Will we ever Cure Blindness?

they are amazing. So basically Silver figured out that if you put a little bit of silicon oil in between two pieces of round glass, you can make these adjustable glasses for people with poor vision. And you don't even need an optometrist like in the newest versions. I I think you can actually just adjust a dial with your hands until it squirts in the right amount of oils so you can see clearly. And then you just said it.

And the things only cost like twenty dollars a piece. Yeah, and and so they're actually reusable, so you can adjust them as your vision changes. And the whole idea was to help people in developing nations. But apparently the frames do have one downside, and that's that the frames have to be circular. Well, I mean that's not terrible. Just think John Lennon or Gandhi even I mean some big names, that's right. And I've actually seen some competing brands online

now that use different shapes. But it's all pretty amazing. And it got me thinking. If we have these super smart and super cheap solutions for people with poor vision, how far are we from giving sight to people with no vision? And that's our big question today. Will we ever cure blindness? Can stem cells and gene therapy help? And why should humans let a doctor stick a bit

of algae into their eye sockets? Let's dive in. Hey their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius on Will Pearson And as always I'm joined by my good friend main guest Shot Ticketer and on the other side of the soundproof glass wearing a blindfold as he concentrates on the sound. He's such an artistic genius, that's our Palin

producer Tristan McNeil. I guess he does that when he's focusing now, yeah, I think it's something he picked up while he was watching, you know, one of his favorite movies, which was The Third Karate Kick. The most important in it really is a pretty important one. But but that's Tristan anyway. You know, while Tristan can restore his site anytime he pleases, there are millions of people with actual

visual impairments who don't have that option. And in fact, according to that GEO, roughly one in every two hundred people on Earth can't see. That's about thirty nine million people. In addition, there are another two hundred and forty six million people with conditions that moderately or severely limit their vision. So despite the fact that humans have spent thousands of years searching for ways to remedy blindness, all that collective

effort hasn't been enough yet. But we're actually getting much closer. So for today's episode, we're shining a light on the newest sign and trying to determine will we find a cure for blindness. So you know what's bonkers is I was looking up cures for blindness and the craziest story I found was about this guy from Foulmth, Maine. I guess he was a trucker from the area and he'd been in this serious accident on this icy bridge and

he lost his vision as a result. So his wife had this really sweet story of I guess leading him around the house and being his eyes for him and and giving them all these mnemonic devices of like how many stairs to go down then up so he could get out of the house. And she was doing this for years, like eight years or nine years or something.

And then one day, during a storm, he went out to get one of his pet chickens and as he was out there, he was struck with lightning and he was completely stunned, but he went in after he took a nap, and when he woke up he could actually see again, no way from the lightning strike. Yeah, it's unbelievable, and I he was on the news everywhere, from like local news to the Washington Post to stations in Japan, and like no one could figure out why it jarred

his brain into reconnecting his vision. I mean, it's just such a crazy and amazing story. But you know, but back to what you're saying, I'm actually glad that you mentioned upfront that there's so much variation on the term blind because thing of blindness as a complete lack of functional vision and only that is actually an oversimplification. So I didn't realize this until we started digging into the research.

But you know how someone with good vision is said to have vision, Well, someone who's legally blind is defined as having equal to or worse than, twenty two hundred and their strongest die. And you might be wondering what that means. If you're you can actually see an object about two hundred feet away, but with twenty two hundred you can see no further than twenty feet, which means even though they're leally blind, they can still see and with the aid of prescription glasses or contacts, you might

actually be able to see pretty clearly. Yeah, I mean, twenty feet is not exactly just a short distance, and I guess it does help us. Remember, just like with sidedness, there's this spectrum for blindness, so some sided people see better than others, and some blind people see worse than others. And so I guess that nuance in all of that

is is easy to lose track of. Sometimes that's definitely true, although I did read that people who developed even a minor visual impairment like near sightedness actually have a higher risk of developing a more serious eye condition down the line, which is kind of scary to think about when you consider that something like the current US population is actually near sighted. Well, and the stats on that are getting,

