Meet Tony Grobmeier, who was born without a corpus callosum, the structure that connects the two interdependent halves of our brains: language and linear thinking on the left, emotion and visual perception on the right. Next, enter the FlyLab at Caltech, where Michael Dickinson and his graduate students are researching the brain with help from Drosophila Melanogaster-a.k.a. the fruit fly. After that, find out how scientists are attempting to catch the brain in the act of decision making using an fMRI, a method of brain scanning that is revolutionizing our understanding of the science of decision making. Finally, meet a fascinating cast of robots, including NASA veterans like the Mars Exploration Rover and youngsters like the tool-wielding A.T.H.L.E.T.E. (All Terrain Hex-Limbed Extra-Terrestrial Explorer).

Mark E. Davis, a successful chemical engineer, never dreamed that he would reinvent his career and create a revolutionary kind of cancer drug. But everything changed when his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. 10 years later, IT-101, the nanoparticle drug he engineered, was approved for a six-month trial in humans. Also, meet a group of young, hopeful scientists who are setting their sights on a resource that provides enough energy in one hour to power the entire globe for one year-the sun. They believe they can create an “artificial leaf” that uses sunlight to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.

Then she received the 16-electrode Artificial Retina implant, and everything changed.

In this Web Exclusive video, Linda discusses what it’s like to be able to see again after so many years of darkness. She talks about how important sight is in everyday situations — like going to the grocery store with her husband or following the action of her grandchildren’s hockey games — when most of us take our sight for granted.

But it also took time for Linda to adjust to her implant. She tells of the strategies she has learned to help her understand the flashing lights of the electrode array.

Mark Humayun, M.D., Ph.D. is Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Cell and Neurobiology at the University of Southern California. Dr. Humayun completed his medical degree at Duke University Medical School. While in his residency training at Duke Eye Center, Dr. Humayun earned his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Damien Rodger is a researcher for the Caltech Micromachining Laboratory. He is a M.D./Ph.D. student at the University of Southern California/California Institute of Technology.

The Artificial Retina Project is a multi-institutional collaborative effort, headed by the U.S. Department of Energy, whose goal is to restore partial sight to people blinded by retinal diseases such as age-related macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa.

In normal vision, light enters the eye through the lens, which focuses the light as an image across the retina — a screen of photoreceptor cells (rods and cones) arrayed in a membrane across the back of the eye. These cells convert the light to electrical impulses that pass through the optic nerve to the brain.

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a retinal disease affecting approximately 12 million people aged 60 or over in the United States, of whom 10 percent suffer severe vision loss each year. AMD is caused by fluid leakage or bleeding in the central area of the retina, causing gradual loss of central vision. Due to the brain’s capacity to compensate, this loss may go unnoticed in its early stages.

Retinitis pigmentosa is a genetic disorder that strikes people between the ages of 20 and 60. In contrast with AMD, it initially causes deterioration of peripheral vision rather than central vision. Approximately 500,000 people in the United States suffer from retinitis pigmentosa, of whom 20,000 are totally blind.

Designing an Artificial Retina

Although retinal diseases cause irreversible damage to the retina, the optic nerve and the brain remain intact. The plan of the Artificial Retina Project is not to restore function to the eye itself, but to use the retina essentially as a portal to the optic nerve. The system consists of three basic elements:

• a tiny electronic camera and microprocessor mounted on a pair of eyeglasses
• a small transmitter implanted behind the patient’s ear
• an implant studded with an array of microelectrodes that is tacked to the eye’s natural retina.

Power for the artificial retina comes from a wireless battery pack worn on the belt.

Images from the camera are converted to an electronic signal in the microprocessor and sent to the transmitter behind the patient’s ear. The transmitter relays the signal to the retinal implant, whose microprocessors send the image to the optic nerve as electronic pulses. The brain learns to interpret these pulses as sight.

Developing and implementing the artificial retina presents numerous, often conflicting challenges:

• Devices must be sufficiently safe, effective, and durable to provide a lifetime of use.
• The artificial retina must be compatible with the delicate tissues of the eye yet tough enough to survive in the eye’s salty interior.
• The artificial retina must also remain safely tacked to the natural retina — whose surface has the resilience of wet facial tissue — without shifting or causing damage.
• The device must operate at power sufficient to stimulate the electrodes, yet not produce heat at levels that might damage surrounding tissue.
• Image processing must take place in real time.
• Successful implantation requires development of innovative surgical procedures.

In 2002, Argus 1, the first artificial retina — a postage-stamp-sized device containing an array of 16 electrodes — was implanted into the eye of a man who had been blinded by retinitis pigmentosa for more than 50 years. Five additional patients with retinitis pigmentosa have received the device. All six patients regained the ability to distinguish light from dark, locate and describe the motion of objects, and count individual items.

Clinical trials for an improved device, Argus 2, began in January 2007. Argus 2 contains an array of 60 electrodes on an implant much smaller than that used in Argus 1. And time required for surgery has fallen from six hours to two. Argus 2 is expected to be the first artificial retina to become commercially available.

The greater number of electrodes is intended to improve resolution, much as increasing the number of dots per inch on a printed picture improves its sharpness and clarity.

A third-generation device is already in development, which will provide an array of 200 electrodes on a smaller, more flexible material that will conform to the shape of the eye. Ultimately, the DOE Artificial Retina Project anticipates an implant containing up to a thousand microelectrodes, with resolution that will allow patients to read large print, move without assistance, and recognize faces.

