Telescopic Eye Implants Magnify Life, Help People See Again

Telescopic eye implants have just been approved by the FDA and they’re just as crazy as they sound. It’s literally like attaching a miniature telescope to an eye, magnifying what a person can see by 2.2-2.7 times.

These telescopic eye implants help people with macular degeneration, which is developing blind spots in the central vision of both eyes, see a little better. It’s intended for the elderly and can only be attached to one eye cause people still need the other for their peripheral vision.

But it’s not an easy-as-pie attach a telescope and just magically see again type of surgery, you’ll have to rehabilitate and basically re-wire your brain so it can combine what the two eyes see into one coherent image. Some patients even need a corneal transplant to accommodate for the size of the telescopic implant.

Of course, nothing can make old eyes young again but if surgery is successful, it can lessen impairment from severe to moderate. At $US15,000 it’s kind of expensive, but dude, it’s eyesight we’re talking about here.

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Retina Created From Stem Cell

In another world first in the fight against degenerative eye disorders, scientists from the Universtiy of California, Irvine, have created an eight-layer early-stage retina from human embryonic stem cells. Not only is this the world's first three-dimensional complex tissue structure to be made from stem cells, but it also marks the first step toward the development of transplant-ready retinas to treat eye disorders affecting millions.

The retina is the part of the eye that records images and sends them from the eye to the brain via the optic nerve. Building on a process designed in a previous study, researchers created multiple cell types using microscopic gradients for solutions in which to bathe the stem cells and initiate specific differentiation paths.

"Creating this complex tissue is a first for the stem cell field," said Hans Keirstead, study leader of the Reeve-Irvine Research Center and the Sue & Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center at UCI. "Dr. Gabriel Nistor in our group addressed a really interesting scientific problem with an engineering solution, showing that gradients of solutions can create complex stem cell-based tissues. We made a complex structure consisting of many cell types. This is a major advance in our quest to treat retinal disease. What’s so exciting with our discovery is that creating transplantable retinas from stem cells could help millions of people, and we are well on the way.”

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The Imperfect Human Eye

As someone who has to wear contact lenses, I find the argument that the seemly perfect complexities of the eye throughout the Animal Kingdom is proof of a designer.

The eye isn't perfect, and not just because I am short sighted. If there were a designer then there are some serious design flaws including blind spots, short/long sightedness and our incredible ability to be fooled by an Optical Illusion.

This particular optical illusion was winner of the Best Visual Illusion of the Year Contest 2010:

Click here to see all the BVIotY 2010 runners up

Click here for some information on why Intelligent Design has been rejected by the modern scientific community.