Seeing Is Not Believing

I just read the most interesting article in this month's issue of Scientific American concerning "blindsight," a phenomenon by which people suffering from a specific form of visual impairment can still "see" even though they are technically blind. And even though they themselves are not consciously aware that they are "seeing."

Say WHAT???

I know, that was my reaction also. But it's true! The phenomenon has been known and studied since the early 20th century, but only recently are scientists starting to take the claims seriously and have even come a long way in explaining the source of this singular condition.

People who display this ability have had some form of damage to the visual cortex in their brain. Meaning that their eyes are perfectly healthy, but that the region of the brain that processes what the eyes are seeing is either malfunctioning or not working at all. Yet, with varying degrees of accuracy, most cortically blind people are able to still navigate around objects placed in front of them, make out simple shapes, and even recognize facial expressions in others.

But, here's the kicker -- they don't realize they're doing this!

SciAm has a video up on their website which demonstrates a patient performing blindsight. Click on this link to get to the article, and then wait for the embedded video to load up. It's intriguing to say the least!

Reading the full article (which you can only get by subscribing), I started forming my own opinions on how this was possible. I thought it was telling that only people with damage to the VC would display this ability, while people blinded through direct physical or congenital damage to the actual eyes could not.

Turns out my rationale was leading me to right solution after all. By the end of the article, the author proposes that the visual signals being received by the still healthy eyes, but not being processed by the VC, is instead being processed by an older, less-evolved region in the midbrain called the superior colliculus (SC). In mammals, the SC is responsible for less refined functions of vision such as the movement of the eyes and basic object recognition for use in higher brain functions like the "fight or flight" instinct we all share. In other words, the portion of the visual signal that would normally go to the SC is still going there despite damage to the VC that would normally handle the finer processing of the information our eyes transmit to the brain. So while the VC might no longer be operating as normal, the SC is still doing its job.

Fascinating, huh?

And because the SC is used in the processing of mostly unconscious decisions, this also explains why exhibitors of blindsight can perform such uncanny feats and not even realize they are doing it. It's raising a lot of questions--both scientifically as well as philosophically--about just how much of what we see is active cognition. How much of what we used to think we actively processed visually is in fact being handled by a part of the brain connected more with instinct and unconscious brain function?

Food for thought.

Oh, I'd Like To See Someone Try!

Today I read the transcript of a panel between Paul Krugman, an economist and New York Times columnist, and noted sci-fi author extraordinaire, Charles Stross, about what the world will look like 30 years from now. The panel discussion took place at this year's World Convention in Montreal. You can read the entire transcript at Edwin Steussy's blog, The Steussy Ranch, by clicking here.

Anyway, Charlie fascinates me to no end. His books are simply mind-bogglingly FANTASTIC! Particularly the way he presents his futuristic technologies and trends. This guy is the very definition of the term "futurist."

But during the panel he mentioned something that just blew my mind:

"It’s not a great cognitive leap from aeroplanes capable of carrying loads to bombers. It’s a hell of a leap from [the] idea of getting a cheap camera chip and adding it to a mobile phone and coming up with a phenomenon of “Happy Slapping”. I don’t know if everyone knows what Happy Slapping is, it isn’t Slapping, and it isn’t Happy, but its where kids basically find some random stranger [and] beat them up while one of their friends videos it with their camera and then upload it to YouTube. As social phenomenon go, that’s not one you can predict from the input technology."

WTF? Are you serious? I looked this bullshit "happy slapping" up on YouTube, and turns out he was right!

HOLY SHIT!

Let me tell you, I *WISH* some little Brit punk would try this on me! You can bet your ass THAT'S going to be a video they won't be putting up on YouTube. I would absolutely murder anyone who tried some crap like this. God, I hate these hood wannabes -- let them come to my little slice of the Bronx and see how far they get with that sham.

Unfortunately, it looks like this kind of retarded activity isn't restricted to the U.K. Seems it's happening all across Europe. Which means, of course, that it's only a matter of time before it comes to the U.S. And yes, I know it's already happening here. . . just not as wide-spread yet.

Anyway, if you clicked on the YouTube link a little further up, check out an example of Happy Slapping gone wrong -- i.e., not exactly the outcome the perpetrators were expecting. This one here shows two Russian lowlifes waiting for a couple to pass by to spring their trap. Except, the boyfriend happens to be a real brawler and fights back . . . to devastating effect for the two idiots. Oopsie!

I swear, dumb people. Why must they waste up space breathing?

Eye, Robot

I came across this woman's blog today. Tanya Vlach, a 35 year old artist residing in San Francisco, lost the function of her left eye in a car accident over three years ago. Now she wants to replace her dead eye with a prosthetic one that has a built-in camera. Problem is, no such eye exists. Not yet, anyway. Tanya has placed an APB on her blog to all interested techies and engineers out there who would like to tackle her proposal head-on. It's not as impossible as you might think. Click on her blog--Eye, Tanya--to read more. Alternatively, you can read a longer and more detailed article which appeared in the Washington Post last month here. Tanya links to the article (and over a half dozen more) on her blog's main page, too.

The sci-fi geek in me thinks this is just so cool! I would love to see her dream come true. It's a daunting task, though. While it's true that cameras are getting smaller and smaller these days, and what with the amazing tool Bluetooth has become, I don't think we're quite at that place where such an eye can be grown. But we will be in the next 10 to 15 years, tops.

In the meantime, I'm still shocked to learn that prosthetic eyes have come so far. Tanya hasn't had her whole eye removed, but wears a sort of rubberized-like cosmetic sliver over her damaged orb to give the appearance of a working, normal eye. I guess it's like a much more expensive version of a painted contact lens! It's a long ways away from the days when people had to grip uncomfortable glass orbs with their eye socket while in polite company. Ouch!

Doesn't Bug Me One Bit

I saw this on the morning news when I was getting ready for work. It was taken from this Newsday article here regarding the use of crushed beetle pigment to artificially color a range of popular food products from Ocean Spray grapefruit juice, to Yoplait and Dannon yogurts. The red pigment--made from dried, ground up beetle shells--is also used in an array of top lipsticks and other makeup products.

Apparently the cochineal beetle has been the secret ingredient in a LOT of colorful products since before the Spanish came to South America and discovered the natives cultivating the bug. It's been an important source of red coloring ever since.

Weird, huh? Check out the article to read more. Apparently the ingredient is commonly listed as "carmine" or "red dye E-120." Sometimes even as "cochineal," though few people even know that this is the name of a South American beetle. I did, but I rarely look at food ingredient labels anyway since I'm not allergic to anything. A few people are allergic to this, however, and so efforts have been underway for a decade now to try and get the FDA to have it removed, or at least provide a warning on the label.

I don't know, for some reason this doesn't bother me at all. I really could care less. So what? If you knew half the things that go into most of the other foods we eat, you'd starve to death if you'd let it get to you. Take a look at how your beef and chicken gets to the supermarket, and then come back and talk about a harmless little beetle. Let's get real.

As long as my Dannon strawberry yogurt (yum!) doesn't taste like actual bug juice, I'm happy pretending that the red I'm seeing is from the skins of fresh, ripened strawberries picked straight off the vine. :)