blind

Termites feed through good vibrations

...fence Force Academy, Dr Evans investigated how the blind insects measured pieces of wood. They recorded the vibrations of worker drywood termites as they fed on large and small wood blocks. Dr Evans then broadcast the recorded vibrations made by termites from the large blocks into small blocks and found t...

Artifical cornea lets woman blind 20 years see

...e treatment and care of patients like her. "I was blind for twenty years in both my eyes," Phifer says. "A regular cornea wouldn't work because of the severity of damage to my corneas. But now my life is more like normal and I can do more things on my own and finally read the things that I want to read." ...

Brain May Be Less Plastic Than Hoped

...tinas of four monkeys with a laser, creating small blind spots on the same sides of the field of vision. Th..., the cortical area corresponding to each monkey's blind spot fell silent, generating no activity. The team measured the size and shape of each of these cor...

Atmosphere may cleanse itself better than previously thought

...les absorb ?a portion that has been something of a blind spot for scientists, who often detect chemical reactions by perceiving the telltale light frequencies that certain reactions are known to emit or absorb. Many sources of OH radicals strongly absorb UV light, making them easily detectable. However, th...

Six previously blind patients detect light, motion, identify objects with retinal prostheses

...stigator on the project, all six of the previously blind patients have been able to detect light, identify objects in their environment, and even perceive motion after implantation with the epiretinal device. Data collected as of November of 2004 showed that the six patients-who had been implanted with a ...

Scientists focus on 'dwarf eye'

...th nanophthalmos, an Amish-Mennonite woman who was blind in one eye, came to the Wilmer Eye Institute in 1998 for treatment. By reconstructing the woman's family tree, the researchers discovered that several living relatives also suffered from nanophthalmos, and four deceased relatives had been part of the...

Modification of program enables prediction of gene transcription

...in both parts of the gene, we're able to convert a blind guessing game to a multiple choice question ?is it a UTR exon or a protein-coding exon? These kinds of questions are easier to answer now." ...

Computers close in on protein structure prediction

...a mouse or fly. The protocol was first tested on a blind annual prediction test considered to be the highest standard for removing bias from protein structure prediction models. "We can't compute the energies perfectly, but the biggest problem is the search through possible shapes," Baker said. "Where we ...

What Makes The Brain Tick, Tick, Tick: Researchers Gaining New Insights Into Brain's Internal Clock

...ce in the brain for the interval clock is like the blind man feeling just the toe of the elephant and tryin...e want to be modest about our capabilities. We are blind men touching just one part of this elephant that is time. "And our new review paper, to the best of...

Restaurant seafood prices since 1850s help plot marine harvests through history

...s. "The history of marine animal populations is a blind spot in human knowledge being filled by the combined efforts of historians, paleo-ecologists, and ecosystem modelers. Helping visualize the past, now almost unimaginable richness of the oceans could inspire and influence the way marine resources are ...

NIAID researchers show how promising TB drug works

...rsions of the drug." "Previously, we were flying blind in trying to optimize PA-824 in a rational way because we didn't know which M. tb protein was the target of PA-824's action," says NIAID scientist Clifton Barry, III, Ph.D., who headed the research team. In preclinical testing, PA-824 showed evid...

Genetic analysis of Asian elephants in India reveals some surprises

...ersity possible." says Melnick. "We're just acting blind if we don't know where that diversity is. This study shows us where we need to focus our efforts." ...

Travelers can avoid jet lag by resetting their body clocks

...en shown to synchronize the circadian clock of the blind to the 24-hour day. "However, this is the first study to show that melatonin and bright light can both help to advance the circadian clock, and the combination of bright light and melatonin produces a larger phase advance than bright light alone," ...

Largest study of human 'interactome' reveals a novel way

...important conceptual breakthrough. It eliminates a blind alley that could mislead researchers investigating the roles of specific proteins in the cell." Pandey is the chief scientific advisor to the IOB and senior author of the Nature Genetics article. The team's conceptual advance was made by comparing ...

Unique equine cataract surgery offered on routine basis

...eration was completed without problems. Completely blind from birth, she will undergo further surgery at the University's Large Animal Hospital. Georgie is owned by the International League for the Protection of Horses (ILPH). Cataracts develop because of hereditary, congenital and ageing factors and as ...

New gene reduces retinal degeneration in fruit flies

... de Tormes, in which the orphan boy Làzaro helps a blind man see. Of the molecules known to control TRP channels, a key player is diacylglycerol, known as DAG. DAG is known to be made by a well-studied biochemical pathway. The researchers found that Lazaro provides a second way to make DAG, enabling the c...

UC Riverside psychologist explores human perception, finds 'wow factor'

...mputer software or rehabilitation programs for the blind or the deaf." Rosenblum has taught at UCR since 1989. In addition to his scientific work, he holds the post of chair in teaching excellence for the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. His duties include offering workshops for faculty m...

