Bionic Eye!
You may remember my interest in artificial limbs and the research surrounding their development (see here for an example). Thus far my interest has been in limbs, but today I noticed something in the news that is just so amazing - a bionic eye (I just LOVE eyes). What is especially interesting is the chap featured suffers from a retinal degeneration disease, and the bionic eye effectively uses an artifical retina! A video processor sends captured images to a receiver outside the eye which passes data down a cable to an array of electrodes that sits on the retina. When the electrodes are stimulated the information is carried down the optic nerve in the same way light does to the un-damaged brain. Funky or what!
posted by MortimerBones at
12:35 PM
2 Comments:
Bones, you might also be interested in Radio 4's current Book of the Week: "The Decisive Moment" by Jonah Lehrer. Yesterday's extract was gripping: an explanation of why we need the emotional part of the brain in addition to the computational side, with the "Silkworm Missile" incident (from the 1990 Gulf War) as a powerful example.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/arts/book_week.shtml (this link will be out of date in a couple of weeks; you can listen again up to a week after the original broadcast - but you knew that)
Fantastic! Thanks Halfie, I will explore that!
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home