News, Links and Commentary
Thursday, December 30, 2004
Operatunity Beckons Woman With RP
Denise Leigh, a 33-year-old mother of three who has retinitis pigmentosa, realised a dream after winning UK Channel 4's Operatunity TV series and performing at the English National Opera:
(0) comments |
Mrs Leigh, who was born with the genetic condition retinitis pigmentosa, learns musical scores by imagining notes as colours. Her education authority told her that she should aim for a job as a telephonist and Mrs Leigh says that her first husband derided her musical ambitions.
'http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1418142,00.html' (The Times Online, 29 December 2004).
Tuesday, December 28, 2004
Film Maker Uses More Sense Than Sight In Production
Tony Sarre is a West Australian film maker recently featured in Melbourne's The Other Film Festival. The festival screened films by, with and about people with disabilities. Diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa as a 16-year-old, Sarre studied film at university and two of his short films screened in Melbourne for the festival. Learn more in 'Blind faith' (The Age, 3 December 2004).
(0) comments |
Voice Feature For Latest Version of Opera Browser
Opera Software has announced the beta release of the next version of the Opera browser. Features include voice input and output, allowing Opera to read Web sites and e-mail to the user, and Fit-To-Window, which will ensure that no horizontal scrolling is needed to view enlarged pages. The beta version for Windows is now available for download and the final version should be available in early 2005. More about the new browser release can be read in 'Look who's talking now: Opera Continues to Innovate the Web Experience with the new Opera Beta' (Opera Software press release, 23 December 2004).
Update: Thanks to Tara Calishain's latest issue of ResearchBuzz, I learnt about the Opera with Voice page, which gives instructions on how to use the voice feature.
(0) comments |
Update: Thanks to Tara Calishain's latest issue of ResearchBuzz, I learnt about the Opera with Voice page, which gives instructions on how to use the voice feature.
Saturday, December 25, 2004
Seasons Greetings!
If you're swinging by RetGen roundabout Christmas, I hope you have a great day! You don't celebrate Christmas? Have a great day anyway! And the very best of New Years to you and yours!
(0) comments |
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
Moving Mountains Text Diary 2005
Moving Mountains' 2005 Diary is available for free, either as a single text file or as twelve separate text files - one for each month. Moving Mountains is a UK company that sells hardware, software and adaptive equipment. The diary can be opened and altered using any text editor, such as Notepad or Notetab and in Microsoft's Wordpad or Word. The file is downloaded as a self-extracting executable file and is therefore only available to users of Windows. The diary gives UK Bank Holidays but as it is a text file, it's very easy to delete any extraneous information and insert your own significant dates.
(0) comments |
Saturday, December 18, 2004
Christmas Pud From Sue's Kitchen
Sue's Kitchen is part of the UK-based Accessible Friends Network and features recipes, conversion tables and tips to help people to cook without sight. For the festive season, Sue provides recipes for traditional Christmas fare such as turkey stuff and Christmas pudding.
(0) comments |
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
Model Representative
Amanda Swafford, a model and mother who has retinitis pigmentosa, is one of the three remaining contestants in America's Next Top Model. An article in the Charlotte Observer weighs her chances of winning despite legal blindness ('Vying to be a model mom,' 15 December 2004). Good luck Amanda!
(0) comments |
Sunday, December 12, 2004
Future Boy! Is Game For Anything
Future Boy! is a game of superheroics and adventure built to be inclusive of vision impaired players. From Toronto's General Coffee Company Film Productions, the game includes video, audio and textual content and can be played either with the mouse or entirely with the keyboard. The built-in speech uses Microsoft's SAPI 4.0 and can be used with the Windows XP built-in magnifier.
(0) comments |
Tuesday, December 07, 2004
How Stem Cells Work
Members of the RPList recently recommended the article How Stem Cells Work at How Stuff Works. The article gives background information about stem cells and how they may be used to treat disease.
(0) comments |
Epiretinal Membrane Query
A woman diagnosed with epiretinal membrane recently wrote to me seeking more information about her condition. The Handbook of Ocular Disease Management Web site includes an entry about Epiretinal Membrane and I learnt that the condition has several names, including macular pucker. Milo? Kaláb provides a patients' perspective of cataracts and epiretinal membrane. If you know of other useful resources for people with epiretinal membrane, please let me know.
(0) comments |
Accessibility Winners Are Grinners
Dental practice Philip Murphy and Associates has one of the eight Web sites awarded a Visionary Design Award by the UK's National Library for the
Blind. The awards are sponsored by Barclays Bank and other winning sites included those of children's writer Anne
Fine, insurer Aviva and Britain's Transport Archive.
(0) comments |
Blind. The awards are sponsored by Barclays Bank and other winning sites included those of children's writer Anne
Fine, insurer Aviva and Britain's Transport Archive.
Wednesday, December 01, 2004
Gene Mutation Affects Waste Removal in Retina, Causes RP
Gene mutations that affect the retina's ability to remove waste are the cause of retinitis pigmentosa in some people, according to research published in the journal Human Molecular Genetics (Online, 24 November 2004):
(0) comments |
According to the paper, patients in the study each had a mutation in which a defect in the process responsible for handling carbon dioxide waste and maintaining acid and base balance led to photoreceptor degeneration.
Zhang [one of the paper's senior authors] says the mutation inhibits function of a protein complex made up of carbonic anhydrase 4 (CA4) and Na+/Bicarbonate Co-transporter1 (NBC1) from doing its job of controlling acid and base balance. "In healthy eyes this acid waste is released from the retina and into the bloodstream via tiny blood vessels called the choriocapillaris which are located adjacent to the photoreceptors. When this doesn't happen, we see the death of photoreceptor cells and the start of retinitis pigmentosa," said Zhang.
The study also suggests additional research is needed to determine whether carbonic anhydrase inhibitors may affect vision. According to the study, "the importance of a functional CA4 for survival of photoreceptors implies that carbonic anhydrase inhibitors, which are widely used as medications, particularly in the treatment of glaucoma, may have long-term adverse effects on vision."
'University Of Utah Study Suggests Cellular Waste To Blame For A Form Of Blinding Eye Disease', Science Daily, adapted from a news release issued by University Of Utah Health Sciences Center, 25 November 2004.
Brain Cells Made To See The Light
Brain cells taken from rats have been modified to detect light by US scientists hoping to find a treatment for retinal degeneration:
The research appears in the current issue of Nature Neuroscience ('Light-activated ion channels for remote control of neuronal firing', Banghart, M. and others, Nature Neuroscience Volume 7, Number 12, pp 1381 - 1386).
(0) comments |
Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have given "blind" nerve cells the ability to detect light, paving the way for an innovative therapy that could restore sight to those who have lost it through disease.
A team lead by neurobiologist Richard H. Kramer, UC Berkeley professor of molecular and cell biology, and Dirk Trauner, assistant professor of chemistry, inserted a light-activated switch into brain cells normally insensitive to light, enabling the researchers to turn the cells on with green light and turn them off with ultraviolet light.
'"Blind" cells see the light; maybe someday humans will, too', University of California, Berkeley press release, 22 November 2004.
The research appears in the current issue of Nature Neuroscience ('Light-activated ion channels for remote control of neuronal firing', Banghart, M. and others, Nature Neuroscience Volume 7, Number 12, pp 1381 - 1386).
