Can our eyes be re-engineered?

[Jet2]

Say, re-engineer / restructure the gene for our eyes so that our new generations can see things in the dark just like cats do?

 

And there are a lot of animals and creatures which have better and more powerful eye-sight than we have that we can copy from.

 

Amazing though horrible...

[Qfwfq]

The difference between eyes of different animal species is determined genetically so, certainly, without ethical matters it would in principle be possible. They would probably get a lot of botches before good results and the result would be people stuck for life with whatever unexpected effects, so the ethical concern is not without reason.

[ronthepon]

Yeah. Perhaps if we had a much more complete understanding of our genome, and genomes in general (in process!) we could actually begin re-engineering ourselves.

 

BTW, this question has a good discussability in the social science viewpoint.

[Michaelangelica]

I have good night vision probably from spending lots of time in a darkroom developing photos as a kid. My wife has better eyesight than me but has poor night vision

 

Perhaps you should worry more about seeing at all

But like many other organs in the body, the eye wasn't designed by evolution for longevity. After all, when the average life span was about 30 for all but the last few hundred years of human existence, what was the point?

 

Alas, once past middle age, our eyes begin to deteriorate. Our chance of suffering loss of vision triples every decade over the age of forty. Here are the unpleasant details:

 

* The light-sensitive area at the back of the eye, the retina, tends to degenerate as we get older – particularly the important part called the macula that is responsible for central vision – this is called age-related macular degeneration).

* In people with diabetes, blood vessels in the retina become blocked or may bleed, destroying the retinal cells – this is diabetic retinopathy.

* The 'valve' at the base of the iris that drains fluid out of the eyeball becomes blocked. Pressure builds up in the eyeball, which presses against and destroys the retina at the back of the eyes – this is glaucoma.

* The lens at the front of the eye crystallises and loses its opacity – this is a cataract.

 

These four conditions together cause nearly three quarters of all blindness in Australia. Age-related macular degeneration accounts for about a third.

. . .

. . .

Studies in the US for example, show that only a third of people over the age of 65 have an annual eye test. Only 17 per cent of those who have a family history of eye disease are aware that this makes them more likely to develop eye disease.

FROM: (also there some suggestions on keeping eyes healthy. I would add one more:- if there is a history of glaucoma in you family have regular eye tests from a specialist eye-doctor)

Seeing into the future - Health & Wellbeing

[Jet2]

Yeah. Perhaps if we had a much more complete understanding of our genome, and genomes in general (in process!) we could actually begin re-engineering ourselves.

 

BTW, this question has a good discussability in the social science viewpoint.

 

Don't know whether it should be discussed in Social Science or other area? I am just thinking allowed and I may be jumping too far away...

 

...If we really could re-engineer ourselves, by the same token we could re-engineer any life forms too. So eventually we may be living in a world that tree can talk, pig can fly and we can breath freely in the deep sea...(and whatever you can think of...)

 

And then if ever any animal can be able to use computer, Human being will end up be in deep trouble. For unless by then we have conquered a much advanced power, we may lose our unparalled advantages to the 'smart guys' out there. Will the world become more equal then, I don't know. Or will we be ruled by other more intelligent creature then? Interesting...

 

Ok let's come back here. I am not saying we should not attemp to explore the genome changing test or anything. Don't get me wrong. I just thought of there might be a backfire in what we do to violate the rule of nature.

 

Sorry about going round a big circle above, and again back to the eyes here:

Perhaps you should worry more about seeing at all

You are right Michaelangelica, before we could improve or adjust our seeing ability, there are a lot of things we should do to protect our eye-sight...

 

Jet2

[Zythryn]

I just thought of there might be a backfire in what we do to violate the rule of nature.

 

May I ask how you would define 'rule of nature'?

Many would say we have already 'violated' those rules through using eyeglasses, providing medical treatment to save the life of someone having a heart attact, for some religious any surgery violates 'nature/god'.

Perhaps if we better understood what 'rules of nature' you are concerned with we can better discuss the issue?

I do agree, there are many ethical issues to deal with before recreating species on a large scale.

