UW scientists, biotech firm may have cure for colorblindness
seattletimes.com
seattletimes.com
What are some good ways for a programmer to help the field? Maybe learning data science would allow me to help researchers while not knowing medicine myself.
It might have partially been his cancer. I am convinced that he was on point nonetheless.
I hope this isn't bad form posting outside of the monthly Who 's Hiring post, but my company is hiring in data engineering and DevOps. My team develops machine learning classifiers for cancer diagnostics. If you (or anyone reading) are interested I'd love to hesr from you: andrew@veracyte.com
One of the main reasons medical advances are are coming out hard and fast is because of "new apps or web pages."
I really don't get this anti-tech bent. These technologies and connections are what is transforming science everywhere.
Personally I think saying most web apps are a waste is like saying the space program is a waste. Personally I think these cutting edge technologies that seems to have no use are taking us amazing places.
Unfortunately bioinformatics-in-practice tends to be about 10 years behind the rest of the tech sector, and the only thing that the giants of biotech share with their tech sector counterparts is a love for IP. Still, an inflow of ambitious tech talent into the biotech and biomedical space could hack the industry open. Then again, there's also regulatory capture.
While I think you have a point, I think this line is taking it a step too far.
If a successful space program completely failed to actually produce any side effect innovation, at the end of the day, we still go to space.
If a successful web app fails to produce side effects, you have a web app. Depending on the app, this might be a good thing, but it's hard to reliably say that a web app is comparable to going to space.
In my mind, the advantage of having so many smart people working on trivial applications is that the risk of failure is low. If they were developing these technologies in the medical world, the risk of failure is debilitation and death. Comparatively, a giant privacy intrusion or not being able to play League of Legends for a day is something I can, literally, live with.
It's a fantastic intersection of software development, pattern recognition and algorithmic development in a space that gives your work definite meaning - spending your days looking at images of people with cancer, osteoporosis, arthritis, lung disease etc can help focus you on the MVP that matters. You learn some radiology as you go too; I'm pretty good at KL scoring for OA on hip and knee radiographs for example.
Development in this space can also have it's frustrations, having to combine the latest innovations with the need to meet FDA and European regulatory requirements requires a little lateral thinking sometimes. Historically there was a reluctance in the field to adopt newer technologies but in the last 5-10 years that has really started to change with a lot of imaging moving into the cloud and the regulators waking up to fact that software isn't built like a syringe!
I, for one, am giddy at the idea of augmenting our senses to all be super-sighted tetrachromats. The whole notion of literally expanding the way we see the world has always been exciting beyond words. Maybe it's a result of having grown up with Geordi on Star Trek TNG...
The rest of my comment is just speculative inquiry.
I imagine that neuroplasticity could have individuals quickly adapting to new sensory information input. I wouldn't be completely surprised since new born humans need ~6-8 months to fully develop sight to a level that is considered 'normal'. But neuroplasticity is far more potent at that age than later [1].
Considering a decline in potency with age, what if neuroplasticity cannot account for the required adaptation in the adult brain's visual portion?
For one, the information could just get lost and be filtered out like you suggested. But couldn't it also be misinterpreted with the effect of visual disturbances etc.?
There's also the people that got hearing implants when they were adults, and have adapted to the new sensation of hearing without much difficulty.
To me the human brain is quite adaptable, it is able to work around so many deficiencies or other "defects", so I would be very surprised if adapting to this new visual input was a big problem.
There's a company that was testing a device that turned the pixels on a low res camera into electrical impulses to a tongue mounted sensor plate.
There was a study where people had a belt fitted with vibrating motors and a compass so that the part of the belt facing north always vibrated. The people in the study begin to feel where north was.
There was a another study where an input from an ultrasonic rangefinder on a scalpel was converted to an electrical stimulation and surgeons could feel how close their scalpel was to a surface.
The augmentation ends at the finger and the brain never has to adapt that much at all.
The hearing implants are a different story altogether because hearing is already fully developed in the newborn's brains [1]. So if you have hearing issues due to biomechanical problems in your ear, the brain wouldn't need to adapt at all when these issues are removed. You would merely form new memories from new sounds but the sensory processing works normally from second zero onward.
And if hearing is impaired due to neurological issues then I severely doubt any current implant technology would change that. That would need to be much closer to treating a stroke patient.
The human brain is extremely adaptable, yes. Much more so in young people than in old. And apparently there is some variance with brain region (responsibility) as well.
In fact, in animals you can rip out the entire visual input, reattach it to the audio cortex, and they seem to relearn how to see just fine. The brain is incredibly adaptable and it's extremely unlikely this would be harmful. To the brain at least.
Also, at least by some sources I found, the identified tetrachromats have an additional cone with sensitivity between red and green, not in blue. Are you conflating tetrachromacy from additional comes with tetrachromacy arising from aphakia (loss of the UV-absorbing lens)?
