Matilda Ziegler Magazine for the Blind the source for blindness news and information since 1907

It seems that aside from being a reliable time waster, video games also have healing powers.  Just ask six year old Ben Michaels.

Ben suffered from a condition called amblyopia, which is more commonly called “lazy eye,” from the age of four.  Amblyopia is caused by one eye not focusing or aligning equally with the other eye, so the brain chooses to ignore the information received from the eye that is having difficulty.  His vision had decreased in that eye so drastically that doctors believed he would permanently lose sight if corrective measures were not taken. 

His general practitioner recommended Doctor Ken Nischal, who came up with the unconventional treatment method.  The doctor said that Ben should play a handheld video game, specifically Mario Kart on his Nintendo DS.  However, he needed to wear a patch over his good eye, forcing the amblyopic eye to work harder in hopes that it would correct the problems he was having.

After just one week of this treatment method, Ben’s vision improved nearly 250 percent.  He went from not even being able to identify his parent’s faces with his bad eye, to being able to read.  While his vision is far from perfect and there is more work to be done to try and completely correct the problem, this procedure is certainly an interesting way to tackle the issue at hand.

Doctors believe that this type of treatment is successful because video games require rapid eye movement and also train the eye to focus properly.  It is also a much easier treatment to implement because kids already enjoy playing video games.  This does present a slight conundrum for physicians, though, as they cannot positively determine if the success of the treatment is due to the fact that the children are more likely to wear the eye patch if they’re playing video games, or if there is a physiological improvement because of what the video game forces the eye to do.

Either way, it works and works quickly, so the how and why can be dealt with at a later time.

To read the original article, please go to http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1289186/Boys-eyesight-saved-prescribed-daily-dose-Nintendo-Mario-game.html?printingPage=true

A 7th grade science class has made a discovery that has scientists repositioning satellites and studying pictures like crazy.  So what has them all excited?  A cave, actually.  But it’s a cave on Mars.

Taking part in the Mars Student Imaging Program at the Mars Space Flight Facility in Arizona, the students were analyzing pictures of the Martian surface that were taken by a NASA satellite orbiting the red planet.  At one point, they pointed out a faint black spot on the surface that was later identified as a skylight, a large hole in the roof of a cave.

According to Glen Cushing, a U.S. Geological Survey scientist, the caves were most likely formed by underground volcanic activity that stopped long ago.  Cushing also made sure to tell the students that their discovery was very important, as it was only the second known skylight found on the planet so far.

More detailed pictures are going to be taken of the site in coming months.  The cameras used to take them are so advanced that they may actually be able to see down into the hole from miles above the surface of the planet.

To read the original article, please go to http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20100621/sc_space/7thgradersdiscovermysteriouscaveonmars/print

The reanimation of dead tissue has always been somewhat of a science fiction dream.  Stories like Frankenstein wouldn’t exist without it.  However, thanks to the Pentagon’s experimental science arm, DARPA, it may not be science fiction any more.

A biochemist named Mark Roth has discovered that if you cut off the oxygen supply to certain creatures in just the right way, they don’t die, and instead fall into a state of suspended animation.  He compares the whole process to a bear’s hibernation, though that does simplify it a little much.

He says that the great advantage to this, which is also the reason that the defense department is so interested in his research, is that if you can induce this hibernation correctly, there is no breathing and there is no heartbeat, but without either of those, wounds don’t bleed.  Thus, injuries that would’ve otherwise been fatal are now very survivable and the brain shuts down, but there is no damage done at all.  “If you were shot,” Roth says, “This is exactly what you would want.”  The key to inducing the hibernation lies in hydrogen sulfide, a substance that binds to cell mitochondria and blocks oxygen from being used by the body.

His research has been carried out on nematodes, which are incidentally very good subjects to start with when trying to discover how certain procedures may affect humans. 

