New Bionic Eye Could Restore Sight

Researchers working for the Boston Retinal Implant Project have been developing a bionic eye implant that could restore the eye sight of people who suffer from age-related blindness. Although the bionic eye will only help individuals that were born with functional eyesight, the implant is expected to considerably improve their lives.

The implant is based on a small chip that is surgically implanted behind the retina, at the back of the eyeball. An ultra-thin wire strengthens the damaged optic nerve; its purpose is to transmit light and images to the brain's vision system, where it is normally processed. Other than the implanted chip and wire, most of the device sits outside the eye. The users would need to wear special eye glasses containing a tiny battery-powered camera and a transmitter, which would send images to the chip implanted behind the retina. The new device is expected to be quite durable, since the chip is enclosed in a titanium casing, making it both water-proof and corrosion-proof. The researchers estimate that the device will last for at least 10 years inside the eye.

The scientists explain that the bionic eye will be affective for individuals who once had sight, since their brain knows how to process visual information. The unfortunate people who were born blind do not have the neurological capability to process the data received via the wire. Furthermore, the optic nerve must be at least partly functional. Otherwise, the data will not be fully processed. For many individuals that were born blind, this is a problem as well, since their optic nerve has never been used. However, most of these individuals have a natural compensation mechanism, in the form of enhanced senses, such as hearing and touch. 

Although the device will not be able to restore the eye sight of the entire blind community, researchers  are certain many people will benefit from the technology. For instance, age-related macular generation is the leading cause of blindness in the industrialized world, with about 2 million Americans currently suffering from the condition. The new technology will hopefully assist people suffering from this condition, and individuals suffering from retinitis pigmentosa (a genetic condition), but will not help glaucoma patients.

The researchers note the device has some limitations, and it will not restore perfect vision. However, they are sure it will give people the advantage of having a general sense of their surroundings. Hopefully, the technology may enable people to recognize faces and facial expressions. "The thing is to significantly improve the quality of life for blind patients," said Joseph Rizzo of the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, who has co-directed the project with MIT's John Wyatt since 1988. 

This summer, the researchers plan to test the implants on animals. Within the next few years, they hope to start performing human trails. Wyatt says: "What level of achievement that would actually be is hard to know; but the idea is of not having to use the white cane - to walk around, find the sidewalk, avoiding a telephone pole. Being able to navigate safely in an unfamiliar environment, that's the big topic."

TFOT has covered the discovery of the last retinal movement-detecting cell and the latest stem-cell research that has improved our understanding of blindness. Another article recently published by TFOT deals with mind controlled bionic limbs, which were designed to assist disabled people in their daily lives.

Thirty six researchers joined collaborated on The Boston Retinal Implant Project, including scientists from MIT, the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, and the V.A. Medical Center in Boston. For more information about the project, see the Boston Retinal Implant Project website.


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Drink up girls: wine isn’t fattening

Jonathan Leake

WOMEN who like a glass of wine after work can relax: they are likely to gain less weight than those who stick to mineral water.

Moderate female drinkers also have a lower risk of obesity than teetotallers, according to new research. The findings, from a study of more than 19,000 women, is at odds with most dietary advice: that alcohol consumption leads to weight gain.

The research suggests that a calorie from alcohol has less impact on weight than a calorie from other foods and that the way the body deals with alcohol is more complex than realised. One theory is that in regular drinkers the liver develops a separate metabolic pathway to break down alcohol, with surplus energy turned mainly into heat, not fat.

In the study, Lu Wang, a medical instructor at Brigham and Women’s hospital, Boston, and colleagues asked 19,220 American women aged 39 or older with a healthy body weight to describe their drinking habits in a questionnaire. About 38% drank no alcohol.

Over the next 13 years the researchers found that all the women tended to gain weight but the non-drinkers gained the most. The women’s overall weight gain decreased as alcohol intake increased.

There was also a difference according to the type of alcohol: red wine was associated with the lowest weight gain; beer and spirits were linked to the highest weight gain.

The report, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, seems to confirm that there is no clear connection between alcohol consumption and weight gain.

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‘Gribble’ marine pest may be key to biofuel breakthrough, say scientists

A marine pest could be the key to a biofuel breakthrough, say scientists. Gribble, which resemble pink woodlice, plagued seafarers for centuries by boring through the planks of ships and destroying wooden piers.

But now environmental scientists are taking a keen interest in the crustaceans.

A team of British researchers has learnt that gribble have a gift for digesting wood not seen in any other animal.

Enzymes produced by the tiny creatures are able to break down woody cellulose and turn it into energy-rich sugars meaning that gribble could convert wood and straw into liquid biofuel.

A gribble-like processing plant could make sugars from woody raw material that can be fermented into alcohol-based fuels for vehicle engines.

Researchers at the universities of York and Portsmouth made the discovery after carrying out an extensive study of digestive genes from the gribble species Limnoria quadripunctata.

