It’s often said that the loss of one sense improves the others. New research shows the dramatic extent to which this is true in blind people, and how their brains make new connections to boost hearing, smell, touch—and even cognitive functions such as memory and language.
An unproven stem cell therapy conducted by a Florida clinic has blinded three patients in an apparent clinical trial gone horribly wrong. The incident showcases the extent to which unscrupulous clinics will take advantage of desperate patients—and how the lack of government oversight contributes to the problem.
Dan Mancia’s vision started to fade when he was thirteen. Now, he only has a very small amount of peripheral vision in his right eye. But that hasn’t stopped Mancia from pulling off sick skateboarding tricks.
DeepMind made a name for itself by building a computer that beat the world champion at Go (and freaked everyone out) but now it’s moving on to a project more likely to help the common man: diagnosing blindness.
Two poor souls suffered through MRIs, heart scans, and other medical tests to figure out what was causing them to go blind for up to 15 minutes at a time. After discovering that checking their phones in bed was to blame, one woman still couldn’t stop. Such is the power of technology.
Scientists have used stem cells to cure blindness in rabbits—which could be incredible news for visually impaired people.
You may consider your eyes a priceless commodity, but for Mexican cavefish, they were a burdensome expense. In a first-of-a-kind study, scientists have figured out exactly how much energy an animal saves by abandoning vision — in this case, anywhere from 5 to 15%.
Echolocation isn’t just for bats and dolphins—people can do it, too. Some blind people have learned to use echolocation to tell the size, density, and texture of objects around them, and researchers believe anyone can learn how.
Joshua Loevy is an attorney in Kansas City, MO, who happens to be blind. For years, people have compared him to blind attorney Matt Murdock, whose alter ego is the superhero Daredevil. So Loevy was excited to check out the new Daredevil series... but he can't.
What does space feel like? I'm not talking about space itself—but rather the images we see in a telescope. Could you render those spectacular images into something that a blind person could experience? That's exactly what a pair of astronomers are trying to figure out.
For people going blind from retinal degeneration, there are almost no therapies. Their vision dims and they lose their sight as doctors look on helplessly. But a new experiment involving retinas grown from stem cells promises a new direction for research — and, in the future, a possible treatment.
They once were blind but now they see. Which begs the question — what exactly do people see when they gain sight for the first time? Often, it's terrifying.
It's not every day that science and crazy brain implants lead to the generation of what is essentially a new sense, but it is that day today. Scientists from Duke University have found a way to make rats "feel" invisible infrared light and someday that same tech could give sight to the blind, or give us humans extras…
Some mice that once were blind can now see, thanks to a breakthrough from researchers at UC Berkley. And humans might not be far behind.
Braille wasn't widely in use in the 1830s, but Samuel Gridley Howe, founder and president of the New England Institute for the Education of the Blind, wanted to develop an atlas that his students could read unaided by a seeing person. To that end, he created a specially embossed atlas that could be read by touch.
Have you ever wondered what it might be like to be temporarily blind? Of course you have. In fact, there is a way to trick your body into becoming blind, at least for a few minutes.
This Sensory Substitution Device uses the camera to gather visual data and then uses a rather nifty computer algorithm to translates this data into sound. With a little practice, blind users can identify complex objects, and even read words.
You're looking at the most recent prototype of Japanese robotics manufacturer NSK's mechanical seeing-eye dog. This model uses Microsoft Kinect to navigate obstacles, and its creators are adding such features as voice recognition to prevent the robot from leading its master astray. Will future generations be dealing…
Not that one should go around shaming seeing-eye dogs. But the Tacit haptic glove, designed by Steve Hoefer, is a little DIY project that fires sonar from the wrist, keeping a visually impaired individual aware of their surroundings.
There's a terrible hereditary eye disease called Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy that affects men in their twenties. It's a mitochondrial disease inherited from your mother that leads to total blindness within six months of onset.
