German scientists place chip into retina; bring hope to the blind

Losing one's vision can be the single most devastating incident of one's life, since it takes away the hope to ever be able to see. Now, a group of enterprising scientists from Germany may have achieved a breakthrough of sorts, as far as retina implant techniques go. Eberhart Zrenner and a team of German scientists have after a series of experiments on cats, and then on a group of 11 individuals possibly brought out a cure to treat retinitis pigmentosa, a condition in which the retina of one's eye gets damaged, in the sense that the cells start breaking down with time. The retina, as we know is the tissue layer present at the back of one's inner eye and converts light images to nerve signals and transmits them to the brain. The condition is progressive varyingly, in the sense that some individuals with the disease may go completely blind, while some others may retain some amount of vision throughout, despite being mostly blind. Click here for full story