They found the crustacean’s long digestive tract is dominated by enzymes that attack cellulose and lignin, the normally indigestible material in woody plant tissue.

The results of the study were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The research was made possible by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) Sustainable Bioenergy Centre, a £26 million network of expert groups looking at bioenergy.

Duncan Eggar, the BBSRC’s Bioenergy Champion, said: “The world needs to quickly reduce its dependence on fossil fuels and sustainably produced bioenergy offers the potential to rapidly introduce liquid transport fuels into our current energy mix.”

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Art briefly helps patients draw themselves out of mental illness

Awakenings Project believes art boosts recovery

A week into his hospitalization at the Elgin Mental Health Center, Jeffrey Eppard was given pencils and paper and invited to draw anything he wanted. The subject he chose was his left arm.

He outlined it in a blur of charcoal, then filled in the details: the lines crisscrossing his palm; the bracelet spelling out "Angel"; and the still-fresh scar that began at his wrist and slashed toward the crook of his elbow.

The wound was a remnant of the suicide attempt that had landed him in the hospital. He said evoking it with a sketch was, to his surprise, a comfort.

"It brings back some of the anxieties, but it's not entirely bad," said Eppard, 24, who suffers from bipolar disorder. "Just visually seeing it (on paper) tells me it's OK. I'm sick, but it's going to be all right."

Though he used the language of recovery, it was no therapy session. It was a simple afternoon of drawing put together by some who had battled their own demons that they believed could be quieted, at least for a moment, with a swirl of graphite.

The organizers were from the Awakenings Project, a collective of people with mental illnesses who have found strength in art. They meet weekly in a suburban studio to draw and paint, and, on occasion, they travel to mental health centers to share their materials and enthusiasm with those still emerging from crisis.

"My hope is to unleash the joy," said Irene O'Neill, one of the group's founders. "I just want people to get into it and have fun."

Psychologists long have believed that art provides a window into troubled minds, but what once was mainly a diagnostic tool — Draw a tree that represents your feelings — has become an instrument of healing.

Randy Vick, a therapist who teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, said making art brings a precious sense of control to those suffering from schizophrenia and other mental disorders. When the mind, body and emotions unite in the act of creation, a person can feel he has regained power over his life, Vick said

The Awakenings Project doesn't offer formal therapy, but it follows similar principles. It was founded in 1996 to showcase the artistic abilities of people with mental illness, allowing them to earn self-respect.

"Most people with a mental illness don't work, so they don't have a work identity," said co-founder Robert Lundin. Exhibiting their art "gives them a kind of identity in the community. They can legitimately call themselves an artist."

In time, the group began to seek out and cultivate that talent. It rents a downtown Elgin studio, where its members produce oil paintings, watercolors and collages. It spreads the word at national mental health conferences. For the last five years, it has reached out to institutions where people with severe mental illnesses are treated.

That is what led O'Neill and four fellow Awakenings volunteers to the Elgin Mental Health Center one recent Saturday. They passed out pencils, paper and a few art books to a dozen patients, and after they made a few introductory remarks, the sketching began.

Francis Chereck, 29, had an elegant, polished style. He had taken plenty of art classes when he was younger, he said, and even now, despite the bipolar disorder shaking his life, he liked to draw video game characters to give away as gifts.

He drew a human eye, its pupil dabbled with points of light, its lid heavy with charcoal. He shaded the corner over and over again until it appeared to be weeping black tears.

Art teachers "always told me not to overshadow," he said. "I tend to like things dark. That's just me."

John Miller, 30, worked in a lighter vein, reproducing simple likenesses of a rabbit and bird he had found in a book. Then he tried a freehand portrait of his childhood home. It was a place of sad memories, he said, yet he smiled as he drew its crooked stairs and wind-whipped flag.

"I think art's a good getaway," he said. "When we're sitting here doing this, it takes us away from our troubles. It's like we're kids again."

Other sketches were difficult to grasp. They were patchworks of runes, figures and phrases that remained impenetrable, even after their creators tried to explain them.

One young man stricken by schizophrenia drew symbols in the chunky, 3-D style of a graffiti tagger. The man, who asked to be called "Pi," said he was obsessed with numbers and formulas. Reproducing them gave him a feeling of tranquility.

His drawing was striking and skillful, but he dismissed it, telling a visitor to take it away.

"It's frivolous," he said. "I'll reproduce it another way, another time. I could burn this right now and it wouldn't mean anything to me."

A moment later, though, he asked to look at an image of his sketch that had been captured by a Tribune photographer.

"Oh, that's beautiful," he said.

He went back to the visitor with two clean sheets of paper, urging him to sandwich the drawing between them so the lines wouldn't smudge.

Such small moments of pride were evident throughout the three-hour session. But when it ended, it was hard to say whether it had produced any lasting effects. Most of the patients left their work behind when they headed back to their rooms.

Packing up the materials, O'Neill said she was optimistic. Her bipolar disorder brought her plenty of misery after she was diagnosed in 1976, when she was 20. She had been hospitalized against her will, clapped into straitjackets and shot up with debilitating medications.

