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Tony Ro, a neuroscientist at The City College of New York, is artificially recreating a condition called blindsight in his lab. Blindsight is a condition that some patients experience after having damage to the primary visual cortex in the back of their brains. What happens in these patients is they go cortically blind, yet they can still discriminate visual information. With support from the National Science Foundation, Ro is developing a clearer picture of how other parts of the brain, besides the visual cortex, respond to visual stimuli. He says understanding and mapping those alternative pathways might be the key to new rehabilitative therapies.
(Source: DCMP)
The science of sight has entered a new era. Scientists are starting to understand how a few rare individuals can see better or see faster. Meet a woman who can see a hundred more colors than the average human being, and a heavyweight boxer who undergoes sophisticated training to increase the speed of his visual reflexes and acuity. As silicon and carbon meld and point the way to a bionic future, researchers discuss how technology is starting to replace or enhance vision for those who have lost it. Viewers witness the moment when a husband and father, equipped with an experimental retinal implant, sees his wife and child for the first time. Part of the “Human + The Future of Our Senses” series.
The magic of life unfolds, but for adolescents Mimi, Izzie, and Quinn, watching a monarch butterfly emerge from its cocoon and spread its wings is more than a fascinating moment—cameras are rolling. With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Richard Hudson and his team at Twin Cities Public Television are putting middle-school girls in front of a national audience on the PBS series “SciGirls.” This is the first television science series designed specifically for girls, ages 8 to 12, to inspire and empower them to consider careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Part of the National Science Foundation Series “Science Nation.”
Visible light, which can be seen with human eyes, comprises a small sliver of the electromagnetic spectrum. The rest of the spectrum, from short wavelength gamma rays to long-wavelength radio waves, requires special instruments to detect. ALMA uses an array of radio telescopes to detect and study radio waves from space. ALMA is an advanced tool for studying very old stars and galaxies. These objects now are seen at great cosmic distances, with most of their light stretched out to millimeter and sub-millimeter wavelengths by the expansion of the universe. ALMA provides the unprecedented ability to study the processes of star and planet formation.
Timeblazers Sam and Jen meet some geniuses of the past, including Nicholas Copernicus, the first to map out the Solar System; William Shakespeare and his magnificent Globe Theatre; Benjamin Franklin, a great inventor, printer, and philosopher; Thomas Edison, who invented the first practical incandescent light bulb; Eratosthenes, who used a stick to figure out the size of the earth and that the planet was round; Plato, a great philosopher and thinker; Jean-Francois Champollion, who unlocked the mystery of the Rosetta Stone; Magellan, who was the first to sail around the world; and the "Renaissance Man," Leonardo da Vinci.
Harvard University, electrical engineers Rob Wood and Gu-Yeon Wei, and computer scientist Radhika Nagpal created the “RoboBee,” a miniature flying robot, inspired by the biology of a bee and the insect’s hive behavior. With support from the National Science Foundation and a program called Expeditions in Computing, Wood put together a diverse team of collaborators to get the RoboBee project off the ground. Ultimately, the researchers hope to build a colony in which the RoboBees interact, using their hive as a refueling station. They say RoboBees have the potential to be useful in a number of ways, including search and rescue missions, traffic monitoring, and weather mapping. Part of the National Science Foundation Series "Science Nation."
There’s a new renewable energy player in town, and it’s about to make waves in the industry. Despite its massive potential as a source for renewable energy, the ocean is unlikely to contribute meaningfully to electricity supplies without dramatic, innovation-driven reductions in the cost of energy conversion. That’s where engineers Balky Nair, Rahul Shendure, and Tim Mundon come in with their company, Oscilla Power. With support from the National Science Foundation, they’re developing a utility-scale wave energy harvester called the Triton. This technology shows promise as a means for delivering utility-scale electric power to the grid at a price that is competitive with conventional fossil or renewable technologies. Part of the National Science Foundation Series “Science Nation.”
Vanderbilt University researchers say they're working to unleash an insect repellent on mosquitoes that’s more powerful than DEET. The discovery could one day be effective in reducing the spread of mosquito-borne diseases, such as malaria. It's based on a mosquito's sense of smell. With support from the National Science Foundation, Vanderbilt University biologist Laurence Zwiebel researched which mosquito genes are linked to odor reception. He discovered a separate odor sensor on a mosquito's antennae. According to Zwiebel, mosquitoes use odor sensors to sniff out humans and other tasty animals to bite. The new insect repellent compound takes advantage of his discovery by overwhelming the mosquito’s odor sensors to the point that they can't smell anything else and get scared away.
These city kids from Boston may not look like conventional farmers, but they’re spending part of their summer getting their hands dirty. They’re learning how to build solar-powered hydroponic systems that grow organic vegetables without soil. With support from the National Science Foundation, Boston College educator Mike Barnett and his team developed the Urban Hydrofarmers Project to engage students in math and science through hydroponic farming and green energy technology. And, because the teens sell what they grow at farmers’ markets, the students get to experience green entrepreneurship. Barnett and his team have also partnered with the STEM Garden Institute to bring hydroponic farming into classrooms throughout the U.S. Part of the National Science Foundation Series “Science Nation.”
With support from the National Science Foundation, Liangfang Zhang and his team at UC-San Diego have created a nanosponge to combat drug-resistant infections, such as those caused by Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The nanosponge, made from biocompatible, biodegradable polymer nanoparticles, is camouflaged with a red blood cell membrane. It circulates in the bloodstream, absorbing the toxins produced by infection. Once the nanosponges are fully loaded with toxins, they are safely disposed of by the liver. They are designed to work with any type of infection or poison that attacks the cellular membrane. Part of the National Science Foundation Series “Science Nation.”
