TECHNOLOGY

[Ms. Kathy]

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Technology May Give Blind A Touch Of Sight
Source Link: www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/18/eveningnews/eyeontech/main2373433.shtml

Jan. 18, 2007
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(CBS) At first glance, Roger Behm looks like an independent guy who sees the world with a rather sharp sense of humor. But he's actually seen nothing since he was a young man, CBS News technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg reports.

However, part of his world is coming back into focus, through experimental technology called BrainPort.

One day it could actually help blind people see, in a sense, by using their tongues. BrainPort swaps tiny cameras for eyes and transforms the images into electrical impulses that are felt on the tongue.

"It is as if it's drawing on the tongue. So if you capture the image fast enough ... it is like a video display. Instead of being on a screen, now it is on your tongue," says Rich Hogle of BrainPort.

In normal vision, the eyes send signals to the middle of the brain. From there, the signals are sent directly to the visual cortex at the back of the brain. That's not so for the blind, however.

BrainPort retrains the way the brain processes information by first stimulating the tongue with an array of tiny electrodes. The nerves in the tongue send signals through a different pathway to the brain stem and the area that deals with to touch. Eventually the blind person learns to interpret touch as sight.


"you know when you're a kid and — I don't know if you did it or not — but one kid would draw on your back and you'd try to guess what it is? That's what it's like," Behm explains.

Sound impossible? Behm is able to walk through the BrainPort office without any guidance. He can navigate an obstacle course and pick out specific shapes. Behm can even spot the logo on a football jersey.

"It's like learning a language. At first you might need to take a long time thinking about what the translation is. I might feel stimulation in the right front part of my tongue, (but) what does that mean?," says Aimee Arnoldussen, a BrainPort researcher. "But very rapidly, like learning a language, you might learn a few quick vocabulary (words), and eventually you become so fluent that you don't need to think about it anymore."

Sieberg put on a blindfold and tried out BrainPort. After a humbling first attempt, he managed to understand some of the BrainPort language.

For the blind, it's a glimpse at more freedom.

Behm says he hopes "this develops to the point where the next generation can get benefit from it, even if I don't get the greatest out of it. I still am determined that if I can see their eyes and maybe I can see a smile or a grin — that'd be cool."

For the rest of us, it's a miraculous look at how our brains can be trained to rewire themselves.

[Ms. Kathy]

Seeing the light
In the aftermath of the Target court settlement, online retailers are paying more attention to the issue of serving disabled consumers
By Paul Demery
Source Link: www.internetretailer.com/article.asp?id=29243

In the nearly six months since Target Corp. reached a landmark court settlement with the National Federation of the Blind, agreeing to make its e-commerce site Target.com more accessible to and usable by blind people, there has been a steady stream of inquiries from retailers and groups representing disabled consumers to the law offices of Brown, Goldstein & Levy LLP, which represented the federation in the case.

The common request of the callers, says partner Daniel Goldstein, who tried the case on behalf of the National Federation of the Blind, is for advice on how to move forward in making web site improvements for disabled people without further lawsuits.

“Two significant things have happened since the settlement,” Goldstein says. “Other retailers have come to us, asking what they need to do to make their web sites accessible without entering into lawsuits, and blind people have come to us to tell us about web sites they’re frustrated with trying to use.”

The Target settlement with the NFB, along with other recent developments in international web site design standards and a growing base of assistive technology applications for building more universally accessible and usable web sites, is putting growing pressure on retailers to get on board with e-commerce sites that are user-friendly for virtually anyone, regardless of their physical limitations. “There’s no reason why any web developer can’t figure out how to make a web site more accessible,” an NFB spokesman says.

In addition to Target, a growing number of retailers, including Canadian Tire Corp. and Home Hardware Stores Ltd., are making their retail web sites more accessible with innovative technology that provides web page navigation without a keyboard or mouse. “We recognize the importance of accessibility in all dimensions of the customer experience,” says Home Hardware Stores CEO Paul Straus. “It’s more than just the right thing to do. It’s good business practice.”

Making a web site support screen-reading software used by blind people can cost anywhere from $100,000 to $2 million, depending on a site’s size and volume of content, says Anthony Franco, president of site design firm EffectiveUI. Deploying software to make sites usable by sighted people who are physically unable to use a mouse or keyboard in the conventional way, however, can cost far less, without requiring any special infrastructure coding, says Simon Dermer, managing director of Essential Accessibility Inc., a provider of such software.

