AnnMarie Thomas: Hands-on science with squishy circuits

Dar visão a quem não a tem.

A ideia não é nova, mas aparenta estar cada vez mais próxima de ver a luz do dia.
Em baixo transcrevo o artigo escrito pelo Doutor Patrick Degenaar, investigador da Universidade de Newcastle na área de optogenetics e líder do projecto OptoNeuro:

"The purpose of retinal prosthetics is to restore sight to patients who have a degenerative condition called retinitis pigmentosa, which affects one in 3,500 people. In the condition, the retina's light-sensing cells – rods and cones – become inactive and eventually die. Symptoms start with night blindness and worsening tunnel vision, but eventually there is a total loss of sight.

In 1992, research showed that the eye's communication cells – known as retinal ganglion cells – remain intact in patients with retinitis pigmentosa. The discovery opened up the prospect of restoring some form of visual function to these people by controlling the cells' communication patterns.

In the past two decades since the research was published, hundreds of millions of pounds have been invested in retinal prosthesis research. Unfortunately, in contrast to the development of cochlear implants – which restore hearing to the deaf – progress has been slow. The highest resolution prosthesis to date was created by the Retina Implant company based in Tübingen, Germany, whose 1,500-electrode implant has allowed one of their patients, Mika, to distinguish large white characters on a black background.

One of the key challenges has been the fundamental architecture of our visual system. The eye is not simply a camera, but the first stage in a system for understanding the world around us. There are around 50 different types of processing neuron in the retina, and more than 20 types of retinal ganglion cell. So the visual cortex of the brain expects to receive the visual world encoded in a "neural song" of many different voices. Precise coding to reproduce this song is hard to achieve with implanted electrodes and the result is that the patient sees phosphenes – flashing dots of light – rather than what we would normally define as sight.

Optogenetics, an exciting new gene therapy technique, has the potential to bypass many of these problems and last year was hailed as Method of the Year by the journal Nature. Invented in the lab of Ernst Bamberg at the Max Planck Institute in Frankfurt eight years ago, the technique uses gene therapy to sensitise nerve cells to particular colours of light. Intense pulses of this wavelength of light make the photosensitised nerve cells fire. (Neurologists call each firing of a nerve an "action potential" – the currency of information in the nervous system.)

So in optogenetic retinal prosthetics, rather than performing highly complex surgery to implant electrodes into a patient's retina, a solution of a special virus would simply be injected to introduce new genes into the nerve cells. The patient would then wear a headset that records and interprets the visual scene and sends coded pulses of light to the retina. As a single pulse of light can generate a single action potential, the information encoded from the visual scene can be much more in tune with the neural song expected by the visual cortex.

The OptoNeuro European project I lead at Newcastle University is researching this new approach, and we hope to start human trials towards the middle of this decade.

The first optogenetic retinal prostheses will not deliver perfect vision, so we have teamed up with the London-based design practice Superflux to explore how the user's interaction with this new technology can be made more practical and meaningful in the coming years. The key objective is to maximise the useful sight restored to the patient while also exploring the unique possibilities of this new, modified – even enhanced – form of vision.

In their concept video Song of the Machine (above), Anab Jain, Jon Ardern and Justin Pickard explore the personal and emotional complexities that might arise once this science leaves the lab and begins to touch our daily lives. The title is derived from the idea that in optogenetic retinal prosthetics the body is itself modified to interface with the machine in order to appreciate the neural song.

Even if resolution is low, the prosthesis could allow users to experience the visual world in wavelengths beyond those perceptible to normal-sighted humans. For example the eye absorbs ultraviolet light before it reaches the retina, and nature finds it difficult to make infrared light receptors. Such constraints do not affect modern camera technology.

This "multi-spectral imaging" could be used for purely pragmatic purposes, such as telling at a glance whether an object is too hot to touch. Alternatively, it could create a certain visual poetry by allowing us to experience a flower in all its ultraviolet glory – as seen by honey bees.

By exploring these possibilities in our research, it may be possible to improve the experience of the patients who will eventually wear these prostheses, allowing them to enjoy some of the benefits of the new field of augmented reality."

Por enquanto o filme "Song of the Machine" ainda se apresenta, tão só e apenas, como uma obra ficcional. Até quando? Não sabemos.

It begins with a little bet. What will yours be?

Boas pessoal =)

Não é novidade nenhuma o interesse que tenho pelo ponto de vista do Mr. Tim Ferris. Neste último post dele dá para perceber que tudo começa com uma pequenina aposta:

We’re taught from a young age to avoid errors and failure at all costs, yet as any successful creator or entrepreneur will attest, breakthroughs don’t happen without them.

So we have to be willing (and able) to think differently. Instead of trying to develop elaborate plans or perfect ideas, we need to make small, affordable bets in order to learn quickly, build momentum and networks, and expand our abilities and resources in order to discover unique ideas and opportunities.

Consider how Twitter came about. It didn’t happen overnight. Jack Dorsey had been, in his words, “obsessed” by how people moved, interacted, and communicated since the early 1990s. So, he learned basic computer programming, created maps with dots on them, and used information from Manhattan dispatch systems to track the movement of bike messengers, taxis, police, firefighters, and couriers. It was a start.

Eu estou à espera duma aposta do outro mundo =)?

E tu, o que é que vais apostar?

O Momento é AGORA!

Leiam o seguinte artigo para começar (é um pouco extenso, mas de fácil leitura, cativante pelo tema que trata e do modo como o trata, vale a pena ler): Portugal - Crisis, what crisis?

Depois foquem-se no seguinte:

• Andamos à 37 anos a "desenrascar" a nossa situação e a nossa força política tarda em levar o país para onde ele realmente precisa
• As cidades estão mais modernas, mas as grandes industrias exportadoras são uma amostra do que foram em tempos: pesca, agricultura, metalúrgica etc..
• Temos uma das maiores Zonas Económicas Exclusivas de todo o Mundo e....não tiramos proveito dela
• Produzimos muito e bem lá fora, qualquer país estrangeiro gosta de ter um trabalhador Português nas suas fileiras. Porque não fazer cá o mesmo e ainda mais até, com orgulho nacional?

O meu tom não é político, apenas resumi e apontei os factos que achei mais interessantes/importantes.

Porquê pôr isto neste blogue? Porque se o Homem nasceu realmente para criar e não para trabalhar, este é o momento exacto de mostrarmos isso mesmo. Nós, esta Geração à Rasca, é que pode realmente fazer algo para o futuro deste país. Não são os nosso pais que andam preocupados se irão ter reforma e a que idade a poderão ter, que vão lutar por este país. E é injusto pôr esta responsabilidade sobre os ombros dos que aí vêm e não fazermos nada se não nos queixarmos que as coisas estão mal.

Estamos "à rasca", mas se há algo em que somos bons é a nos desenrascarmos!

O Momento é agora! Nunca quis ser pescador nem agricultor, mas não precisamos de o ser. O Gestor pode arranjar um novo plano de negócio para impulsionar uma nova abordagem técnica desenvolvida por um Engenheiro para aumentar a produtividade da pesca de viveiro....porque não? Estas e outras ideias, há que tentar, agir, CRIAR!

Pessoal, neste post, comentem ;)

Handspring Puppet Co.: The genius puppetry behind War Horse

E digam lá...se isto não é CRIAR!

Bonito, simples, harmonioso, CRIATIVO ;)

Comentem ;)

Imagi-Nação!

Sugestão do Tiago Fernandes, via facebook. Explicação muito fixe!

Comentem ;)