Are we going to get some gene therapy like that? I want 2 receptors for green! I'll be like a human HDTV! In fact, that will be my crimefighting name: The Human HDTV! I fight crime in 1080i! (it would be in 1080p but that's as high as my TV goes)
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
Cerebral achromatopsia will give you a different take on colour blindness as a result of brain damage. Localized brain damage can drain all the colour from your world and leave you in a world of the grey hued zombies. What we tend to think of as our vision isn't just a straight run from the retina back to the occipital lobe, and, much of what we think of a vision is a complex production of various brain modules.
ideopath @ play
They wouldn't let me join the army because I am "color blind". No-one mentioned this to me when I was in Cadets, and it's not like the topic didn't come up. I remember one day we all lined up in front of a field:
Instructor: Right. Everyone, listen up. Today we are doing a sweep search exercise. Hidden in this field are 6 soldiers, all highly trained in the skill of camouflage. You will form a single line, one arm length seperation, and walk this field. Be attentive, they may be right in front of them and you won't see them.
[I raise my hand]
Instructor: Yes cadet, what is it?
Me: Do you mean [pointing] that guy, that guy, that guy, that guy, that guy, and that lady?
Instructor: [Sigh]. Ok smart-ass, you're dismissed. Everyone else, turn around while we reconfigure.
But hey, at least they won't draft me.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Ditto here. I saw the article at discovery dot com today, and read it. Man, it would be GREAT to get a shot or six, and start seeing all those colors people SAY that they see. I could swear that people are involved in a conspiracy to convince people like me that we're nuts. Purple, lilac, lavender, and a whole lot of others are ALL THE SAME!!
Oddly enough, the little sample color vision chart they stuck in the article? I was able to see the eye in it. Not real clearly, but when I read the tag caption, I was able to see the eye. The real charts just don't work, though.
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