[Jet2]

May I ask how you would define 'rule of nature'? Many would say we have already 'violated' those rules through using eyeglasses, providing medical treatment to save the life of someone having a heart attact, for some religious any surgery violates 'nature/god'.

?

 

To me 'the way things are' is the 'rule of nature'.

 

I wear glasses to fix my short-sighted problem. But I don't think I am violating the 'rule of nature'. It is because I'm just trying to make my eye-sight stay the way it usd to be. I haven't done anything to make my eyes become more powerful than it was originally born. Same arguement can be applied to taking medicine to cure deseases.

 

Any comments?

[Zythryn]

To me 'the way things are' is the 'rule of nature'.

 

Interesting definition.

Nothing in nature stays the same. It is natural for all things to fall apart over time.

 

However, that being said, I believe there is reason to be careful with any technology. As any technology has the potential to do harm. It doesn't matter if it is seeking to break the 'rules of nature' or not.

[CraigD]

Say, re-engineer / restructure the gene for our eyes so that our new generations can see things in the dark just like cats do?

 

And there are a lot of animals and creatures which have better and more powerful eye-sight than we have that we can copy from.

I’m pretty confident that, while gene therapies to guarantee that future generations of human beings have eyesight equal to or slightly better than the best present-day humans (eg: elite fighter pilots) are desirable and likely to come into common use in the near future, radical genetic engineering to change the eyes of human beings to more closely resemble those of animals such as cats in unlikely, other than possibly for cosmetic reasons – vertical slit cat-irises are very pretty.

 

It’s inaccurate to say that cats have better vision than human beings (source: Cat senses - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). Although they have superior night vision, their day vision, and thus their best-condition vision is markedly inferior to humans. Like many other animals, cats rely largely on their other senses, compensating for their relatively inferior vision. Also, cat night vision is not superior to that of a human being with common night vision devices, such as the headset light amplification systems (“starlight goggles”) worn by soldiers, police, naturalists, etc., equipment that, unlike our poor cat cousins, we humans can take off and stow when advantageous. The same is true for other kinds of enhanced vision – telescopes allow us to see much farther than the most far-sighted animals (eg: birds of prey), multiple cameras and computer vision system to have a greater field of view and motion sensitivity than any animal (eg: herd animals), and other systems to see in color ranges orders of magnitude better than any unaided biological eye.

 

In short, through artifice, we humans have already achieved better vision than any other animal. Currently, however, such devices are unusual, bulky, and inconvenient. Rather than mess with genetically engineering our eyes, I think we’d do better to put effort into further miniaturizing and improving vision enhancement devices to the point that they are effectively – or possibly literally – part of our bodies.

 

Much the same can said about our sense of hearing. However, artificial improvements to the “chemical senses” – smell and taste – are presently much less advanced. Although some real-time chemical sensors (eg: [ce]CO2[/ce] and other hazardous gas sensors) exist, no artificial system is practically as useful and effective for such tasks as sniffing out bombs as a well trained dog.

 

If I could chose a genetic enhancement to my senses to put me at parity with a non-human animal, I’d opt for something along the lines of a sense of smell/taste approaching that of a dog.

[Michaelangelica]

Q. Can our eyes be re-engineered?

A. Yes with glasses, (&night vision scopes, telescopes, microscopes)

If it ain't broke then fix it till it is?

 

Early Glasses Do the Trick for Bilateral Amblyopia

By Neil Osterweil, Senior Associate Editor, MedPage Today

Last reviewed on October 02, 2007

TAMPA, Fla., Oct. 2 -- Early prescription of glasses for children with bilateral refractive amblyopia may prevent a lifetime of visual disability, a team of pediatric ophthalmologists has found.

Action Points

 

* Explain to patients that in the vast majority of cases amblyopia is easily treated, but if left uncorrected can result in permanent visual disability or blindness.

Primary source: American Journal of Ophthalmology

Source reference: Wallace DK et al. "Treatment of Bilateral Refractive Amblyopia in Children Three to Less Than 10 Years of Age." Am J Ophthalmol 2007; 144: 487-496