you know, maybe even scarier than that. There was a two thousand and sixteen study from the journal Ophthalmology, and it was talking about the fact that the number of people with myopia or near sightedness that's only expected to grow in the coming years, and in fact, by twenty fifty, half of the world's population will be near sighted. So why is that, like, what's making bad vision so rampant? Well, I think the guess that most people would have on

this is pretty accurate. You know, if you think about the amount of time we spend indoors staring at our screens, and so the result is that more people have eyes that work well when looking at things up close, but not so much when faced with far away objects. Yeah, it's kind of baffling that we do this to ourselves. I mean, I'm saying this as I'm taking selfie of myself and also checking the weather good stuff. I don't know which you do more, take selfies or check the weather.

But it's not stop. So, of course, the phones and the tiny screens is only part of the story. There's some visual impairments are obviously there from birth. You've got others that developed later in life, and some like our truck driver friend or the result of trauma. Yeah, you know, and then they're the types of blindness that are brought on by disease. And you know, all of that variation means there's never going to be a universal cure for

vision laws. I mean, there's a whole host of things that can cause and and that means we'll need a wide range of treatments to cover all of our bases on this. Well, let's talk about some of the most promising strategies, because there are three major ones at the moment. We've got bionic implants, stem cell research, and there's gene therapy. And the first of these has been in play the longest, with different styles of bionic eyes that are popped up all over the world for a while now here in

the States. The first to be approved by the FDA was the Argus Too. This is a system that pairs electrodes and planet in the redina with a video camera attached to a pair of fancy classes. Well, and you should talk about the kind of blindness that helps with it, because if I remember, it's pretty specific right, Yeah, it's so it's aimed at people who suffer from a rare hereditary disease called Rednitis pigmentosa, and that causes cells in the red knet to decreate over time, and they're between

one and two thousand people affected by it in the US. Supposedly, the condition feels like looking down a tunnel that's gradually gradually narrowing until it finally disappears. And what the CEO of Argus claims is that the company is trying to use the device to almost reopen that window that's closed on them. I mean that sounds amazing. But these implants have obviously been in development for a while now, so so how advanced is the Argus too. The thing is,

there's actually more cutting edge technology out there. The Argus is just the last one the FDA is signed off on. But if you look at what's emerging from labs, you can actually find devices that are even more effective at helping people see. So for example, there's this one being tested in the UK where a microchip is implanted in the eye to stimulate the optic nerve. The chip basically feeds visual information to the nerve, which in turn sends

it up to the brain. I mean, a lot of this stuff sounds kind of like science fiction while also being totally believable at the same time. But I'm curious, I mean, how close to full sightedness to these kinds of devices actually get somebody. So that's one interesting point. Both the artus too and the microchip I mentioned they only deliver images in black and white, and since the argus only uses about sixty electrodes to stimulate the rediness neurons,

the resolution isn't actually that good yet. So these implants can help patients distinguish between light and dark, which I guess means they can read large printed letters or even recognize where objects are located. But you can't exactly drive a car or you know, pilot a plane yet. And again, these devices are only effective for treating a rare kind

of visual impairment in the first place. Yeah, and we should stop for a second to acknowledge the fact that, you know, the leading cause of blindness around the world is is something we've actually developed a cure for, and and those are cataracts, And so, just as a refresher on this, cataracts are basically this build up of protein on the lens of the eye and a clouding that results in you know, in faded colors and blurry vision,

and it gets worse over time. So cataracts tend to occur as people get older, but they can also result from congenital problems or maybe even physical trauma from time to time if it happens directly to the eye. And like I said, cataracts typically can be treated through surgeries that they just replaced the clouded lens with artificial ones.