The Artificial Retina Project is now recruiting patients. For more information on this research and to find out more about enrolling in the clinical trial, visit http://artificialretina.energy.gov.

Amy Litt, Ph.D. is the Director of Plant Genomics and Cullman Curator at the New York Botanical Garden’s International Plant Science Center.

Special Thanks

Footage of real leaves seen in CURIOUS was shot at New York Botanical Garden.

Founded in 1891 and located just 20 minutes from Grand Central Terminal in New York City, the New York Botanical Garden is home to one of the world’s great collections of real, living plants — the inspiration for Caltech scientists working on innovative energy solutions.

Visitors will find an “ecotour” of the world in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, an indoor/outdoor science museum for kids, and more — all on this 250-acre National Historic Landmark site in New York City’s Bronx borough.

The exhaustive study of the brain and function of the fruit fly is necessarily esoteric yet endlessly fascinating. Research projects at the lab include the grand unified fly model, aerodynamics of flapping flight, visual-mechanosensory fusion in the control of flight maneuvers, neuromuscular mechanics of steering muscles, flight energetics and regulations of power muscles, visual upwind flight control, visual-olfactory fusion in search behavior, long-distance olfactory orientation, and visual attraction and repulsion during flight: is it a predator or a perch?

How They Do It

Studying drosophila has entailed developing a remarkable array of unique tools. Some of the most fascinating include:

Robofly. Officially called the Dynamically Scaled Flapping Robot, Robofly allows researchers to study the aerodynamics of flapping flight. Robofly has a 60-millimeter wingspan, flaps five times a second, and is submerged in two tons of mineral oil. Each wing can achieve three rotational angles, a feat controlled by six individual computers. Robofly has a mate, Bride of Robofly, which is modified to study the aerodynamics of forward flight.

A multicamera system for tracking freely flying animals in real time. This system employs five digital cameras that shoot at 100 frames per second. The cameras are attached to discrete computers that send data to a sixth computer, which constantly calculates the fly’s position and orientation in three dimensions.

Free Flight Arena (Fly-O-Rama). Affectionately known as Fly-O-Rama, the tracking arena consists of a cylinder 40 centimeters high and a meter in diameter designed to trace the trajectories of fruit flies in 3D using a stereo video system. Computer-controlled LEDs lining the interior of the arena can create visual panoramas that simulate the fly’s-eye view. Solid objects and odors can be placed in the arena to complicate things for the fly.

Mechanical Flight Simulator (Rock-n-Roll Arena). Anyone who has tried to put snow boots on a chihuahua will appreciate the trouble researchers at the fly lab must go to when they tether a fruit fly. Rock-n-Roll Arena is used in conjunction with Fly-O-Rama to create a flight simulator for drosophila. The fly is tethered to a fine tungsten wire and placed within a cylindrical array of computer-controlled LEDs. A wingbeat analyzer (which tracks the two wings in real time) or laser-based force and torque sensors (which measure whole-body aerodynamic forces generated by the fly) measure the output of the fly’s flight system. The instruments are used in two basic configurations. The open-loop mode allows researchers to study the fly’s behavioral response to an unchanging visual stimulus. In closed-loop mode, the fly’s changes in wing motion or flight forces (for example, generating an aerodynamic torque that would cause a rotation to the left) govern alterations in the visual environment, providing the fly with the illusion of movement.

The Robotics Laboratory at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology has developed some of the most advanced robotic devices in use today, including the Mars Exploration Rover, which has perhaps sparked the public’s interest more than any other real-live robot. The JPL agenda includes a vast array of projects for such purposes as the exploration of distance planets and asteroids and military applications.

Currently en route to Mars as part of the Phoenix Mars mission, a robot arm designed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory is designed to dig trenches, scoop up soil and water-ice samples, and deliver them to testing instruments on the Mars Lander.

Additional projects include:

• development of simulators intended to duplicate entry, descent, and landing conditions for a Mars landing as well as high-fidelity Martian terrain models
• multisensor hazard assessment and safe-site assessment
• reusable robotic software
• autonomous robotic balloons for future Titan and Venus missions

For more information on JPL Robotics, please visit their Web site.

ECAgents

Sponsored by the Future and Emerging Technologies program of the European Community, the mission of ECAgents is to develop next-generation agents capable of independent interaction with the physical world and direct communication with other agents, including humans.

Although immediate application of these technologies will be in existing technologies, including cell phones, Wi-Fi devices, and robots, the ultimate goal is to develop far more advanced creations.

ECAgents envisions robotic devices that, through interaction with other devices and with humans, will be able to evolve and develop new and expanded capabilities. Potential applications include entertainment robots; service robots able to work in teams to locate, care for, and rescue people in devastated areas or to monitor dangerous environmental areas; and companion robots that could enhance and assist an individual’s own ability to perform crucial tasks.

Laboratory of Autonomous Robotics and Artificial Life

Situated in Rome, Italy, the Laboratory of Autonomous Robotics and Artificial Life is a division of the Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies (CNR), which is carrying out research in artificial life, evolutionary robotics, and communications development. Research focuses on developing artificial organisms, with bodies controlled by an artificial neural network, that can interact with an external environment and can adapt and evolve as part of a larger population. This last point demonstrates the laboratory’s interest in the collective behavior of artificial life.