Contriving

This is awesome for people with the right type of blindness.  

However, what really excites me personally is that it's only a short amount of time until these are better than a regular human retina.  They'll have Bluetooth 6.0 (or whatever) and overlay images over what you're seeing (think Google Glass).  The image quality will be better than any screen, so say good bye to phone screens, computer screens, TV screens, movie screens.

In fact, they will be able to completely subsume everything you see.  That is, such an implantable device will be able to completely replace what you see with a virtual environment.  Imagine Call of Duty where you're not looking through a screen into a virtual world, but you're just looking around in a virtual world without any intermediary screen between you and that world.

Of course, this is definitely a technology I wouldn't want to be an early adopter of…what with the surgery on your eyeballs.

A distinct advantage of the Alpha IMS is that, unlike other similar devices such as the recently released Argus II, it does not rely on an external camera. Instead, light is detected inside the eye, enabling the patient to look around by moving his eyes rather than the head. It also has a much higher resolution grid and is implanted under the retina, allowing the middle layer of the retina to process the input before it is sent to the visual cortex.

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Retinal Implant Alpha IMS Brings Sight to Blind in New Study (w/video)
Retina Implant AG, a German developer of subretinal implants to help restore sight of people with retinitis pigmentosa, has announced publication of result

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Think of it as 3D printing, but with squishier ingredients! There's a lot of work being done at research labs and big companies like Organovo on print human tissues and human organs, with an eye towards drug testing, and transplantation into humans.
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All this sounds incredible complex, but the fact is that the basic technologies are very accessible – it's all based on inkjet and/or 3D printing! So a bunch of us at BioCurious decided we wanted to play around with this technology ourselves – and the BioPrinter Community Project was born!

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DIY BioPrinter
Bioprinting is printing with biological materials. Think of it as 3D printing, but with squishier ingredients! There’s a lot of work being done at res…

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So, there's a new study that purports to show that resveratrol protects against loss of hearing and cognitive abilities.  Good stuff, I say.

I also say that most medical studies turn out to be wrong or to be only kinda right.

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Resveratrol shows promise to protect hearing, cognition | ScienceBlog.com
Resveratrol, a substance found in red grapes and red wine, may have the potential to protect against hearing and cognitive decline, according to a published

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We've uncovered 10 patents that could severely stifle innovation in the low-cost segment of the 3-D printing market and keep you from making colorful, smooth-finished figures and precise, articulating parts. These patents cover core technologies and ease-of-use features, and could take momentum from the upstarts and return it to the entrenched companies.

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How Big Business is Stymying Makers’ High-Res, Colorful Innovations | Wired Design | Wired.com

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Plus more ants hating you.

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Get cool aluminum cast of said ant colony and the enmity of ants everywhere.

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I think I may have posted this before, but whatever.

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A certain mother habitually rewards her small son with ice cream after he eats his spinach. What additional information would you need to be able to predict whether the child will: a. Come to love or hate spinach, b. Love or hate ice cream, or c. Love or hate Mother?

— Gregory Bateson, "Steps to an Ecology of Mind"

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