So every time I think about cataracts surgeries, I always think about this origin story we had from mental floss And the only reason I remember is that I'm actually terrified at touching my eyes or anything even being close to my eye. But the story was that, I think it was like an ancient Greece or Rome, there was this goat hurder who had a blind goat and he accidentally saw it walk into a thorn bush and when

it scratched its eyes, suddenly you could start seeing again. Yeah, I mean, I feel like it's definitely a story that gets mentioned as as that inspiration for cataract surgeries. And I don't know if it's true or not, but it's definitely an interesting story, and the procedures have been around for a long time. I mean, you know Celsus, the old Roman physician, he actually described early cataract surgeries. And you know, this guy was alive in like twenty five BC,

so this is a long, long time ago. And you know, obviously the surgery has evolved over the centuries. But even though twenty million people have done it every year, there are still huge swaths of the world population who don't have access to treatment, or maybe that don't even know that it exists. Yeah, which is really sad. And in this case, I guess the challenge isn't so much developing a cure as it is finding a better way to

roll out the cure did those who need it. But you know, for the millions of people who do get the surgery, do they return to full vision or is it more of a mixed bag? Well, it varies. I mean, for some it's a complete fix, and others still need glasses or contacts in order to get the full effect. But actually there's a new surgical technique being tested that would do away with the mixed results while also making the whole procedure a lot less of invasive than it is. Now,

So how does that work? Well, strangely enough, it's by using the body's own stem cells to regrow a functional lens for the eye. How weird is that? So? I don't even know if I should be embarrassed to admit this, But before this episode, I didn't know that I had stem cells. Well, I don't think a lot of people do. And and actually every tissue in the body contains stem cells and they can replace any damage cells within that tissue.

And you know the problem is that stem cells tend to diminish as we age, and that's why this new approach is mainly dealt with cataracts that are in children. You know, they just have more stem cells to work with than adults do. That's crazy that kids can get cataracts. Like I thought it was just for goats and old people. But you're learning so much today. And so if this new technique uses stem cells that are already in place,

why is it a surgery. Well, the surgery is to remove the non functional ie lens while leaving the functional stem cells you know, within that lens intact in that situation. But it's kind of like setting aside seeds from a piece of fruit that's gone bad, Like you can't salvage the flesh that's turned, but you know, the seeds can still be used to produce a new fruit. And that's kind of a weird analogy. I've been working on it for days. I was trying to think of a good analogy,

but I felt good about that one. So, um, I guess you've got this I fruit from these stem cell seeds and and that actually ends up being useful. Yeah, see it worked. This was a top shelf analogy. This is this is pretty good. Well, actually, let me read you this breakdown from an article I found in Popsie. It says, quote, the researchers tried their procedure on twelve

human babies under two years old. They found that in these children, the lenses were functional and regenerated faster than the twenty five children who received even the standard treatment for cataracts. The new technique also reduced the chance of complications and increase the clarity of the visual field by

twenty times. Actually, looking at this, like, the only downside is that older patients with cataracts would have a tougher time regenerating lenses because you know, their lack of stem cells, but this procedure could help them, it would just take

longer for the new lens to form. Well, I mean, it's still an amazing breakthrough either way, And for elderly patients there's always the option of stem cell transplants from a different person's body, like the sixth year old from Japan who was able to stave off blindness with little help from his friend, where his friends stem cells rather well, I definitely want to hear about this, and we should probably talk about gene therapy while we're at it. But

before we dig in, let's take a quick break. You're listening to part time genius. We're talking about the most promising efforts to cure blindness. All right, mangoes. So, historically stem cell transplantation has been an ethically touchy subject for you know a lot of people. So doing your research this week, did did you find anything that might ease those concerns? And if not, what's the best way to reach you for anybody that wants to send you, you know,

maybe an angry note or email. Well, first off, I suggest writing your senator, not your local podcast host. But uh yeah, we we've definitely figured out how to utilize stem cells in ways that don't carry that ethical stigma that I guess embryonic stem cell research does. So, as we were teasing before the break, in March of two seventeen, a Japanese men in his sixties became the first person to receive a stem cell transplant from another person in

order to keep from going blind. So who was that donor? Because you know, I'm thinking about this if if older people don't have many stem cells left to donate, I mean, I think you said this was ethically safe. So I assume these weren't from a kid, right, So this is amazing thing. The donated cells came from a living adult. They just weren't stem cells when they were removed from the donor. Al Right, So how does that work? Exactly? Like did they get the mature cells to revert back

