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The Invention of the Bionic Eye: A Vision-Correcting Solution
An overview of attempts to restore some sight with electronics: where a bionic eye can stimulate the visual system, how it developed, and its real limits.
Medicine and the Body
Sight and Hearing Aids
Bionic eyes and ears, implants and the microscope.
How the Microscope Revolutionized Our Understanding of the World
How lenses opened up the very small, from early lens makers and the compound microscope to Hooke, Leeuwenhoek, cells and the discovery of germs.
The Development of the Bionic Ear: A Hearing-Correcting Solution
How cochlear implants moved from single electrodes to multichannel implants, with better speech processing strategies and smaller external parts.
The Development of the Bionic Eye: A Vision-Correcting Solution
The engineering of retinal implants placed on or under the retina, the early designs, and the clinical trials that shaped today's visual prostheses.
The Development of the Smart Contact Lens: A Health-Monitoring Device
A history of research projects on contact lenses that read chemistry in tear fluid, covering the sensors, the materials, the power problem and the open questions.
The History of the Bionic Ear: A Hearing-Correcting Solution
How experiments on stimulating the hearing nerve led to the cochlear implant, from early electrical experiments to an established and widely used device.
The History of the Hearing Aid: From Analog to Digital
The history of hearing aids from ear trumpets and carbon microphones through transistors and integrated circuits to digital signal processing.
The History of the Prosthetic Eye: A Vision-Correcting Solution
The history of artificial eyes that restore appearance rather than sight, from ancient examples to blown glass and the shift to acrylic in the 20th century.
The Invention of the Cochlear Implant: A Life-Changing Device
The early electrical hearing experiments of the 1950s and 1960s that led to the cochlear implant, who is credited, and where the historical record is disputed.
The Invention of the Contact Lens: A Vision Correction
The early history of contact lenses: Leonardo's sketch, Descartes, Young and Herschel, and the glass shells of the 1880s that were the first lenses worn on the eye.
The Invention of the Contact Lens: A Vision-Correcting Solution
How contact lenses moved from rigid plastic to soft hydrogel in the 20th century, and how wearing lenses became a common way to correct vision.
The Invention of the First Smart Contact Lens: A Connected Eye
A history of experimental contact lenses with built-in sensors and electronics, what has been prototyped, what reached the market and which claims are unproven.
The Invention of the Medical Implantable Cochlear Implant: A Life-Saving Breakthrough
Where the cochlear implant sits among implantable devices for hearing loss, how clinics adopted it, and the debates in the deaf community around it.
The Invention of the Smart Contact Lens: A Health-Monitoring and Vision-Correcting Device
The story of research on contact lenses that read glucose and other body chemistry from the eye, and what has and has not reached the market. History only.
The Invention of the Smart Implant: A High-Tech and Customizable Device
A history of implants with sensors, electronics or custom shapes, from the first pacemakers to patient-specific 3D-printed parts and connected devices.
The Story of the First Bionic Eye: A Medical Marvel
Early visual prosthesis research, from phosphenes and cortical stimulation experiments to the first retinal systems that won regulatory approval, with dates hedged.
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More in medicine and the body
Prosthetic Limbs Artificial arms, hands, legs and feet through the centuries. Exoskeletons and Artificial Tissue Wearable assistive frames, soft robotics, artificial muscle and skin. Microscopy How lenses opened the microscopic world and changed medicine. Medical Imaging Seeing inside the body with scans. X-Rays Discovery and early use of X-ray machines. Heart Devices and Implants Pacemakers, defibrillators, valves and artificial hearts. Diabetes Care Technology Insulin, pumps and the artificial pancreas. Vaccines and Genetics Polio vaccine, DNA and gene editing. Medical Instruments Everyday tools of examination and treatment, told as history.