Cleary the defense department is interested because of the possibility to reduce fatalities in the battlefield.  However, Roth states that this research could eventually lead to a greater understanding of this method, and thus a greater control.  Someday, procedures like his may be used to slow diseases like cancer, Alzheimer’s, and heart disease.

Perhaps science fiction will become science fact sooner than we thought.

To read the original article, please go to http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2007/12/zombie-mouse-ma/

Ambah Young is an 18 year old from Australia.  She’s got a two year old daughter and a body image issue.  As is common after child birth, her body just isn’t the way she wants it to look anymore and she doesn’t feel like she has the body of someone her age.  She says that she wants to reclaim her youth, and the easiest way to do that is to alter her body.  Exercise wasn’t giving her the results she wanted and she feels that the surgical corrections will help her get ahead in life.

According to the Australian College of Cosmetic Surgery, it has become common for young women to travel overseas to have these procedures done.  In Ambah’s case, she intends to go to Malaysia.

John Flynn, the surgery chief executive at the Australian College of Cosmetic Surgery is unsure that these procedures are an appropriate measure for someone as young as her.  He said, “She’s probably quite vulnerable in many ways and I think the medical service owes her a duty of care to make sure that the procedures she’s planning to be done are appropriate and there’s a big question mark over that.”  Above and beyond whether or not the surgeries are appropriate, when a person undergoes multiple procedures, the likelihood of complications is greatly increased.

Ambah is using a service dedicated to this type of trip called “Gorgeous Getaways,” one company among a whole budding industry devoted to assisting people in overseas trips to undergo cosmetic surgery.

Ambah is expecting to have a tummy tuck done, as well as breast augmentation and other procedures.  The total cost of her surgeries will come to roughly thirteen thousand dollars.  A friend lent her the money.

This article raises the question: How young is too young to undergo cosmetic surgery?  Now, on the one hand, after the birth of her daughter her stomach was stretched out and the skin lost its elasticity, leaving her with a flap of skin hanging above her waist that diet and exercise couldn’t fix.  If she was just going to have that taken care of, that’s understandable.  However, the breast augmentation and various other procedures are only for cosmetic purposes that don’t deal with the main issue she’s having.  18 years old is very young to be making these kinds of decisions and even if every precaution is taken during the procedures, complications could occur, some of which could be potentially fatal.  With a two year old daughter at home, is it even worth it to risk your life over things that really shouldn’t matter? 

The problem is that sometimes people hear about celebrities having cosmetic surgery done and they begin to think that it’s commonplace, that everyone does it, and that the inherent dangers are no longer present.  It creates a dangerous situation.

To read the original article, please go to http://www.news.com.au/national/year-old-ambah-young-has-cosmetic-surgery-to-feel-young-again/story-e6frfkvr-1225877308611

Dr. Vincent Tuohy has developed a vaccine that may be able to prevent breast cancer.  The vaccine, similar to those for polio and measles, makes it so that the immune system attacks a certain kind of protein that’s responsible for breast cancer cell growth.

In his studies, he genetically engineered a group of mice to guarantee that they would grow up and develop breast cancer tumors.  He took some of those mice and administered the vaccine.  Every mouse tested throughout the experiment that was given the drug never developed any tumors at all.  By comparison, the group of mice that was given a placebo all developed tumors.  His drug was 100% successful in preventing tumor growth in animals that would absolutely develop them without it.

While having a possible vaccine for breast cancer is a giant leap forward, the doctor hopes that this will also open the door for research into other cancers that may be preventable by targeting the specific proteins that trigger their development.  In the short term, he believes that if further testing is successful, his vaccine could become commonplace for women over 40, when the chances of breast cancer development begin to sharply increase.

No matter what the outcome of his study, these kinds of research, and the scientists who work on it, are extremely important.  For every new idea and different plan of attack, we get one step closer to eliminating a disease that affects the lives of millions of women around the world.