into stem cells? Exactly? They Benjamin button them. So scientists basically took some mature cells and it was skin cells in this case, and then they reprogrammed them back into this embryonic state and from there the cells were manipulated until they became a type of redinal cell that's useful for slowing down map of the degeneration. All right, So this surgery last year. What was this the first time reprogrammed cells like this have been used to treat blindness? No,

so that's actually the crazy part. This is the first time using reprogrammed cells taken from someone else's body. In two thousand fourteen, they've done this before. A Japanese woman received retinal cells that have been reprogrammed from a sample of her own skin cells and the procedure worked. But there's actually a higher risk of genetic abnormality when using your own skin cells. So the success of last year's transplant was this giant leap towards making stem cell transplants

both safer and easier to perform. Yeah, and it actually reminds me of something else from nat GEO, which which mentioned that neuroscientists really appreciate studies on the eye because, as one of them said, quote, it's the only place you see the brain without drilling a hole. So obviously I see the advantage of not having to drill holes in people's heads. But how exactly do we see the

brain through the eye. Well, the ideas that the retina is basically a bundle of neurons connected to the brain via the optic nerve so it sort of makes the whole eye seem like, as one neuroscientist put it, an out pouching of the brain. I don't think I've ever heard the word out pouching before. I just wanted to use the word out pouching, So I kind of crafted all of my notes around being able to say that because it's super useful and scrabble, but but it actually

is really fascinating it. The whole idea is that because of this connection between the I and the brain, there's a good chance that treatments that are effective in the eye might also have applications in the brain or maybe even the spinal cord. So, as David Dobbs puts it for nat GEO quote, experimental strategies now focused on the eye may drive future treatments for the whole human organism. Gene therapy offers the promise of fixing faulty genes that

cause illnesses of all kinds. So it goes on to talk about some examples here he says, you know, stem cells off for the promise of replacing entire tissue structures. Bionic implants may replace failing organs, the eyes becoming a window not just to the soul, but also to the possibilities and limits, of course of therapeutic approaches on which medicine is betting its future. I mean, it's super cool to think that the research of curing blindness is kind

of leading the way in all these new fields. Yeah, it is. And uh, you mentioned gene therapy being used to fix disease causing illnesses. I'm guessing those are diseases that cause blindness as well. Well. Right, So, so instead of eye conditions that are largely age related, you know, like cataracts or macular degeneration, and you know, gene therapy this would be a way to target congenital or hereditary

eye diseases. And you know, so the way it works is by injecting healthy genes into the eye and that then helps repair the damage or mutated cells. So have we already tried this? Well, yeah, one of the earliest successful trials was started back in two thousand seven and researchers at the University of Pennsylvania they got together ten blind volunteers and they all had Liber's congenital amurosis and that's this hereditary disease that causes retinal degeneration. And and

then of course blindness soon after that. And the volunteers were injected with this harmless virus, and it contained healthy copies of a gene. It was that same gene that had mutated in their eyes and caused their blindness in the first place. So I'm so turned off and grossed out with the idea of eye injections. I mean, it's just such a horrifying thought, and it just makes me

think of like clockwork, orange or terminator and all cruise. Now, I get that, And I was actually thinking the same thing earlier when we were talking about the surgeries that you know, either stick electrodes or micro chips into the I mean, it's all stuff that can make you pretty queasy. But after these injections, did the volunteers actually get their

sight back? They did, And some of them had been unable to see even like a hand waving and right in front of their face before the procedure, But afterward, I mean they were able to read the first six lines on a site chart. I mean six lines. That's something I think a lot of people couldn't do even if they were squinting. And and that's not all either. I mean there were some volunteers that were even able to make their way through a dimly lit obstacle course.

And so it's probably a pretty fun day and one that you know, this definitely would have been possible without this therapy. I mean, it's really miraculous. I I am curious though, So, since we were talking about the eye brain connection, does this gene therapy affect the brain at all? Like it seems like it would have to write because I guess like the pathways in the brain aren't actually set up to receive visual signals, so how are they able to register the ones sent by these new genes.