The image of a rat sniffing around for food with its little whiskers moving back and forth to help satisfy its appetite is enough to make most people lose theirs. But those whiskers play a valuable role in helping rats determine what is in the environment around them. With support from the National Science Foundation, Mitra Hartmann and colleagues at Northwestern University in Chicago are constructing whiskered robots that can detect and then project three-dimensional virtual images of objects on to a computer screen. Scientists here don't think it's so far-fetched that one day robotic rovers, much like the ones on Mars now, might contain a set of whiskers to help them navigate the terrain around them.
At the twilight of an active life, Anna is now bedridden due to a serious fall. What makes the elderly--even those who are in full possession of their mental and physical faculties--more prone to falling than younger people? As this program demonstrates, the answer lies not in the body or the brain alone, but in their interconnection. Exploring Anna's past dreams of becoming a ballerina, the film shows how complex physical motion, such as dancing or even typing, requires sophisticated coordination between the body's neural, muscular, and skeletal systems. How aging affects such coordination and how new artificial limb technology enables movement are running themes in the program.
The ancient city of Rome wasn't built in a day, but now that city, along with all its famous landmarks, can be digitized in just a matter of hours. A new computer program under development at the University of Washington in Seattle combs through hundreds of thousands of tourist photos on Flickr and other photo sharing sites and reconstructs the city – pixel by pixel. Now, viewers can fly around many of Rome's famous landmarks on their computer in far more detail than they'd ever be able to on current virtual map programs such as Google Earth. The new technique may one day create online maps that offer viewers a virtual-reality experience. The software could build cities for video games automatically, instead of doing so by hand.
The Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS) is a Science and Technology Center established by the National Science Foundation (NSF) with the mission of developing new technologies and computer models to measure and predict the response of sea level change. CReSIS provides students and faculty with opportunities to pursue exciting research in a variety of disciplines; to collaborate with world-class scientists and engineers in the US and abroad; and to make meaningful contributions to the ongoing, urgent work of addressing the impact of climate change. Part of the National Science Foundation Series “Science Nation.”
A shark attack survivor now knows what it feels like to be part bionic man. 23-year-old amputee Craig Hutto has volunteered to help test a state-of-the-art prosthetic leg with powered knee and ankle joints. With support from the National Science Foundation and continued support from the National Institutes of Health, Vanderbilt University mechanical engineer Michael Goldfarb has spent several years developing the leg, which operates with special sensors, an electric motor, a battery, and computer technology. Sensors monitor the user's motion and microprocessors figure out what the person is trying to do. Goldfarb says the powered leg reduces the lag time between a real leg and a prosthetic one. Hutto confirms that the powered prosthetic is much better at anticipating his next move.
Some bandages are embedded with medicine to treat wounds, but researchers at Harvard University and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have something much more sophisticated in mind for the future of chronic wound care. With support from the National Science Foundation, engineer Ali Khademhosseini and a multidisciplinary team are bringing together advances in sensors, biomaterials, tissue engineering, microsystems technology, and microelectronics to create “smart bandages” for wounds that require ongoing care. The devices, known collectively as flexible bioelectronics, will do much more than deliver medicine. They will be able to monitor all the vital signs of the healing process and make adjustments when needed, as well as communicate the information to health professionals who are off-site.
With the retirement of NASAs space shuttle fleet in 2011, the role of getting people, satellites and other instruments into space falls to private companies. As of June 2011, there have been only 523 people to reach the 100 kilometer mark (considered human spaceflight), and only 24 have traveled beyond low Earth orbit. It is projected that within ten years, the number of people who will have flown into space will increase by about 600 percent due to the increasing market of suborbital spaceflight and the possibility of private citizens utilizing space flight. Students will explore suborbital and orbital spaceflight and the requirements necessary for vehicles to achieve these journeys. They also go behind the scenes of many of the private companies involved in taking on the tasks to travel to low Earth orbit and beyond and uncover some of the technology used to accomplish these goals.
It’s widely believed that the younger one is, the easier it will be for one to learn a new language, and new research is finding that holds true for sign language as well. University of California, San Diego (UCSD), psychologist Rain Bosworth says that by five months old, babies are universal language sponges, attracted to language in their environment, and this includes sign language. With support from the National Science Foundation, Bosworth and her colleagues at the Infant Vision Lab (IVL) have been putting that theory to the test, investigating how deafness affects perception and cognition in babies, and the impact of early exposure to sign language. The team includes Karen Dobkins, director of IVL, So-One Hwang, of UCSD’s Center for Research in Language, and student researchers Adam Stone of Gallaudet University and Hector Borges of UCSD. Part of the National Science Foundation Series “Science Nation.”
Researchers at the state-of-the-art Structural Engineering and Materials Laboratory at the Georgia Institute of Technology are using a full-scale model building to test new ways to protect structures from earthquakes and potentially save lives. The three-story concrete building is based on designs common through much of the 20th century. It has been subjected to round after round of simulated temblors to test if materials such as carbon fiber or new shape-memory alloys can be used to reinforce the structure so it would remain standing in moderate to strong earthquakes. With support from the National Science Foundation, structural engineer Reginald DesRoches and his team have developed a series of retrofits of varying cost and intrusiveness to give building owners in quake-prone areas a range of choices for hardening their property.
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Resources related to vision
A collection containing 12 resources, curated by Charles LaPierre
Biology related concepts
A collection containing 59 resources, curated by Benetech