To read the original article, please go to http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,593822,00.html

Augmented reality is a technology that utilizes software and cameras to superimpose images on normal pictures and video.  Essentially, by including an object or element into the view of a camera that the software understands, the viewer will see something entirely different on the video screen in place of that object.  For instance, if I was taking a video of my hand holding a green cube, but the software knew to convert that image of a green cube into the image of a baseball instead, that’s what I would see in my hand when I looked at the video screen.

While augmented reality can be used as a hokey entertainment tool, it is also being used as a therapeutic way to alleviate people’s fears of things like insects.  By using augmented reality, therapists can put a helmet on the head of a person that contains a screen in the front that displays a live video of a table in front of them.  If the person is afraid of spiders, the therapist will engage a program that makes it look like there are spiders all over the table, even crawling across their hands.

Now, while this might seem like a form of digital torture, studies show that the people who are involved in these exercises eventually experience a reduction in their fear of bugs.  While they may initially be uncomfortable, knowing that the bugs are no where near them while seemingly being able to interact with them allows them to have a mental safety net of sorts.

Personally, I’m curious how I would react if someone digitally superimposed a giant tarantula making its way up my arm.  I’m sure that it would be an odd sensation to see something that looks so real, yet have no touch sensation whatsoever.  I imagine it’s very similar to how my cat feels when I put the laser pointer on his paws.  He can see it’s there, but I can tell that he’s got no idea why he can’t feel the dot moving on him.

To read the original article, please go to http://neoacademic.com/2010/05/15/fight-your-fear-of-cockroaches-with-augmented-reality/

In the largest study of its kind, researchers gathered data from ten thousand participants to see if there was any discernible connection between cell phone usage and cancer. Their findings reveal that there is no known biological reaction between human tissue and cell phone radiation that would cause cancer.
While this study should ease the worries of those who were concerned that they were zapping their brains with the phone pressed up against their ear, there were some quirks within the results that researchers needed to point out.  Even though there are no concrete connections between cell phones and brain tumors, there does seem to be a higher risk for developing brain tumors among people who use their phone for abnormally long periods of time–in this case they cited as much as 1,640 cumulative hours of cell phone use over a short period of time.  At the other end of the spectrum, they also found that people who engage in normal cell phone usage are actually less likely to have a brain tumor than people who don’t use cell phones at all.  

Those vastly different numbers tied to cell phone use are perplexing the researchers.  Some feel that it may be invalid data given to them by the test subjects, resulting in the numbers becoming outliers in the test and being generally disregarded when compared to the normal data distribution that they were seeing.

Whatever the case, the point still stands that after years of research done on ten thousand people, scientists were unable to find anything that would lead them to believe there was a sinister connection between cell phones and cancer.  At this point, researchers are saying that there isn’t much else that they can study about cell phones that they don’t know already, and that the millions of dollars that go into these kinds of exercises would be better spent on other medical research where the results might be more beneficial for mankind.

I suppose that now society needs to be the judge and decide whether or not these results are satisfactory or not, because as far as the researchers are concerned, this case is all but closed at this point.

To read the original article, please go to http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8685839.stm?ad=1

While the main weapons against cancer are chemotherapy, radiation treatments, and prescription drugs, some feel that the environment in which these treatments are administered should be just as important. 

The Maggie Centers Initiative, a project stemming from the United Kingdom, seeks to turn treatment facilities into naturally lit, aesthetically pleasing buildings that relax the patients and make them feel comfortable throughout an often-uncomfortable process.  The buildings are to be flooded with natural light, with many views of the outdoors, and feel very spacious, eschewing the cramped and dimly lit treatment rooms that patients have had for so long.  The centers operate on what they’ve dubbed “the architectural placebo effect.”

Unfortunately, where there is a good idea, there will always be someone to criticize it, and some feel that the money put towards these architectural projects would serve the public better if it was put into research programs to find new drugs or new equipment.  Some even go so far as to say that these buildings are an excuse to win architecture awards by exploiting cancer.