Well that's a good point, and the truth is the researchers weren't certain of how well the volunteers would be able to process the new information that the therapy allowed for. And you know, the consensus for a while was that there's been this limited window early in life when neurons can be trimmed and shaped and reshaped, and you know,

as time goes on, that plasticity decreases. And most of the gene therapy volunteers have been in their twenties at the time the procedure, and I think one of them was like forty five, So there was definitely no guarantee that their neural pathways could be repaired enough to transmit those those visual signals. I mean it clearly worked, right, I mean they were racing through obstacle courses and zooing down eye charts and getting impressive. Oh it definitely isn't

you know. In fact, the researchers actually gathered the participants again two years later and they conducted various brain scans just to see how well their neural pathways had adjusted, And amazingly, the scans showed that they looked very similar to the pathways and people who didn't have any sort of vision problems. I mean, it's just incredible when you

look at that. And according to the lead researchers name is man Tzar ashtari Uh, there may be a critical window of accelerated brain plasticity, but we've shown that doesn't mean you lose the capability of restructuring pathways as an adult. So I like this idea of old dogs that are perfectly capable of learning new tricks. Yeah, well, all right, there's one more form of gene therapy that I do want to make sure that we get to. But before we get into it, let's take a quick break. Welcome

back to part time genius. Okay, well, so what's this other kind of gene therapy that you wanted to talk about. I think you said it's like lawless and a miracle cure. Isn't that right? No, I definitely did not say that, But actually, in all honesty that this one isn't without its drawbacks, just like the other treatments. I mean, all of these treatments and advancements do have some drawbacks at this point, but at the end of the day, it's too cool not to talk about this one, all right. So,

first of all, have you ever heard of optogenetics? I don't think so. Know. Well, optogenetics is typically used in animals, and it helps researchers get a better sense of how exactly the brain works. And if you think about the name and what it implies the technique, it's it's really a combination of optics and genetics. So basically, it's a way to change the DNA of nerve cells so that they can be controlled by light, which sounds super cool,

but I have no idea what that means. Well, basically, it helps researchers illuminate certain parts of the brain and then monitor and animals brain behavior after doing that. And in the past, optogenetics hasn't been utilized in humans, you know, namely because of what it involves. I mean, it normally involves attaching a wire to the brain through a hole in the head, and for some reason, people just don't

seem that excited about that. But as we mentioned earlier, I mean, the eye is a pretty handy way to access the brain without the need for the power tools involved in the other ways. Wait, so what kind of light detecting gene are they injecting and and what are we trying to do to the brain? Exactly? All right, Well,

let's talk about this one company. There's a French company called gen Site Biologics, and they actually recently got approval to start human trials with opti genetics, and they're actually gearing up for it right now. I think the target is the first quarter of this year, if I'm not mistaken, And their hope is to restore sight to people with

retinitis pigmentosa. But here's the really cool part. The gene the company is using is derived from a single celled algae, Yes, algae, I mean it's actually the gene that the algae uses to detect light. So in this human application, the ideas that the algae gene will convert the ganglion cells and the human eye into these photo receptor cells. So I'm sorry, but you're actually gonna have to refresh me on what

ganglion cells are. I'm a little fuzzy on Well. So, normally these ganglion cells relate visual information from the eye to the brain, but in people with this disorder, this retinitis pigment tosa, the cells are actually just too damaged in order to function. So so by injecting these light detecting cells to fill in for those damage cells, the hope is to kind of, you know, restart that conversation between the eye and the brain. I just think that's

so wild to think about. I mean, it's like a cure for blindness using genes from a single cell organism that that can't see on its own. Yeah, it is pretty weird. It actually reminds me this Wired article I read that it was pointing out how different this kind of treatment was compared to the other type of gene therapy that you know, we mentioned earlier, and you know, as the author put it, a company isn't inserting a gene from another human, another mammal, or even another animal,