Substantial benefits

For retailers who make their sites more usable by disabled people, the benefits can be substantial, proponents say. For one thing, the number of people with some form of disability is estimated at more than 50 million in the U.S. alone, with aggregate annual income of more than $1 trillion and $220 billion in discretionary income, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Moreover, coding a web site to support assistive technologies like screen readers also improves search engine optimization for improved natural search results, and it renders the site with open technology standards that support new platforms like mobile commerce, says Paul Rosenfeld, senior vice president of federal accessibility solutions at SSB Bart Group, which provides technology that helps design more accessible web sites.

But retailers working toward more usable web sites for disabled people are still the exception to the rule, experts say. “Accessibility and usability are an afterthought for many online retailers,” Franco says. “Most launch a site, then ask if it’s accessible and usable. The truth is, most web retailers are not thinking of usability by disabled people, they’re just thinking, ‘What will the customer do for me?’”

The Target settlement is helping to change that mindset, experts say, as retailers weigh the cost of providing more usable web sites against possible legal action.

In its suit brought in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the National Federation of the Blind alleged Target violated the Americans with Disabilities Act and two California state laws by failing to make Target.com support screen-reading software that enables blind people to convert web site content into audio files.

When Judge Marilyn Hall Patel certified the case as a class action on behalf of all legally blind individuals in the U.S. who had been denied Target’s services when attempting to use Target.com, she made a crucial distinction that went against the retailer’s contention that a web site was not subject to the same public accessibility laws as physical stores, Goldstein says.

“Because the certification addressed services of a business establishment, it avoided the whole question of whether a retail web site is the same as a bricks-and-mortar store,” he says. “That set a terribly important precedent that anyone who puts up a commercial web site operation in California and makes it inaccessible to disabled people does so at their own peril.”

Target, in addition to establishing a $6 million fund against which litigants in the California lawsuit can make claims, has taken several steps to make both its retail e-commerce sites as well as its internal employee sites more usable by blind and other disabled people, a spokeswoman says. These include images coded to support verbal descriptions that assistive technologies like screen readers can interpret, and improved keyboard navigation to assist visitors unable to use a mouse.

Within a few months after the settlement, Apple Inc. agreed in a Massachusetts court to work with the NFB to make its popular iTunes.com site more accessible to blind people. Between the start of the Target case and the settlement, Amazon.com Inc. and RadioShack Corp. also agreed to work with the NFB on accessibility issues.

“We expect there will be more agreements coming down the pike,” says John Kemp, an attorney who specializes in accessibility issues for disabled people at the law firm of Powers Pyles Sutter & Verville PC. “The Target settlement sent a loud and clear signal that if you don’t make your web site accessible, there will be a bull’s-eye on your back.”

Global implications

The settlement has coincided with other recent developments helping to push more web sites toward designs more suitable for people with disabilities. During last year’s United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, more than 130 countries agreed that disabled people have equal rights to public information, particularly in electronic form.

In December the World Wide Web Consortium, which sets web technology standards to support widespread use of the Internet, released a new set of guidelines for making web sites accessible to people with disabilities and those dealing with common limitations of old age. The group’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0, available at w3.org, were designed to make web site content and functionality more operable as well as understandable by handicapped users as web sites introduce more interactive Web 2.0 technologies, such as online video and other forms of interactive rich media.

SSB Bart Group provides a web-based accessibility management platform that shows whether a web site supports the deployment of assistive technologies. For a retailer doing about $50 million to $100 million a year in revenue, SSB Bart will charge from $40,000 to $80,000 to use its software to audit a web site’s infrastructure to see how well it can support assistive technology like screen readers; the cost could double if a retailer also wants SSB Bart to remediate any problems, Rosenfeld says.

For retailers who do their own audits, SSB Bart offers software-as-a-service for about $1,000 per month.

Screen readers include JAWS for Windows by Freedom Scientific Inc., Window-Eyes from GW Micro Inc., BrowseAloud by Texthelp Systems Ltd., and Easy Web Browsing from IBM Corp. Microsoft Corp.’s Vista operating system comes with the built-in Narrator screen reader as well as other tools including a text magnifier and an on-screen keyboard.

Radar mouse

Essential Accessibility has developed a software suite that gives people without full motor skills the ability to navigate web pages without regular use of a mouse or keyboard. The software, already deployed by Canadian Tire and other retailers, comes in a variety of applications.

A disabled shopper, after arranging to download or receive a CD of free software from the retailer, simply needs to be able to exert pressure on an electronic device, such as with a fingertip press by someone who can’t move his hand side to side, or, for a paralyzed quadriplegic, with a head movement.

In one “radar mouse” application, for example, a line that extends from the center to the outer edge of a web page slowly circles the page like a second hand on a watch. Once the shopper sees that the line is approaching a particular section of a web page—a shirt for sale, for instance—she engages the finger- or head-activated device to stop the moving line; a second press of the device will send an icon up the line toward the shirt; when the icon lands on the desired point of the page, such as the Buy button for the shirt, the shopper activates a third press of the device to make a purchase.

