How does vision work? That’s what Junie wants to know. And is it possible to create vision for people who don’t see? We’ll dive into the mysteries of how we see with Lucas Nadolskis, a scientist who became blind when he was five. Lucas is studying how vision works in the brain to understand if it’s possible to see without using your eyes! Intrigued? Listen in to find out more of the mysteries behind the science of vision!
MEET OUR FEATURED EXPERT:
Neurologist Lucas Nadolskis studies the brain at UC Santa Barbara, where he investigates new ways to think about implants for the blind. Being blind himself since the age of five, Lucas’ interests are broad, ranging from neuroscience to accessibility, but can be summarized as efforts to improve the lives of blind people around the world. Outside of the lab, most of his free time is occupied by music, traveling and searching for audio-described content.
A Smart Bionic Eye
If you want to learn some of the more complicated science behind Lucas' work, check out this video of him and National Institute of Health director TK. They discuss how they combine virtual reality, artificial intelligence and visual implants to create what they call a "bionic eye", in hopes of supporting the roughly 40 million people worldwide with incurable blindness.
Here is the link to a version of this video without the full audio description.
Blindness Isn't a Binary — It's a Spectrum
When does vision loss become blindness? Check out this video from TED with writer, audio producer and editor Andrew Leland. He explains how his gradual loss of vision revealed a paradoxical truth about blindness -- that it's not as simple as either being blind or being able to see. Like many other things in life, blindness is a spectrum, and can mean many different things.
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number # 2148711 - Engaging Blind, Visually Impaired, and Sighted Students in STEM with Storytelling through Podcasts.
