
Mammalian Near-IR Vision Through Injectable, Self-Powered Retinal Nanoantennae - mhb
https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(19)30101-1#%20
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rolleiflex
I’ve read the study just now - it does appear that:

a) The chemical put into the retina is surprisingly biocompatible, in that it
does not appear to have caused anything out of the ordinary to happen. It
works by effectively converting IR light to visible light - so it does not
involve ‘sending more data’ to the brain, or ‘opening another colour band’ or
anything like that. It is seen as just plain old green light, because the
crystal structure of the chemical basically converts 980nm~ IR to 500~nm
visible green light. So no uber-neurohacking going on here.

b) The procedure they are using to put the chemical in place is fairly run-of-
the-mill medical procedure for humans for treatment of eye diseases, albeit a
little icky.

So, I’m surprised, to say the least, but this could actually work with humans
as a fairly harmless enhancement. I’m still waiting for the other shoe to
drop, but haven’t seen one in the study itself for the time being.
(Disclosure: not an expert, but I follow related fields)

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improbable22
> does not involve ... ‘opening another colour band’

That's not so obvious to me. If this chemical were uniformly spread across the
retina, then I'd agree. But if it's sufficiently clumpy, or ideally attached
to every second green-sensitive cone, then it absolutely would give
(N+1)-colour vision (N=3 in humans). On first glance I can't figure out what
the paper has to say about this distribution... and even if it were uniform in
their mice, perhaps the next step would be to make it non-uniform somehow.

The earlier way to do something similar was by genetically altering some
cells, [1]. If you inject a virus (carrying the modification) at a low
concentration, then you do get just half the cells. Then the brain learns (in
a few weeks) which cells are now giving what information, and you get more
colours. [1] did this in monkeys, IIRC they are N=2 and the virus added the
gene for one of the human receptors. I don't think it was safe enough for
humans.

[1] [https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/gene-
th...](https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/gene-therapy-
corrects-monkey-color-blindness)

~~~
buboard
still it would not be possible to discriminate if the green that i see is
normal green or IR green. it would be rather obvious in the night, when color
cones are not used, but during the day it would be confusing. I 'm thinking
"Aww that s a beautiful tree ... oh , it's a trash fire"

~~~
improbable22
No, that's exactly what the monkeys learned to discriminate. After a few weeks
they pass monkey-specific colour-blindness tests, which wild-type monkeys
cannot.

I don't think you are born with different wiring to the three different kinds
of cones, your brain just learns to lump all the red ones together, so that a
red object stays the same colour in different parts of your visual field. The
claim is that the monkeys learned which of the previously-identical cones now
had a new colour.

~~~
buboard
yes it is possible to create objects that can discriminate between colorblind
and wild type. but from the point of view of the colorblind person (the
augmented person) it will still be a source of confusion.

~~~
improbable22
Just to be clear, the point isn't that we can distinguish which monkeys are
treated, it's that the monkeys can distinguish many colours which they could
not before. The treated ones behave like trichromats.

Do they lose any sleep philosophising about how these new colours are
possible, and what to call them? Who knows. But I believe they can still do
all the usual monkey things.

~~~
buboard
> it's that the monkeys can distinguish many colours which they could not
> before

That's the point they can not distinguish more colors. Their retinal cones
still have the same spectral response. They cannot distinguish between a
normal 500nm green leaf and a 900nm infrared source.

~~~
improbable22
Ah, you mean the mice? In the near-IR study it's not clear (to me, yet)
whether all the cones are altered, or just some of them. If all of them are
altered, then for sure, same N=2 as normal mice.

The monkeys are in a different study, the one I linked a few posts above.

~~~
buboard
sorry i was referring to the nanoparticles. Indeed rhodopsins are used so
routinely in neuroscience that one wonders why it has not been used to treat
colorblindness in humans yet.

~~~
improbable22
OK! I was told was that inserting genes with a virus like this had a tendency
to cause cancer, which is why it wasn't done on humans (least of all for
something not life-threatening). But I don't know if that is still accurate.

The nanoparticles sound to me like they could be safer? Would be interesting
to know whether they can be non-uniformly spread, so that only half the green
cones can see one.

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14
Growing up watching Star Trek The Next Generation this is so cool to read
about. Talk about Geordi Laforge vision. That part that I find so cool is
seeing a lot of things that were mere dreams on Star Trek become real. Our
smartphones are essentially tri-corders and now we could potentially get night
vision.

~~~
derekp7
Too bad the tricorder app got pulled from the Android store by Paramount due
to trademark violations. Anyone know of a good version of a tricorder-like app
that doesn't use the Star Trek LCARS theme?

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acct1771
There's an LCARS live wall on F-Droid App "Store" (F-Droid.org)

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phonypc
I wonder if/how it would interfere with normal vision. Could you mistake IR
for normal green and vice versa, or would IR have some other characteristic
that would distinguish it?

Are there situations where you'd run into lights that are intrusively (or even
blindingly) bright in IR but not visible wavelengths?

~~~
jakeogh
Yes and yes. Standard NIR illuminators are everywhere. You would need context
to distinguish that it's not green except I suspect it's a very specific green
so your brain may be able to do interesting things with that knowledge.

Edit: looking at the emission charts, it's a wider bandwidth than I expected,
not sure how well the brain would be able to use the specificity of the green.

Things that are normally just cool enough to not emit significant visible
would suddenly be visible. It's far far from the standard 7-14um thermal IR,
but would be... well.. downright awesome.

It might be possible to design a mixture of these to generate "impossible
colors".

~~~
whatshisface
> _It might be possible to design a mixture of these to generate "impossible
> colors"._

Since they just convert light between frequencies, they won't show you any
colors you couldn't see by illuminating your retina with the output
frequencies the old fashioned way.