The same application works with an on-screen keyboard that enables the disabled shopper to enter information such as billing and shipping information.

Better planning

Technology companies are also producing applications that let web developers simulate web page functionality—or lack of it—in a way that would likely be experienced by a disabled person.

IBM’s aDesigner for Flash tool, for example, lets developers simulate accessibility issues experienced by visually impaired people trying to use multimedia content on a web page. By experiencing the same blurred view that a person with cataracts might see, or the shadows seen by a person with color blindness, developers can adjust a web page’s coding to make it more usable by a visually impaired person, IBM says.

There also is more information available to help retailers keep up with changing disability policies and technologies. Attorney Kemp, for example, last month began working with TecAccess, a consulting firm specializing in web site accessibility applications, to publish a quarterly Digital Accessibility Trends Analysis report.

Indeed, it’s not lack of technology or information that is holding back broad web site accessibility and usability, experts say. “It’s not about technology limitations, because most technology platforms can accommodate an accessible, usable experience,” Franco of EffectiveUI says. “It’s about planning your site infrastructure.”

[Ms. Kathy]

From The Sunday TimesFebruary 1, 2009
Source Link: www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article5626606.ece

Beware a Scottish stem cell brain drain
America’s new science policy could hit one area considered key to Scotland’s future prosperity

Noble?s stem cell research may help treat sports injuries like the one sustained by Celtic's John Kennedy
Richard Wilson
When Barack Obama pledged during his inauguration speech to “restore science to its rightful place” in US life, students watching on big screens at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, America’s foremost science and engineering university, let out a collective cheer.


But the implications of the new president’s science policy could be felt by researchers much further afield than Boston. Obama has promised to lift the ban on federal funding for stem cell research imposed by his predecessor, George W Bush. It may be great news for those suffering from incurable diseases. But some researchers in this country believe the change in American policy could damage Scotland’s comparative advantage in the field — and lead to the best brains heading across the Atlantic. The SNP government, like its Labour predecessor, believes life sciences hold the key to Scotland’s future prosperity.


Certainly our universities are cutting edge when it comes to stem cell work. A Glasgow trial for stroke patients made headlines days before the inauguration, as did another in Edinburgh, which hopes eventually to cure age-related blindness. Our scientists excel in stem cell work involving neurological conditions, liver disease and bone and cartilage repair. A conservative estimate of the potential financial benefit to the Scottish economy from stem cell therapies by 2015 is £50m. But American federal funding could easily overwhelm the resources available elsewhere.


Professor John Ansell, director of project development at the UK Stem Cell Foundation ) warns: “There aren’t that many stem cell biologists in the world, so if America opens up with the funding they have got, then retaining personnel becomes a problem.”


Ansell believes that there is a critical gap in funding for translating laboratory work into large-scale medical trials. Academic work in universities is well supported, and the big pharmaceutical companies become involved when a therapy demonstrates medical benefits. But funding for the kind of small-scale initial trials announced in Glasgow and Edinburgh is less well established.


UKSCF raises money from various sources, including Scottish Enterprise. It funded the trial designed by Professor Bal Dhillon, of the Princess Alexandra Eye Pavilion in Edinburgh, to use adult stem cells to treat corneal blindness, which affects millions of people worldwide. But it took three years to raise the money for the study, which involved just 20 patients. ReNeuron, a UK-based firm, is behind the experimental stem cell treatment for stroke patients, another small-scale trial, which will be run in Glasgow’s Southern General hospital.


“These trials are significant because if they turn out to be successful, lots of money will start rolling in,” adds Ansell. “We still have an advantage, but it’s going to disappear if America changes its stance and puts more money from the state into this activity. It’s true to say that we’re hanging on by our fingernails.”


Stem cells possess the ability to develop into almost any other cell type in the body, so they carry the potential to be used as repair kits. The next small-scale trial in the pipeline in Scotland is the use of stem cells to repair damaged cartilage. If successful, the trial, which is due to begin within the next two years in Edinburgh, will be expanded to include the treatment of broken bones, with the ultimate hope of a therapy to address osteoarthritis.


Cartilage is one of the few body fibres that does not repair itself when damaged, which is why the kind of knee injury sustained by footballers such as John Kennedy, the Celtic defender, prove so debilitating. Kennedy was out for almost two years after suffering a knee cartilage tear in 2004 and his subsequent career has been curtailed.


Dr Brendon Noble, of Edinburgh University’s Centre for Regenerative Medicine, believes the treatment could significantly reduce the rehabilitation time for such injuries and prevent their recurrence. About 80,000 people a year in the UK tear their meniscus cartilage.