but from algae. Forget cross species, this is cross domain. So it sounds like it's working out though, right, So what kind of vision does this algae gene supply? All? Right, Well, this is where we do get into the whole imperfect cure thing, because these algae genes would only boost the eyes detection of red light. So what does that mean? That that means that the new photoreceptors wouldn't be able to perceive green or blue light, and as a result of that, the patients would only be able to see

in black and white. So it winds up being about as useful for treating this form of blindness as the bionic argus I I was talking about earlier, since that was also limited to black and white. Right, Well, that is true, but I think you were saying the argus used what like sixty electrodes, and you know, so if this algae gene can convert even just ten of the eyes retinal ganglion cells into photo receptors, that would actually

be the equivalent of roughly a hundred thousand electrodes. So while the vision granted by this algae gene would would still lack color. It's definitely a whole other level in terms of clarity. I mean, this would be pretty much unprecedented in terms of blindness treatment, which is super impressive. But you know, even in trying to keep an even keeled approach to the subject, there's one downside to gene therapy for blindness that we haven't touched on yet, and

that's price. So I'm not sure if you saw this, but late last year, the first gene therapy in the US was approved by the FDA. It's called lux Turna and it's designed to treat libres, that form of inherited blindness that you mentioned earlier. Yeah, I remember hearing about this in December, and it's when we were first starting to talk about maybe doing this episode. But but I don't think they'd settled on a sticker price. But from what you're saying, it sounds like it's on the higher end. Yeah.

So the final price is eighty dollars pur patient. Wow, that's definitely on the higher end. That actually makes it the most expensive medicine sold in the US. Yeah, And and if you consider like only a couple of thousand people are affected by libres each year, so it's hard to imagine that's going to get cheaper fast. But still there's no question that people LIKEX Turner would would help. I guess they would say it's worth the price. Maybe, So That's what I would have said at first, but

now I'm not so sure. We've spent a lot of the show weighing the pros and cons of different treatment options and trying to get a sense of how close we are to effective cures for blindness. But one thing we haven't stopped to consider is whether the people who actually live with blindness and other visual impairments whether they

even want vision. Yeah, and I remember reading, you know, I think it was in an Oliver Sacks work years ago, just about how overwhelming that experience could be for those that suddenly regained vision. And I have to admit, like I'd always been under the assumption that, you know, most people who were blind, or almost everyone who was blind would want to see. But I don't know, do do

you think that's a safe assumption to make? Yeah? So I I read a few accounts from blind people while researching that made me think it might not be that cut and dry. So in fact, there seems to be a good bit of debate within the blind community over which treatments or even which potential cures are actually worth the hassle. So, for example, some people might only go for a treatment if it could deliver full color vision, while others would be content with the blurry black and

vision that you know I mentioned a while back. And and also there are also plenty of blind people who say they don't care about the prospect of site, and I'm curious about that. And again, we have no experience

like this to be able to even understand it. But were you able to get a sense of of why that is, maybe there is this article in The Atlantic that gave almost a different perspective, and I've got the quote here, So the author rights, for some people who are blind, particularly if they've been blind since birth, gaining

site can actually be a bizarre, disruptive experience. People who have regained sight, such as through a corneal transplant, report being unable to recognize objects until they picked them up in their hands, as they've been doing their whole life. Well, and you know, so that's something that I really hadn't thought about that much before, but it does make a

lot of sense. And I mean, researching new ways to cure eye disease is obviously a good thing and worth doing, but it's maybe a little naive to assume that all blind people would even consider themselves in need of a cure. Definitely, And actually there was another good quote in the Atlantic piece. So it was from a woman named us Stacy Cervenka, who was born blind because our optic nerve hadn't developed.