~~~
jakeogh
Agreed, I'm referring to type 2:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_colors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_colors)

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andrewflnr
I wouldn't ordinarily be an early-adopter type when it comes to medical
technology in my eyes of all places, but damn, IR vision. When this is ready
for humans I'm going to have to think about it.

~~~
system2
It would take very long years for this to become available to the public. I am
sure we will hear many early-adopters' stories in the news which will make you
rethink what you are thinking right now...

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gok
Now this is the kind of journal article title I expected in 2019.

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johnhenry
"Negligible side effects" stood out to me because I remember reading in a few
places [0] [1] that depriving oneself of Vitamin A can improve vision; but at
a health risk. I've also heard that this is impossible. [2]. I wonder if these
things are co-related somehow?

[0] --
[https://www.physiology.org/doi/abs/10.1152/ajplegacy.1938.12...](https://www.physiology.org/doi/abs/10.1152/ajplegacy.1938.123.3.732?journalCode=ajplegacy)

[1] -- [https://petapixel.com/2014/08/23/dietary-experiment-
successf...](https://petapixel.com/2014/08/23/dietary-experiment-successfully-
extends-human-vision-near-infrared/)

[2] -- [https://petapixel.com/2014/08/25/retinal-neuroscientists-
reb...](https://petapixel.com/2014/08/25/retinal-neuroscientists-rebuttal-
humans-cant-see-infrared-matter-eat/)

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theon144
Wow, that sounds like quite the biohack!

As most of the biology stuff went over my head, I couldn't find if it is
reversible though, they just mention it was "stable" at 10 weeks after
injection, but is it expected to be working indefinitely? Can you wash it out
somehow, if you later decide against it?

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notthingnill
I wonder if some variation of this experiment would be useful for retina
detachment, personal interest (my retina was completely detached and I was
left with 0.60 vision in the left eye).

What's the effect of giving more information to the cells, would the brain use
the extra information to self improve vision? In my case the right eye would
be used for training the left one.

Another experiment I am thinking of, If a 3 month old child suffer a retina
detachment, would his brain be able to recover the full vision by the brain
making appropriate changes?

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scotty79
I wonder how well eye lens focuses NIR. And if it focuses NIR differently than
visible light you'd have to choose between blurry IR green or blurry
everything else.

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tener
I wonder if some military unit would be interested.

~~~
tomerico
Is 980nm in the range of body heat radiation? In other words, would you be
able to have "night vision" in full darkness by seeing the heat from animals?

~~~
orbital-decay
No. Thermal vision is LWIR, far down the spectrum.

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poisonborz
For now I can only see downsides of this on healthy eyes. You would be
constantly blinded and disturbed by various equipment, and your different
vision compared to others would be the source of constant confusion and
annoyance. What would be the use case for healthy patients in an urban
environment?

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steve19
If this was in a sci-fi action movie I would roll my eyes at the
implausiblilty of it. If it actually works... Wow!

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DoubleCribble
One step closer to "having the technology". Colonel Steve Austin would be
proud.[0]

[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Six_Million_Dollar_Man](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Six_Million_Dollar_Man)

~~~
goldenkey
This was way before my time. Now I know where "We have the technology. We can
rebuild him" comes from. Uncanny! Thanks for referencing, added to my
entertainment TODO list :-)

~~~
DoubleCribble
IMHO, one of the best TV intro's ever.

"Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability
to make the world's first bionic man. Steve Austin will be that man. Better
than he was before. Better...stronger...faster."

~~~
goldenkey
Is that where Daft Punk got the lyrics too?

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Tehchops
Wonder what the potential long-term psychological/physiological impact is...

Your brain would essentially be forced to constantly process more visual data
than it was used to... more data than human brains in general had _evolved_ to
process.

Surely that has consequences.

~~~
jaggederest
Human sensorium is extremely flexible. The experiment I'm thinking of used
subtle vibrating motors on a belt to indicate north, and people performed
exactly as though they had suddenly acquired absolute directional sense with
no awareness of the vibrations after a little acclimatization.

The other classic is "reverse vision" glasses that flip everything upside
down. Takes about 2-6 weeks to rewire your brain, then everything appears
normal... until you take them off.

~~~
dddddaviddddd
Examples:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKUVpBJalNQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKUVpBJalNQ)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kohUpQwZt8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kohUpQwZt8)

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b_tterc_p
I think we could also use this to make people more colorblind.

~~~
gilbetron
Meh, I'm colorblind and I would do it for the option to see the world
differently! First, though, I'd want some idea of how much the world would
change.

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Frenum
I'm curious if a similar procedure could be used to correct for colorblindness
by making one eye into the "red eye" and the other into the "green eye".
Filtering and enhancing color frequencies as appropriate.

~~~
b_tterc_p
First instinct was to say no. Because you would only be able displace a color
you can’t see to overlap with a color you can see, meaning you’re just
shifting the color blindness around.

But the two eye solution is interesting.

I bet you could also do palette swaps for everything

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jbay808
It's probably a good time to invest in the 980 nm-blocking sunglass industry.

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daemonk
So its kinda like putting small IR->visible light lenses into your cornea.

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floki999
Excitingly interesting

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coldacid
Where do I sign up?

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hateful
What we filter out and don't see is just as important as what we do. If we
could see all wavelengths, we'd have just noise.

~~~
chrisweekly
I agree w/ your first sentence.

But if we could "see all wavelengths", for any reasonable definition of "see",
that would imply our eyes and brains had evolved to distinguish visual signal
from noise.