Interestingly, my eyes keep trying to "resolve" another circle in the top right corner of the left card, but then when I actually focus on that part of the image, it disappears again. It's a pretty strange sensation, almost as if I were looking at a particularly tricky optical illusion.
http://static.seattletimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/fc...
left: left corner O, salmon-ish color. Right corner X, a bit more purple.
Right card: blueish triangle, greenish circle.
The purple "x" is in the bottom right corner of the left card.
I have been looking for a solution to this, I was looking a company that made lenses for the color blind: http://enchroma.com/ but it seems mostly like snake oil to me.
I will be watching this technology very carefully. I suspect it will be about five years before we hit the market though.
I have a lot of respect for that.
I do know this--I worked as a Electrician, and at Telecom repair companies. Since, all the manufacturers of wire had slightly different hues due to production, I would alyways carry samples(pre labeled in my tool bag). As far as I know I never made a mistake, but always double checked if even slightly unsure. I think the color blindness made me more aware of errors. I never told anyone, and would make up something if I needed perfect eyes. My favorite, and sadly not a lie was, "I'm hung over Joe". What color is this?"
My grandfather who saw the world in black and white worked as a Printer, his entire life, in different departments. He was so color blind he memorized where individual traffic lights were placed (red on top in the U.S.). He only told family members of his condition. No one knew he was color blind in all his years as a Printer. This was through the 40-80's. He even got awards he used to put on his living room wall. Today--he probally wouldn't even get through the interview?
As to color blindness being a handicap--I'm not sure. I know in past wars, they used to use color blind guys when looking for troops trying hide using camafoge.(They could just spot the camafoge vs. the natural terrain?). There's also some speculation some great painters like Picasso, Van Gogh were color blind? I don't know if I would want to see the world differently. I do know I have always been more concerned in function over form in projects. I just don't care about the colors as much as some, but I do care about the lines/perception and workable layout in building anything(websites to houses).
There are certainly positive aspects to colorblindness, just as there are to deafness, autism, and numerous other disabilities - even if it's simply that it makes you more compassionate toward people with disabilities, or even people in general. And as far as handicaps go, if it indeed is one, it's certainly less impactful than most. Is it a handicap though? I would say a handicap is something that prevents you from doing things that the majority of the population can do, in a way that impacts your quality of life. For me, if tulips looked like the right picture in the article[2], my quality of life would be impacted to some extent, even if the day to day events of life wouldn't much change. What if I've never experienced those colors though? Am I still missing out?
It may seem like an academic question; after all, if you don't feel like you're missing out and choose not to pursue treatment if/when it becomes available, certainly it doesn't hurt anyone else. But it can become an issue when you consider that the best time to administer such a treatment may be in infant-hood. I've certainly read about deaf people refusing to give cochlear implants to their deaf children because they don't believe that the child is missing out on anything of value, and/or that the advantages of deafness and the deaf community outweigh the disadvantages. Having normal hearing, I certainly would not have wanted my parents to make such a choice. (Although perhaps if I were deaf I would feel differently.)
Anyway, it's probably obvious which way my opinion goes, but mostly I think it's a discussion worth having.
[1] Dan Gilbert's book Stumbling on Happiness is a good read on this and related topics. [2] http://static.seattletimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/fl...
Glasses that enable people with the common type of colorblindness to see color in bright areas.
Funny that the article doesn't mention them, I've heard very positive things.
It's not on the same order as, say, curing cancer, but finding a treatment for "8% of the population can't be electrical engineers or pilots for no good reason" seems like a pretty substantial thing.
I feel the need to clarify this, if only that colour blind people aren't deterred from their chosen career. There is a distinction to be made between an electrical engineer (one who designs electrical systems) and an electrician (one who installs electrical systems).
Colour blindness isn't a barrier to electrical engineering. I'm an electrical engineer and have never had a colour test in relation to my job or been queried about whether I am colour blind.
Electricians (in Australia at least) are tested for colour blindness as part of their licensing. Even there, colour deficiency isn't an absolute barrier, as the requirement is that one has to be trade capable (ie. able to do the job). It depends on the degree of deficiency, also keeping in mind that the modern wire colours for mains electricity have been chosen with colour deficiency in mind.
Colour blind and interested in being an electrical engineer? Go for it.
Colour blind and interested in being an electrician? Get advice and make sure the adviser knows what they are talking about.
The following is a summary of how colour deficiency can affect your career choice in Australia:
http://www.optometrists.asn.au/media/238582/visual_standards...
But I can't imagine that impacting your ability to work as an EE at all. Especially since almost everything is surface mount these days anyway.
That's not how innovation works. It's not a tech tree in which you choose what advance you discover next. You reflect on what you already know, intuit hypotheses from this, and then test those hypotheses to figure out how false they are.
Research isn't about solutions. It's about understanding.
33% of the cones in your eye suddenly no longer being in synch isn't exactly a minor change.
I suppose some help is better than no help, however. Hopefully.