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By Harry Glickman September 26, 2012

Restoring Sight to the Blind: The Bionics Movement

Illustrated by ANNETTE FANZHU 

 

Bionic eye implants have recently been made available to the public, restoring sight to the those who have gone blind. Provided your optical nerve is intact, a sensor is hooked up to your retina in a 30 minute, minimally invasive procedure. Special glasses are worn which transmit an infrared laser beam through your eye to continually recharge the implant. These bionic eyes are still very expensive ($60,000) and only provide 24x24 grayscale vision, but the technology has sparked a lot of interest into what the future may hold. As technological power continues to increase, the resolution will become better and the price will drop.

So far, the bionic movement has been primarily concerned with replacement of faulty organs, but is slowly moving towards enhancement. Already, artificial ears are far superior to natural human ears. While the mechanism of the ear is the easiest to understand and replicate, we are making progress in more complicated matters. As demonstrated by the bionic eyes, we are now developing the capability to connect to our central nervous system. Once that interface is fully understood, there are almost no limits to how far we can go. Consider that human lungs are only about 20% efficient in capturing oxygen. With mechanical lungs, that percentage would be far higher.

Mechanical organs have both the potential to be better-quality and to be continually replaceable.  Many of the objections to immortality stem from the fact that life in the older years is not very desirable. Our bodies start to break down, removing much of the fun from life. If we could stop aging and keep people at top physical condition, immortality would seem like a much better option. The principle idea behind prevention of aging is to repair the damage that metabolism causes on our cells, tissues and organs. If our tissues and organs were replaceable machines, this would remove that problem entirely. If we can tackle brain tissue regeneration, immortality may be right around the corner. The pros and cons of such a future, and whether we want to be part of it or not are separate questions we will have to answer.

About the author

Harry Glickman is a second year Health Science student at Dawson. 

About the illustrator

Annette Fanzhu enjoys creating contrast in her art by infusing organic forms with graphic styles. As part of of her interest in contrast, she plays with various color schemes and combines traditional and digital mediums. She is inspired by western classical art, the American Golden Age of illustration, films, fashion, and various artists such as James Jean, Ferenc Pinter, and Sterling Hundley.

Acknowledgements

Anthony, Sebastian. "The laser-powered bionic eye that gives 576-pixel grayscale vision to the blind | ExtremeTech." Latest Technology News | Tech Blog | ExtremeTech. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2012. <http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/132918-the-laser-powered-bionic-eye-that-gives-576-pixel-grayscale-vision-to-the-blind>.

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    Simon Ranger

    November 7, 2012

    This is the first time I hear about the bionic eye implant and I have to say that I am impressed by how far we’ve gotten with the development of bionic implants that better people’s living conditions. It is great that we are able to create tools that people can use to utilize all of their senses.

    However, what will happen if everyone becomes dependent on these machines to live and then we find a major flaw in one of the main components? This I why I believe these bionic implants are great for people who really need them to make their lives better, however, they should not be used by everyone because it will just create yet another thing that we will be dependent on. Yes they will help increase our life span but we will never be able to achieve immortality because his would mean replacing everything we have by a mechanical component, thus creating robots.

    In the end what counts is making people’s lives better and it is great to see Health Science combining with Engineering producing these implants together.

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    Joseph Fanaberia

    November 7, 2012

    The age predicted by science fiction is finally upon us it seems. Yesterday’s technological fantasies are becoming today’s reality. As scary as it may sound to some, this is undoubtedly the way of the future, and I don’t think we will reserve this potential to those in need. Not only will the handicap benefit from this procedure. It may one day be as common as laser eye surgery. As cliché as it might sound, the military will start considering this as a viable option to improve the abilities of their soldiers. This research will probably begin very soon if it hasn’t already. We might one day be able to upgrade the hardware and software of our own bodies just like we would a computer.

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