Having witnessed my mother go through treatment for breast cancer roughly 2 years ago, I can tell you that while the drugs and treatments that she was put on made all the difference in the world, her environment absolutely played a big part as well.  She even said that after she left the treatment room, having spent sometimes 5 hours there at a time, she needed to sit on her sun porch and watch the birds while reading a good book to get her mood back.

The people who started the Maggie Centers Initiative aren’t saying that simply looking outdoors will replace modern medicine as a treatment for cancer.  They just feel that a pleasant atmosphere to undergo treatment in can only help the process and improve the mood of the patients who are there.  As far as I’m concerned, they’re taking a look at the whole picture and finding ways to improve the entire treatment process, and I applaud them for that.

To read the original article, please go to http://www.fastcompany.com/node/1640550/print

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, better known as DARPA, serves as the top research and development agency for the United States Department of Defense.  While some of the technology they develop is created to win wars, a great deal of it is also devoted to those who have fought and come home injured.  DARPA works in conjunction with many companies who specialize in the latest and greatest prosthetic limbs, as well as many other devices to help soldiers with physical disabilities.  Now, they’re working on devices that can help with an injured brain as well.

With traumatic brain injuries affecting one fifth of the soldiers returning home from Afghanistan and Iraq, DARPA’s developers have started research projects that utilize optogenetic brain implants that will hopefully be able to control brain cells with pulses of light.  This, in turn, would essentially reroute brain activity.  Despite having damaged areas, a brain fitted with these implants would work normally, in theory.  The implants would monitor signals sent between neurons in the brain and send out light pulses to stimulate other parts of the brain.

DARPA is working on this project in conjunction with Stanford and Brown university with a total grant of about 15 million dollars.  The project will first focus on the brains of mice and rats, and then eventually monkeys.

While the notion of brain control may seem a little scary, the more we learn about how the brain functions, the better.  DARPA hopes that implants like this one will one day be able to tell the brain how to control a prosthetic limb with greater dexterity, hopefully closing the gap between wounded soldier and machine and allowing them to continue leading normal lives.  For soldiers who only experience brain injuries, a system like this may very well erase all negative effects entirely.

To read the original article, please go to http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-05/darpas-brain-implants-would-help-replace-mental-function-wounded-warfighters

While budgets and technology aren’t in any shape to allow us to begin manned missions to Mars, scientists still feel the need to plan for the future and want to perform a study to see just what kind of psychological effects that trip would have on the oh-so-very-alone astronauts during their trip.

Essentially, 6 human test subjects will spend 18 months locked in a small steel capsule in Russia, with no one going in or out, and with all communications delayed by 20 seconds to mimic how it would feel to take a trip between Earth and Mars.  The capsule will be split into four compartments that the crew will spend 500 days inside.  There are no windows.  Since they are going to be physically isolated from the rest of the world, all of the necessary equipment and supplies will be stored in the capsule as well.  “The notion is that the sealed environment will simulate some of the human factors that a small crew would face on a real manned mission to Mars, including limited room to move, a tight and unchanging set of colleagues, stress, motivational issues, tests of their ability to follow instructions and so on.”

To make the simulation as realistic as possible, after 250 days the crew will go into a mock landing capsule and execute a simulated landing afterwards while wearing spacesuits. 

The whole mission sounds like a seriously daunting task, one that will create untold amounts of stress in each one of the participants.  While this experiment is begin performed in a very controlled environment for a specific purpose, if one of the mock astronauts loses their cool, they will be allowed out.  However, and while this hasn’t been made clear, it can be assumed that a lot of conversation, along with convincing justifications, will be needed if anyone is to leave the pod before time is up.

Frankly, I’m not sure if I would be able to handle this exercise.  While it sounds simplistic in its design, there are numerous potential agitators that could drive a person crazy as they participate in this experiment.  If my hesitant attitude disqualifies me for future space travel, then I think I’m ok with that.

What about you all?  Would you be able to hold out for 18 months?

To read the original article, please go to http://www.fastcompany.com/node/1644043/print