And she works as an executive officer for the California State Rehab Clinic and her husband, who is blinded by a gunshot, also teaches there and he teaches people to get around independently anyway. Stacy said, it's not like we've been sitting in rocking chairs for decades and we were waiting until we can go to the hospital for treatment. Blind people who have lives that are as busy and chaotic and full as any sided people. Yeah, I like

that quote. It's definitely something we should we should always remember. But alright, Mango, I think you know what time it is. Time for the fact off, let's do it. So here's a quick one. In Crayola's Top crayon maker, a man named Emerson Moser retired after thirty eight years at the job, and just before he did, he revealed that he'd been color blind the whole time. That's hilarious. I'm curious, though, do you know if it affected his job at all? I I mean, he made over one point four billion

crayons and and Crayola exacts. We're all praised for him, so I don't think so. Though he did admit to double checking his work a lot. And uh. Also, this is a cute aside, his his work boots, which were ankle high and coated in all these different colors of crown drippings from his work days are now on display at the Crayola Hall of Fame. It's pretty fun. Well, I've got a pretty good one too here. So Ralph Tater,

who invented cruise control, was actually blind. Now he was a genius inventor who was an incredible engineer, but he actually got the idea for cruise control when he was riding around in the car with his lawyer. And apparently the guy was a terrible driver, and as they were driving around, he kept breaking and jerking, and so Ralph realized there's got to be a better way. I love that.

So had you heard the Egyptians thought you could actually cure blindness by dropping a little bat blood in your eyes. They assumed that because bats could see at night, the blood might have some superpower. That's not the craziest idea

in the world. But actually, speaking of bats, have you heard about these ultrasonic helmets that allow you to see like about So it's called the Sonic Eye, and it's still in development, but basically what it does it it sends out these ultrasonic chirps and then it catches them in these two bat shaped ears. And then you've got this processor that slows the sounds down by a factor of like twenty or something, and that helps, you know, make it audible for the person who's wearing it. But

the results are actually pretty amazing. So not only can the people wearing them navigate on this hike through the forest, but they can also decipher when these little changes happen, Like you've got a plate that's moved in front of them by less than twenty centimeters. They can actually detect that.

And in the future, scientists expect to reduce the devices to look a little bit more like a sporty headband than an awkward bat helmet, which I have to me, it made me laugh a little bit when they were saying, Oh, but don't worry. One day, we'll make it look like a sporty headband. Well, I mean, I love that idea and that you can actually see a nighttime it's pretty incredible. But that thing did remind me of a little life hack. Uh, this is something I actually do. It's when you're getting

up at night to use the bathroom or whatever. If you cut a hand over one eye before you turn the lights on, and then keep that eye closed or covered until you turn the lights back off, and then switch eyes like whichever I a're using it. It's amazing, but you'll actually be able to see in the dark because the eye you kept closed never actually bothered to adjust to the light. All right, Well here's a cool

one from Johns Hopkins. So did you know that when blind people solve math problems, they use the same brain areas as sighted people, not surprisingly, but they actually also used parts of the brain that others only use for vision. So the scientists were stunned to learn that they've basically repurposed this part of their brain specifically for math. That's pretty awesome. So this is what I think you'll like,

and it comes from pops. I. So apparently transplanting an eyeball is really difficult because the optic nerve is super finicky, but the way the article puts it, you might not need to factor the optic nerve into the equation at all. Eyes and perhaps other sensory organs can hook up to any available central nervous system PORT and boot right up

if manipulated properly. So scientists are toughs have actually done this, and they've taken blind tadpoles and grafted eyes to their tails so that you can actually see from the backsides. Oh man, mango. I can't compete with that, especially because I know this is the fact that my kids are going to remember of some creature being able to see with their butts. So yeah, just outpouch something back there.

Yeah I did say outpout, so I think I deserve some bonus points for that, But I'm gonna have to give you the fact off trophy this week. Congratulations, Thank you so much. That's it for today's episode. But as always, if we've forgotten any great facts, whether it's about today's subject or anything you feel like, we should know. We would love to hear from you. You can email us

part Time Genius at how stuff Works dot com. You can always call us on our in fact hot line that's one eight four four pt Genius, or hit us up on Facebook or Twitter. We love hearing from you. We've loved hearing all the great questions and suggestions coming in from listeners. But that's it for today's episode. Thanks

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