A SIGHT-RESTORING computer chip that could be implanted on to the human retina has been developed by American scientists, bringing to life the bionic eye worn by the 1970s TV superhero Steve Austin in the Six Million Dollar Man.

The chip could be used as a retina for people with age-related blindness. What makes it special is that it uses chemicals, rather than electricity, to communicate.

Scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine, who are developing the chip, say the device mimics the way nerve cells communicate by releasing minute amounts of neurotransmitter chemicals to stimulate nerves in the eye.

The breakthrough, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is a prototype chip that stimulates neuron-like cells successfully by releasing chemical droplets from four openings when it is sent electrical signals. The chip can also withdraw fluid when needed, preventing potentially harmful build-ups.

It shows that the basic mechanics are sound — the challenge now is to build chips that are far more advanced so that they can produce carefully graded amounts of chemicals from thousands of openings in response to light waves. “It’s almost like an ink-jet printer for the eye,” the researchers explain.

Game brain

JAPANESE scientists have discovered that one form of visual stimulation may be dangerous for children — video games.

They can hinder the development of the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that controls reasoning and creativity, claims Professor Akio Mori, of Nihon University.

The result? An outbreak of violence among children who use computers for long hours, says Mori, who has given a name to the condition — “game brain”.

He says that a loss of function in the pre-frontal cortex can lead to an increase in animal-like instinctive behaviour.

He cites the case of a Nagasaki schoolgirl, reported in the Daily Yomiuri, who slashed the neck of a classmate after they had rowed over the internet.

Stay cool

COOL-HEADED twenty-somethings, meanwhile, have a healthy future ahead of them, say blood-pressure researchers. Cardiologists have found that people who stay relaxed under pressure in their twenties reduce their risk of high blood pressure when they are middle-aged.
They report in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, that young people who react to stress with spikes in their blood pressure are significantly more likely to suffer circulatory problems in their forties. The scientists from the University of California, San Francisco, say their study of 4,202 participants over a 15-year period found that the stress effect is similar in men and women. But they add that regular exercise may help to ameliorate the problem.

You are bread

AND if you are middle-aged, lay off the white bread, cautions a study of 459 people which found that refined grains seem specially destined to become stomach fat.
Nutritional researchers from Tufts University, Baltimore, have found that middle-aged people who eat highly refined grains, such as those in white bread and pasta, are much more likely to have thickening waists.

When their comparative calorie intakes were factored out, the white bread munchers had three times as much waistline expansion as people who ate wholemeal over a three-year period.

Slim and erect

ANOTHER reason for men to keep their waists slim: they have more chance of an erection. Italian researchers made 55 obese men exercise intensively and found that a third of the chaps who had suffered erection trouble beforehand had no problems afterwards. The doctors report in the Journal of the American Medical Association that this is probably due to improved circulation, which sounds obvious. They don’t mention, however, that the fit-looking men have far more chance of using an erection, too.

Antibody: Jam boy

THANKS, kid. You have just written off 20 years of health promotion. Craig Flatman, aka Jam Boy, has grown to 6ft 1in (1.85m), at age 15, on a diet of only jam sandwiches and milk since he was 4 because he cannot stomach other food. How come? Seems the jammy dodger has a rare metabolism that means he can get all he needs from a strawberry buttie. Lucky him, but not for parents whose attempts to wean children off sugary snacks by saying that they will never grow up tall and strong have been utterly nixed.

Flatman, meanwhile, can look forward to a career as a Labour health spokesman: “It’s jam tomorrow, and jam the day after that ...”

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