Healing honey: The sweet evidence revealed

... may not have been double-blind. Of course, double blind testing would be difficult to achieve because honey is a very recognizable substance. Molan concludes, "the barrier to using honey that has existed for many clinicians who have been constrained to using only licensed products has been removed now t...

MIT 'seeing machine' offers hope to blind

...o develop a more practical machine for the broader blind public. She did so by collaborating over the pas...tons." (She noted that less than 10 percent of the blind read Braille.) Further, bystanders who aim to help - "there are five steps there; it's the third doo...

UF scientists restore sight to chickens with blinding disease

... LCA1. About 2,000 people in the United States are blind because they have a disease that falls in the LCA ... experiment five years ago that restored vision to blind Briard dogs. "This is proof of concept using a unique vector, animal model and approach. One would h...

Some people would give life or limb not to be fat

...ectively, said they would rather lose a limb or be blind than be overweight. "We were surprised by the sheer number of people who reported they would be willing to make major sacrifices to avoid being obese. It drives home the message that weight bias is powerful and pervasive," said Marlene Schwartz, as...

Light-sensitive photoswitches could restore sight to those with macular degeneration

... the retina with photoswitches, essentially making blind nerve cells see, restoring light sensitivity in people with degenerative blindness such as macular degeneration. "We're asking the question, 'Can you control biological nanomolecules - in other words, proteins - with light?'" said center director a...

Melatonin improves mood in winter depression

...travelers and shift workers, as well as in totally blind people. Lewy and his colleagues in the OHSU Sleep and Mood Disorders Lab set out to test the hypothesis that circadian physiological rhythms become misaligned with the sleep/wake cycle during the short days of winter, causing some people to become d...

Gene therapy research switches off joint inflammation; switches on genetic process of joint repair

...product approach to osteoarthritis." The double blind randomized controlled clinical trial will assess a variety of pain, mobility and functional assessments in subjects with moderate osteoarthritis of the knee. Prior to this clinical investigation Reparagen was found to be the first natural product to ...

High levels of blindness in southern Sudan following years of war

...00. Their aim was to estimate how many people were blind or had ‘‘low vision’?and to find out the main causes. Working under very difficult conditions, the researchers selected villages to be visited at random. A house in each village visited was selected by spinning a pen in the middle of the village. The...

An artificial cornea is in sight, thanks to biomimetic hydrogels

...w for at least 10 million people worldwide who are blind due to damaged or diseased corneas or many millions more who are nearsighted or farsighted due to misshapen corneas. Called Duoptix TM , the material can swell to a water content of 80 percent--about the same as biological tissues. It's made of t...

Replacing insulin is top-ranked breakthrough foreseen for health in developing world

...tem cell therapy to repair the corneas of over 125 blind patients; an estimated 60% of blindness in poor communities is treatable. Regenerative medicine holds the promise of more affordable treatments than corneal grafts and of offsetting shortages of donor material. The study, the first of its kind: I...

Artificial cornea offers better results for infants, some blind patients

Infants and adults who are blind due to a cloudy or damaged cornea are seeing some remarkable results thanks to a new version of an artificial implant that takes the place of the cornea, the clear covering of the eye that serves as our window on the world. The results of operations...

New study finds chocolate chip cookies lower cholesterol

...l levels under 200 mg/dl. The randomized, double blind study researched 33 healthy adults with moderately high cholesterol between the ages 35?5 at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT. Participants were randomly assigned to the Right Direction Cookie group or the placebo cookie group. Two cookies ...

Two nerve cells in direct contact

... in front of its own eye (ipsilateral), but remain blind to movements in front of the other eye (contralate...ion sensitivity of the H2 cell disappeared. It was blind to the movement stimuli in front of the other eye, irrespective of whether it was combined with the ...

Backache beaten by good vibrations?

...e about their condition." The study is a double blind randomized trial with both the volunteer and treating physiotherapist unaware of the treatment allocation. ...

Gene therapy for blindness clears hurdle in mice

... rate of progression varies, but most patients are blind by 40. UF Genetics Institute researchers engineered the interfering RNA into a virus, which in turn was injected below the retinas in more than a dozen normal mice. Analysis showed the technique reduced the amount of rhodopsin by about 60 percent....

MU researcher placing eye implants in cats to help humans see

...r Trek: The Next Generation," Geordi La Forge is a blind character who can see through the assistance of sp... has been working with a microchip implant to help blind animals "see." According to Narfstrom, the preliminary results are promising. "About one in 3,500...

Wired for sound: How the brain senses visual illusions

...en compensate by developing another ?for instance, blind people with a more acute sense of hearing. ...

New study challenges 'critical period' in childhood vision development

...Prakash" is to find, treat, and study congenitally blind children in India. A unique case study that resul..., were introduced to a woman in India who was born blind due to dense congenital cataracts in both eyes. The woman lived as a blind child for 12 years befor...