“Sports injuries are exactly the type of thing it will benefit,” he says. “We hope it would reduce the time it takes to recover, but also because cartilage is so difficult to repair, we hope it would be a genuine, high-quality repair. Cartilage is the shock absorber for joints and if it’s not the real McCoy, it’s just not going to function. It’s like shock absorbers in your car going a bit ropey — you really feel it when you go over a pothole.”


Some of Dr Noble’s work is a collaboration with Geron, an American biotech firm that received permission last week in the US to begin a trial — the first in the world to use embryonic stem cells — of a treatment for paralysis from spinal injury. And Noble also acknowledges concerns that Obama’s intervention could see experts lured away from Scotland.


“There is always a danger that’s going to happen,” he says. “What we have done in Scotland is build up a pool of expertise. Some of the skills in making these cells and looking after them are not trivial. It would be a crime if we lost lots of people. We need to keep things going here as much as we can.


“Salaries in the United States are difficult to compete with. America doesn’t offer everything, but the retention of the expertise we’ve got in Scotland is critical.”


Scottish Enterprise has invested more than £30m in regenerative medicine. Yet stem cell therapies, which are ethically controversial because the most effective and commercially viable source is from embryos, remain theoretical as no large-scale human trial has yet been carried out to establish a successful clinical application. Stem cells from aborted foetuses and from adult bone marrow can also provide smaller amounts. The first breakthrough could prove financially and medically significant.


“We think that by about 2015 it could be adding around £50m a year to the economy, but that’s a hugely conservative figure for Scotland,” says Andrew Henderson, manager of Scottish Enterprise’s Life Sciences team. “And in that timetable, we’re assuming that there will be no mass-market treatments available, because if they come on stream quicker and we can capture that, the revenue goes up significantly.


“There is a danger that the key people in Scotland are attracted to the US. California is talking about a very big sum of money being put in if the American attitude to stem cell research changes. So we’ve been working very hard to make sure Scotland is one of the pre-eminent locations for stem cell research.”


The best prospect for stem cell research in Scotland might turn out to be the kind of strategic partnerships behind Noble’s cartilage and bone trial, which involves collaboration with an American firm. If Scotland is to remain globally relevant, its scientists will need to work with the US rather than move there.

[Ms. Kathy]

EyeScience Launches Comprehensive Online Resource Devoted to Age-Related Macular Degeneration Education and Prevention

Source Link: news.prnewswire.com/ViewContent.aspx?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/02-24-2009/0004977648&EDATE=

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Feb. 24 /PRNewswire/ -- EyeScience Labs has launched www.EyeScience.com to fill a large consumer need for comprehensive information and education on age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in a unique watch-and-learn video format. AMD is a progressive, hereditary eye disease that is the leading cause of blindness in Americans age 50 or older.


On the site, visitors can learn about basic eye anatomy, screening and diagnosis, risk factors, signs and symptoms and treatments for AMD. In addition, the site contains more than 20 watch-and-learn videos about eye anatomy, AMD symptoms, dry and wet macular degeneration, diagnostic tests, photodynamic therapy (PDT), intravitreal injection of Lucentis and Avastin, vitamin therapy, amsler grid testing, lasers and more.


Users also have the ability to browse an FAQ section, which contains expert answers to more than 30 questions about AMD. Additionally, EyeScience.com features an "Ask the Doctor" section where consumers can submit their questions about AMD or problems they may personally be experiencing with their eyes, and EyeScience medical experts will answer them privately and free of charge.


Consumers interested in learning more about using eye vitamins as a form of AMD prevention will find a wealth of information as well as the ability to order EyeScience's Macular Health Formula vitamin online or to find a CVS Pharmacy retail location in their area.


About EyeScience Labs, LLC

Based in Columbus, Ohio, EyeScience Labs, LLC, is an advanced ocular nutraceutical company. EyeScience specializes in innovative, science-based natural formulas to help maintain healthy eyes. Its formulations, developed by leading ophthalmologists, scientists and nutritional experts, are based on decades of ocular research. EyeScience products are made from the highest-grade ingredients and manufactured in the United States according to rigorous internal protocols. EyeScience represents the best of scientific research and development for improved ocular health. For additional information, including product features and purchasing details, please visit www.EyeScience.com.

[Ms. Kathy]

Device restores limited sight to the blind

Elizabeth Fernandez, Chronicle Staff Writer, Monday, March 9, 2009.
Source Link:
www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/08/BA8V168N0A.DTL


In a darkened room, Dean Lloyd sits before a computer screen slowly moving
his
head, searching for a white box on the black screen.

Then he points directly at the square.

Lloyd has been blind for two decades.

