An implant that squirts chemicals into the back of your eye may not sound hi-tech.  But this solar-powered chip that stimulates retinal cells by spraying them with neurotransmitters could restore sight to blind people.

Unlike other implants under development that apply an electric charge directly to retinal cells, the device does not cause the cells to heat up. It also uses very little power, so it does not need external batteries.

The retina, which lines the back and sides of the eyeball, contains photoreceptor cells that release signalling chemicals called neurotransmitters in response to light. The neurotransmitters pass into nerve cells on top of the photoreceptors, from where the signals are relayed to the brain via a series of electrical and chemical reactions. In people with retinal diseases such as age-related macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa, the photoreceptors become damaged, ultimately causing blindness.

In 2005, engineer Laxman Saggere of the University of Illinois at Chicago unveiled plans for an implant that would replace these damaged photoreceptors with a set of neurotransmitter pumps that respond to light.  Now he has built a crucial component: a solar-powered actuator that flexes in response to the very low-intensity light that strikes the retina.  Multiple actuators on a single chip pick up the details of the image focused on the retina, allowing some “pixels” to be passed on to the brain.

The prototype actuator consists of a flexible silicon disc just 1.5 millimetres in diameter and 15 micrometres thick.  When light hits a silicon solar cell next to the disc it produces the voltage.

Super cool use of technology, can’t wait to see this one in action!

With the recent finding that moderate drinking might not, after all, help prevent heart disease and the contribution alcohol might be making to colorectal cancers, this news may be perfectly timed.

A cocktail of drugs that mimics the pleasurable effects of alcohol without the downsides.  The idea is only on the drawing board, but there is no scientific reason why it could not be made right now, says psychopharmacologist David Nutt of the University of Bristol.

The trick pharmacologists need to pull off is to make a mixture of molecules that deliver alcohol’s pleasurable effects, notably relaxation and sociability, without the aggression, nausea, loss of coordination and amnesia that can cause drinkers and those around them so much grief.  Long-term problems such as cirrhosis of the liver could also be eliminated, says Nutt, who publishes the idea next month in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.

This drug gets 2 thumbs up from me because now when I am crawling on the floor looking for my table mate, I will not have to admit being drunk out of my mind from booze.  In the meantime I will just keep my Faraday flashlight hooked to my belt at all times.

Rana El Kaliouby of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology along with MIT colleagues Rosalind Picard and Alea Teeters are developing a device that can pick up on a person’s emotions and alert its user if the person they are talking to starts showing signs of getting bored or annoyed.

It is being developed for use with people with autism because they lack the ability to pick up on these type of cues.  The device is being presented this coming week at the Body Sensor Network conference at MIT.

I think this is great for autistic people but the rest of us would benifit as well.