Dr. Keith Mathieson from the University of Glasgow’s department of physics is all set out to combat the two common forms of blindness. And what he uses is a technology very similar to the digital cameras that we’re all familiar with.
Dr Mathieson said, “By implanting a device into the eye, we hope we will be able to fool the brain into believing the retina is still in working order.”
I’m sure this is something that many of us have thought of. But the difficult lies in wiring the device to the optic nerves. Now that the scientists have done it, this is great news for the many unfortunates around the world.
The current prototype implant has only 100 pixels, not enough for patients to recognize faces just yet. But looking at how technology is progressing, Dr. Mathieson is confident that achieving the 500 pixels necessary for facial recognition is very attainable.
“Beyond where we are today it might be possible to make smart chips which have memory in them which would allow action replay and slow motion”, said Dr. Mathieson.
With “action replay” and “slow motion”, I shudder at the thought that even the non-disabled might just want to be a part of this as well.
July 20th, 2006 at 7:31 am
It’s the year 2006. I’m glad that they’ve managed to do this, I’m just surprised it’s taken THIS long.
July 20th, 2006 at 12:39 pm
Whoa now, lets not play god. Not that I’m religous, but this is just tampering with the natural order of things.
July 20th, 2006 at 1:01 pm
This is probably the most amazing thing ive ever heard of
July 20th, 2006 at 1:53 pm
well, Rae, what isn’t tampering with the natural order of things these days? our medicines are tampers to the natural, as is dietary supplement, vitamins, flu shots, and pretty much all other things that we use constantly and on a daily basis. you’ll get over it soon enough though. i saw something on a talk show a few years ago. a blind man had some sort of device on his head which allowed him to see his daughter for the first time in over 15 years. if you could have only seen the looks on that man’s face, as well as the emotions being expressed between both his self and the daughter, you would fully support this type of operation as i do.
July 20th, 2006 at 2:00 pm
this is great! now you can look at some chicks ass and replay it over and over!
July 20th, 2006 at 7:03 pm
“this is great! now you can look at some chicks *** and replay it over and over!”
At least someone said it…
July 20th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
I was born blind in my left eye due to my mother having chemo and radition while she was pregnant. The process severed the optic nerve on my left side. I was told I would never see out of that eye. To see things like this happening is a miracle in the making for me. Living life without depth perception is a difficult one. Now that replay and slow motion business is just silly. But the thought that processes simliar to this may assist me in being able to see out of both eyes in my life time is astounding!
July 20th, 2006 at 9:25 pm
Let’s all stop driving. Forget about taking medicine if you get sick. And surgery? Better to just sit there and let your appendix rupture. Hey, we don’t wanna screw with the natural order of things, do we? You have no idea what it is to be blind. How dare you say this is going too far. Learn what it is to go through life without ever having seen your own mother’s face.
July 20th, 2006 at 9:46 pm
yea i have never been blind or have known someone that is blind, but i do wear glasses and , i have a hard enough time seeing whats what without them, to be blind would be a whole nother level i could not imagine. to be able to fix this is probably the one of the greatest achievments man could make. hopfully this comes out to the public within the next 10 years. and the mother nature dilley, yea the toxic chemicals, green house gases, and destruction of ecosystems world wide is overlooked, but curing blindness is just against nature… uh huh…
July 20th, 2006 at 10:08 pm
I think that any sort of solution to a type of sickness or impairment is not “playing God”. More so a blessing that we can come to the point of overcoming things which we thought we weren’t meant to do so.
July 20th, 2006 at 10:17 pm
I don’t want to crush anyone’s hopes, but this procedure and others like it, will only cure blindness to those that have had eye injuries. If you were born blind, then your brain doesn’t know how to recognize the information that these cameras would be giving it. Even being blind from about five months old would be pushing it. The brain just has to have a chance to see through real eyes before it can be tricked into seeing through a camera’s.
July 20th, 2006 at 10:30 pm
I wonder how drinking would affect the slow motion and replay…..hmmm?
July 20th, 2006 at 10:38 pm
this just brighten my day,
July 20th, 2006 at 11:17 pm
This would make tests and exams hella easy. It would suck if the chip broke of something and it kept playing a crappy image over and over. It would just get annoying watching yourself urinating for two days straight or somethin’ like that.
July 21st, 2006 at 5:50 pm
i love godddd
August 7th, 2006 at 8:52 pm
woah!..couldn’t believe that such progress had been made already…i have been near obsession with this idea over the past 2 months and just kept hearing how loony the idea sounds…now i’m excited by the thought that i might just be one of the great pioneers in this field afterall…let me say,i’m an ophthalmologist in training and recently have been seriously contemplating some career change to an IT related field..but something that has to do with solutions to some of the world’s great problems…i’m thinking IT and physics related course wihout becoming a labrat…someone please help
January 25th, 2008 at 1:32 am
I think this is a great acheivment and and very glad they figured this out. My heart goes out to those without vision, hope you get this out to the people soon.