About 18 months ago, the 68-year-old attorney in Palo Alto had an
experimental
electrode implanted at the back of his right eye, part of a complex
electrical
system designed to give him rudimentary vision.

He's among only 18 blind people in the world - 10 in the United States - to
undergo the procedure.

Lloyd wears an apparatus that could be out of a sci-fi novel - black
sunglasses
containing a tiny camera and transmitter, video processor and battery pack
on
his belt, electrode-studded array tacked to the back of his eye.

The mechanism represents new hope for blind people, particularly those with
retinitis pigmentosa, a devastating hereditary disease that destroys vision.

"It's not perfect, but it's incredibly exciting," said Dr. Timothy Schoen,
director of preclinicial research at the nonprofit Foundation Fighting
Blindness, which funds research. "Some people with the device can see large
objects, they can see dark from light."

Tools for hope.

Called Argus II, the device is part of a panoply of revolutionary research
around the country that seeks to restore vision to more than 10 million
people
who have lost it due to macular degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa, Usher
syndrome and other diseases. The research includes gene therapies, dietary
treatments, even the development of artificial retinas.

"Patients with extreme vision loss have a greater cause for optimism than
they
have in the past," said retinal specialist Dr. Jacque Duncan, a UCSF
associate
professor of clinical ophthalmology who is involved in the Argus II clinical
trial. Lasting 36 months, the trial will determine the safety of the
prosthetic
device and is about halfway complete.

With the mechanism, wearers see crude shapes or forms, such as the outlines
of a
person. Many see doorways. Many perceive fuzzy spots of light, others say
images
look like fireworks.

Argus II bypasses sensory cells that have died and takes messages to the
brain,
sending tiny electrical pulses through the vision pathway to the retina. It
was
developed by Second Sight Medical Products Inc., a 10-year-old firm based in
Sylmar, in Los Angeles County.

"The device helps people feel more connected to the world," said senior
principal scientist Dr. Matthew McMahon. "One subject said she could point
to
the full moon - for 15 years she hasn't been able to do that, and for her it
was
a huge deal. A realistic goal is to get to the point where people can see
patterns and shapes much more reliably, and ultimately, to be able to read
and
recognize faces."

Argus II contains 60 electrodes. The next generation might utilize more than
a
thousand electrodes, said McMahon.

Lloyd can now see primary colors, as well as objects with high water
content,
such as eyes. He can walk along a white line on a dark floor, or locate an
object on a computer screen.

Seeing colors again.

It's a relatively crude form of vision - but it's much more than he's had
for
many years.

"When I first got it I thought it was pretty useless," he said. "But it's
getting a lot better. I can see edges and borders and boundaries. An eye
looks
like a star to me. I hadn't seen color for a long time. The red I see is a
beautiful shade. The blue is luminescent. The green, it's just plain old
green.

"I was probably hoping for a lot more than I received, but I'm not
disappointed
because it is more than I had."

Lloyd was nearly 24, a medical school student, when he was diagnosed with
retinitis pigmentosa. The disease, even decades later, has no cure, no
effective
treatment. It affects about 100,000 people in the United States.

He gave up his hopes of becoming a doctor, and worked as a biochemist and
software engineer before becoming a lawyer. For years, his vision was
somewhat
stable, then it began to fade and finally vanished.

Lloyd has a particularly strong incentive to participate in the trial: his
brother, who is also blind, has the disease. And so do several other members
of
his immediate family, including his daughter, Lisa.

Now 37, and living in Sunnyvale, Lisa Lloyd was diagnosed when she was 22.
Director of development at the Northern California chapter of Foundation
Fighting Blindness, her vision is relatively fine during the day, but she
stopped driving at night five years ago.

"This device is such a big step in the right direction," she said. "My dad
went
from no light perception to being able to see my hand. Just a few weeks ago,
we
were walking by a creek. Dad told me the water looked to be about 4 inches
high.
He was right."

E-mail Elizabeth Fernandez at [e-mail].

[Ms. Kathy]

SOURCE Link:
www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/fun/gizmo/article2318408.ece


by Jonathan Weinberg
Published: 13 Mar 2009

IT'S always good when a gadget is actually designed to help people - rather
than just look nice, do
something fancy for the sake of it or promise a cool innovation but fail to
live up to it.