But she never lost her childhood love of art. And when she helped found the Awakenings Project, she said, she learned that her painting and collage-making — and most important, her relationships with other artists — could give her stability.

She had a new identity, one in which her mental disorder was only a single shard in a larger mosaic. Maybe, she said, art could help a few more reach the same place.

"Some of them will re-identify as artists," she predicted. "Some will start to see themselves in a different light. People get back in touch with themselves and know that they are more than just their illness."

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DEVO Plays The 2010 Winter Olympics!!! Tonight!

Devo and the focus-grouped comeback album

Monday night, Devo will publicly launch the marketing campaign for its forthcoming album -- its first in 20 years -- when the Los Angeles-via-Ohio band performs at the Olympics in Vancouver, Canada. With the release of the album not due until the spring, the Olympics appearance won't be the grand unveiling of new material, which principal Gerald Casale promises will occur at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival. But if all goes according to plan, the path leading up to the final product may make for a better story, anyway.

Casale speaks of Devo's May release, which the band has narrowed down to three possible titles, as somewhat of a formality. It's one aspect of a recently signed all-encompassing merch, music and tour record deal with Warner Bros., but the forthcoming album isn't necessarily the centerpiece.

"People still do that," Casale said of releasing a new CD. "We don’t feel it’s very important. I don’t know how many people buy CDs. When you look at the number of downloads Lady Gaga had compared to hard physical product, it’s 100,000 to one. That’s the way people get their music. This idea of the precious order of a 12-song CD is passe. It’s over. People go and get what they want off the Internet and the put it on their iPod and shuffle it."

That's one reason why Casale said the band won't be making the final decision on the songs and track-listing for its upcoming album. Instead, he said, the band will trust the consensus reached by those polled by an advertising agency. Casale said the new-wave pioneers have retained a company called Mother L.A. and that the firm will present focus groups with multiple mixes of new songs.

"It’s an art experiment," Casale said. "The experiment is the business of art. It’s always there, but nobody ever talks about it."

Of course, Devo has championed the theatricality in marketing for much of its career, making it a sort of mission statement. When the famously red-domed band released its first single in 17 years in 2007, it did so via a Dell commercial, and the band's Mark Mothersbaugh, via his Mutato Muzika company, has long celebrated the art of advertising, having scored numerous commercials.

If Devo would seem to have a handle on anything, marketing would appear to be at the top of the list. "It’s just fun, to use business as part of the creative process, even if it’s satirical," Casale said. "Devo is just real now. Devo is not ahead of its time. Devo is not scary or shocking. ... We’re the house band on the Titanic, and we’re here to entertain as we all go down."

Mother L.A. is unlisted, and the company's website is full of generic stock photos. Devo is the only client named on the firm's roster, and Casale declined to answer how fans who want to take part in the focus groups would go about such a task. To further interject an air of cynicism here, the L.A. Weekly has already revealed that Mutato has some ad agency vets in its ranks. A Warner Bros. spokesman promised that the label is indeed working with an advertising firm named Mother L.A. on the album

In response to our skepticism, Casale said it will all eventually be made available for viewing. The alternate takes of each song, Casale said, will likely make their way to release as well. "We’ll put this on YouTube, so people will see what happened, and then we’ll also put out bonus tracks of the non-focus-group-approved music," he said.

"For anyone who is interested, we’d like to let them examine this as an open book," he continued. "Here’s our first demos, and here’s the songs that never reached anybody, and here’s the ones the focus group didn’t like."

As for the music, Devo worked with an assortment of name producers on the new material. Santigold, the Dust Brothers' John King, and the Bird and the Bee's Greg Kurstin are among the artists who contributed. With Devo's dance-informed-rock having come in vogue again, Casale said the members wanted to go to those who point to the band as influence, intending to find out what "their idea of Devo was."

"When we were new, we were shocking and so different, only we owned that aesthetic," Casale said. "Now a lot of bands cite Devo as their influence. A lot of music sounds like Devo, especially a lot of the new music from groups like the Ting Tings, the Kills, LCD Soundsystem, Hot Chip. We love that stuff. It sounds like the kind of energy we had in the beginning."

It was Kurstin, who recently produced Lily Allen's "It's Not Me, It's You," who brought the biggest changes to Devo's sound. "In terms of surprise factor, Greg Kurstin was the most transformative," Casale said. "He brought a kind of sparkle to the sound itself. It still sounds like Devo, but it sounds very contemporary."

Yet in terms of what to expect, Casale isn't completely tipping his hand, although longtime fans may find some changes shocking. When the act performs Monday night at the Olympics, for instance, its headgear is expected to be blue.

"You couldn’t get more of a broad-spectrum audience than the Olympics," Casale said. "People aren’t there to see Devo; they’re there to experience the Olympics. It’s like a cold call in business. They’re not there to cheer for you."

-- Todd Martens

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