Artificial Eye

                    "We can make blind mouse retinas see, and we’re moving as fast as we can to do the same in humans," lead researcher Sheila Nirenberg, a professor at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, said in a statement.

                     Current prosthetic eyes for humans have electrodes that stimulate the retina’s output cells, called ganglion cells, which are often left intact even when the rest of eye's hardware is destroyed by diseases that cause blindness. But these stimulators only allow the blind to see rough visual fields. To restore normal sight, the researchers say artificial eyes must incorporate the code that allows the retina to translate signals from photoreceptors into meaningful images.

                     "Not only is it necessary to stimulate large numbers of cells, but they also have to be stimulated with the right code — the code the retina normally uses to communicate with the brain," Nirenberg explained. "This is the first prosthetic that has the potential to provide normal or near-normal vision because it incorporates the code."

                      Nirenberg and her team say the mathematical equations of the code can be put on a "chip" and combined with a mini-projector. The chip would convert images encountered by the eye into streams of electrical impulses, and the mini-projector would then convert the electrical impulses into light impulses.