Nicknamed the BIG and LOUD mobile phone, this AMPLICOM POWERTEL M5000 (the
first name was catchier)
is made for the elderly, visually impaired or hard of hearing.
It was constructed with advice from the Royal National Institutes of Blind
People and Deaf People
and features big buttons, loud sound and is hearing aid compatible.
The ringer itself goes up to a whopping 100 decibels and its speaker is 23
decibels at the maximum.
But there's also a powerful vibrating alert, to shake anyone into answering
it whether they can hear
it or not.
The display is 4.3cm with easily read fonts and white text on a black
display. Large keys also make
it simpler for not-so-nimble fingers to dial out.
But its makers have thought of most eventualities too and provided an SOS
function that can call
five pre-programmed numbers in an emergency.
At £99 SIM-free it's a good price to keep older relatives in touch when they
are out and will just
work on any Pay As You Go network.
Check out www.bignloud.co.uk
for more.

[Ms. Kathy]

www.blindphones.info/
This e-mail list is operated to ensure that blind users of cellular mobile phone handsets are kept up to date with the latest developments in the hardware and software that they use on a day to day basis.

[Ms. Kathy]

Mutated gene in zebrafish sheds light on blindness in humans
Landmark study by scientists at Florida State University
Source Link: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-03/fsu-mgi032409.php#

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IMAGE: The trio of Florida State University biologists whose research on retinal development in zebrafish larvae sheds new light on the molecular mechanisms underlying that development and provides needed insight on...http://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/rel/13063_rel.jpg

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Among zebrafish, the eyes have it. Inside them is a mosaic of light-sensitive cells whose structure and functions are nearly identical to those of humans. There, biologists at The Florida State University discovered a gene mutation that determines if the cells develop as rods (the photoreceptors responsible for dim-light vision) or as cones (the photoreceptors needed for color vision).

Described in a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the landmark study of retinal development in zebrafish larvae and the genetic switch it has identified should shed new light on the molecular mechanisms underlying that development and, consequently, provide needed insight on inherited retinal diseases in humans.

From FSU's Department of Biological Science and Program in Neuroscience, doctoral candidate Karen Alvarez-Delfin (first author of the PNAS paper), postdoctoral fellow Ann Morris (second author), and Associate Professor James M. Fadool are the first scientists to identify the crucial function of a previously known gene called "tbx2b." The researchers have named the newfound allele (a different form of a gene) "lor" -- for "lots-of-rods" -- because the mutation results in too many rods and fewer ultraviolet cones than in the normal eye.

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IMAGE: Adult zebrafish are about one inch in length and recognized by many as a popular aquarium species.http://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/rel/13068_rel.jpg

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"Our goal is to generate animal models of inherited diseases of the eye and retina to understand the progression of disease and find more effective treatments for blindness," said Fadool, faculty advisor to Alvarez-Delfin and principal investigator for Morris's ongoing research. "We are excited about the mutation that Karen has identified because it is one of the few mutations in this clinically critical pathway that is responsible for cells developing into one photoreceptor subtype rather than another."

"What is striking in this case is that the photoreceptor cell changes we observed in the retinas of zebrafish are opposite to the changes identified in Enhanced S-cone syndrome (ESCS), an inherited human retinal dystrophy in which the rods express genes usually only found in cones, eventually leading to blindness," Alvarez-Delfin said. "Equally surprising is that this study and others from our lab show that while alterations in photoreceptor development in the human and mouse eyes lead to retinal degeneration and blindness, they don't in zebrafish. Therefore, the work from our Florida State lab and with our collaborators at the University of Pennsylvania, Vanderbilt University and the University of Louisville should provide a model for better understanding the differences in outcomes between mammals and fish, and why the human mutation leads to degenerative disease."

Morris calls the zebrafish an ideal genetic model for studies of development and disease. The common aquarium species are vertebrates, like humans. Their retinal organization and cell types are similar to those in humans. Zebrafish mature rapidly, and lay many eggs. The embryos are transparent, and they develop externally, unlike mammals, which develop in utero.

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IMAGE: This fireworks display is actually a microscope image of a zebrafish retina immunolabeled for ultraviolet cones (magenta) and rods (green). The image shows the regular pattern of the cones and... www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/rel/13069_rel.jpg

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"This lets us study developmental processes such as the formation of tissues and organs in living animals," she said.

"From a developmental biology perspective, our research will help us unravel the competing signals necessary for generating the different photoreceptor cell types in their appropriate numbers and arrangement," Morris said. "The highly specialized nature of rods and cones may make them particularly vulnerable to inherited diseases and environmental damage in humans. Understanding the genetic processes of photoreceptor development could lead to clinical treatments for the millions of people affected by photoreceptor cell dystrophies such as retinitis pigmentosa and macular degeneration."

The mosaic arrangement of photoreceptors in fish was first described more than 100 years ago, but the J. Fadool laboratory at Florida State was the first to successfully take advantage of the pattern to identify mutations affecting photoreceptor development and degeneration.

