Word: optics
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Marie (not this woman's real name; she wishes to remain anonymous) can see again thanks to an electrode implanted around her right optic nerve. The electrode is connected to a stimulator installed in a small depression carved from the inside of her skull. A video camera, worn on a cap, transmits images in the form of radio signals to the stimulator, which converts these signals into electrical impulses and sends them along Marie's optic nerve. The optic nerve ferries the signals to Marie's visual cortex, where they are reassembled into an image: in this case, a collection...
...still manage to recognize objects and read with difficulty. But then as her cone cells failed, this last narrow window on the world snapped shut and she was left completely blind - even though her retina retained a healthy connection to the visual centers of her brain through a functioning optic nerve. Marie's implant splices into the live line of the optic nerve to enable her to see again...
Marie's artificial visual system is called the Microsystem-based Visual Prosthesis (MIVIP) and was designed by Claude Veraart and collaborators at the University of Louvain. The MIVIP consists of a cuff electrode implanted around Marie's right optic nerve. The electrode wraps around the optic nerve like the little plastic sheath on the end of a shoelace. It is connected to a thin cable that snakes its way from the optic nerve exiting the back of Marie's eye and weaves around the outside of her brain to the stimulator implanted in a small cavity in her cranium...
...circles, tables and chairs - contain live pixels that the video camera registers as a flash when it passes over them. As the camera crosses a live pixel, it sends a signal to the transmitter, which passes it on to the stimulator, which sends an electrical charge to Marie's optic nerve. The result: Marie sees a series of flashes that join up to form recognizable shapes...
...race and has expanded his ties to Bush's Administration. Sources tell TIME that Cook met with Commerce Secretary Don Evans last June and brought up a bitter legacy of the Clinton years--the $7.2 million fee Global Crossing had to pay for running its fiber-optic cables through a marine sanctuary off Washington State. In August, Evans' aides agreed to remove the fee temporarily while they reviewed the issue and gave Global a chance to argue for a lower price. No decision has been made...