"Imagine a tile mosaic," Fadool said. "That is the kind of geometric pattern formed by the rod and cone photoreceptors in the zebrafish retina. This mosaic is similar to the pattern of a checkerboard but with four colors rather than two alternating in a square pattern. The red-, green-, blue-, and ultraviolet-sensitive cones are always arranged in a precise repeating pattern. Human retinas have a photoreceptor mosaic, too, but here the term is used loosely, because while the arrangement of the different photoreceptors is nonrandom, they don't form the geometric pattern observed in zebrafish.

"So how do we ask a fish if it has photoreceptor defects?" he asked.

Fadool explained that because the mosaic pattern of zebrafish photoreceptors is so precise, mutations causing subtle alterations are easier to uncover than in retinas with a "messier" arrangement.

"Just as we can easily recognize a checkerboard mistakenly manufactured with some of the squares changed from black to red or with all-black squares, by using fluorescent labeling and fluorescence microscopes we can see similar changes in the pattern of the zebrafish photoreceptor mosaic," he said. "Karen showed that within the mosaic of the lots-of-rod fish, the position on the checkerboard normally occupied by a UV cone is replaced with a rod. The identity of the mutated gene is then discovered using a combination of classical genetics and genomic resources."


###

To access the PNAS paper ("tbx2b is required for ultraviolet photoreceptor cell specification during zebrafish retinal development"), visit the journal's Web site at www.pnas.org/content/106/6.toc.

Funding for the Fadool laboratory's zebrafish research comes in large part from a five-year grant totaling more than $1.7 million from the National Institutes of Health.
Contact: Ann Morris
[e-mail]
850-645-3348

James M. Fadool
[e-mail]
44-753-834-2408
Florida State University

[Ms. Kathy]

Source URL:
www.newscientist.com/article/mg20127015.700-vibrating-touch-screen-puts-braille-at-the-fingertips.html
31 March 2009 by Anil Ananthaswamy.

TOUCH-SCREEN devices like the iPhone are great when you can see them, but not
much good if you are blind. Now a new way of presenting Braille characters on
a mobile device could be the first step towards a Braille-ready touch-screen phone.

In Braille, letters are encoded using a two-by-three matrix in which each
character is represented by a different configuration of raised and absent dots
at the six locations. To display these dots on a touch-screen device, Jussi
Rantala of the University of Tampere in Finland and colleagues used a Nokia 770
Internet Tablet, which has a piezoelectric material built into the touch screen
that vibrates when an electric signal is applied to it. The team installed
software that represents a raised dot as a single pulse of intense vibration,
and an absent dot as a longer vibration made up of several weaker pulses (see
diagram).

To discover how visually impaired volunteers would prefer to receive these
vibrations, the team developed two different presentation methods. In the first,
the user touches the screen on the left-hand side to read whether or not there
is a bump in that position of the matrix, then moves their finger horizontally
across the screen to read the remaining five dots. "But it wasn't that easy to
read," says Rantala.

In the second method, the user simply places a finger anywhere on the screen and
holds it still. The phone then displays a character by vibrating the sequence of
six dots, each 360 milliseconds apart. "It took some time for them to start
reading, because this representation is totally different from anything else
that they had previously used," says Rantala. But once the volunteers were used
to it, they were able to speed it up and read a character in as little as 1.25
seconds (IEEE Transactions on Haptics, DOI: 10.1109/toh.2009.3).

The team's next step will be to present entire words and sentences.
Screen-reading software is already available that "grabs" information displayed
as text and turns it into speech. The same information could be turned into
Braille characters on phones with vibrating touch screens, says Rantala.

[Ms. Kathy]

The vOICe for Mobile Camera Phone and PDA
Source Link: www.seeingwithsound.com/midlet.htm


Software to make a Cell Phone Camera more Accessible.

Would you like to take some photos without having to get hold of a
sighted person to do it for you? Most modern cell phones comprise
a camera as a regular feature, so why not use it? Try out the
vOICe (v Oh I See). It is add-on software for the phone which a
llows you to aim better with the camera since it renders an audio
version of what is in front of the camera and can even do a form
of colour identification (using your cell phone).

There are different versions available, which work on phones,
laptops, webcams etc. Best of all – it is free ware!

If you're interested, visit www.seeingwithsound.com

Source:
March 2009 newsletter of the South African National Council for the Blind.

[Ms. Kathy]

Tank denizens may help cure blindness

Source Link: Canada.com
By Keith Bonnell, Canwest News ServiceApril 18, 2009



A common aquarium fish could hold the secret to curing blindness in humans.

But to look for answers, Canadian researcher Ted Allison is going to have to make some zebrafish nearly colour-blind.

The assistant professor at the University of Alberta is launching a study of zebrafish, which have the ability to regenerate their photoreceptors. Photoreceptors are the cells in the retina that receive light signals and send a neural signal that is interpreted by the brain -- the first steps in vision.

The zebrafish "has stem cells all throughout its retina, and if we damage any of the neurons, they regenerate," Allison explains. He plans to study that process and see how it could someday be used to let people see again.

"We're trying to take advantage of what the fish can do."

Allison recently received $200,000 in provincial and federal funding to carry out the experiment.

For the experiment, researchers have made a "transgenic" zebrafish, one with new genes added to its genetic makeup in the lab. Those extra genes are meant to let researchers apply a chemical to the fish that will damage its photoreceptors in a way that will take away much of the fish's ability to see colour.

Researchers will then study how the fish regrows its photoreceptors. The process takes weeks in the fish, Allison said.

He said researchers want to learn which genes are telling the creature's stem cells to recreate the damaged photoreceptors, as opposed to other kind of cells.

"If we can figure out how the fish is doing it, then, in principle we can use stem cells in people and accomplish the same thing that the fish is doing naturally," Allison said.

"We're going to look at the retina to see how the retinas change and what genes are being turned on. Our grand goal would be to understand how to turn a stem cell into a photoreceptor."

The ability to regenerate photoreceptors is common in fish and frogs, but not mammals. Allison said it likely will be a couple of years before the researchers are ready to publish and "at least a decade," before blind people can benefit from what they learn.

Still, he's hopeful the study will someday benefit those with macular degeneration, a common cause of blindness in older adults.

The study highlights the use of zebrafish, a six-centimetre long, nervous fish, which has replaced lab rats in many experiments in recent years.

It's easy to keep an abundance of the small fish, and it's also not difficult to genetically manipulate them as eggs.

Another University of Alberta researcher recently published a study into the "fight-or-flight" instinct of zebrafish that he says could someday help people with spinal-cord injuries.

Declan Ali, an associate professor at the University of Alberta, has been studying zebrafish as embryos so he can seen how they form the mental synapses that drive their escape instinct -- that quick, darting movement you see when you tap on an aquarium.

Synapses are the points of contact between cells that let information pass.

The hope is that by understanding what has to happen for the synapses to form in zebrafish, researchers will eventually be able to come up with drugs or therapy that can duplicate the process in humans.

"We're trying to understand how the synapses are formed in zebrafish because we believe that formation, that process, as well as many of the proteins . . . are very similar to what would occur in humans," Ali said.

Ali and PhD student Shunmoogum Patten identified two proteins that they say are vital to strengthening the synapses that allow the escape instinct.

Their findings were published this month in the high-profile journal Proceedings from the National Academy of Sciences.

Figuring out how to reform synapses for people with nerve damage or spinal-cord injuries won't get disabled people walking again, however.

The major element that's still missing from the equation is the ability to regenerate dead or damaged nerve cells.

Unfortunately, research into how to regenerate nerve cells is progressing very slowly, Ali said. If scientists do find a way to regenerate nerve cells, then the work on strengthening the synapses, so the cells can communicate -- the process observed in the zebrafish.

- --

"We're trying to take advantage of what the fish can do. Our grand goal would be to understand how to turn a stem cell into a photoreceptor."

TED ALLISON, assistant professor

[Ms. Kathy]

Source Link: www.upi.com/Science_News/2009/05/22/Stem-cell-study-shows-promise-in-blindness/UPI-11691243006682/

Stem cell study shows promise in blindness
Published: May 22, 2009 at 11:38 AM

Stem cells taken from bone marrow show promise in healing damaged retinal tissue, said researchers at the University of Louisville in Kentucky.

The stem cells generated new cells in damaged retinal pigment epithelium, the pigmented cell layer just outside the retina, research led by Dr. Suzanne Ildstad showed.

The research could lead to healing vision loss and blindness from age-related macular degeneration and hereditary retinal degeneration, she said.

The study is be expanded at the Swine Institute at the University of Missouri, where pigs are used because of optical similarities to humans, Business First of Louisville, Ky., reported Friday.

Ildstad was assisted by researchers from the University of Bern in Switzerland. Their study was published in the Archives of Ophthalmology.

[Ms. Kathy]

Twitter makes it's CAPTCHA more blind friendly. Check this link at my blog for the entire article from Blind Access Journal:
mskathyskids.blogspot.com/2009/06/blind-access-journal-twitter-quietly.html

Here's an article: "Technology Redining the Meaning of Disability"
mskathyskids.blogspot.com/2009/06/technology-redefining-meaning-of.html

[Ms. Kathy]

National Federation of the Blind and Motorola to Cooperate on Making Cell
Phones Accessible to the Blind

www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS113537+14-Sep-2009+PRN20090914