PTSD, or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, is a serious problem that affect a huge percentage of war veterans. A condition once associated most strongly with Vietnam War veterans, the Afghanistan and Iraq war have brought the condition back into the public eye with a vengeance.
According to the National Institute of Health, the VA estimates that approximately 31% of Vietnam vets, 10% of Desert Storm vets, 11% of Afghanistan vets and 20% of Iraq war veterans are affected. And while photography has been used to great effect to document PTSD in the past, one nurse at the VA in Palo Alto, California is using it to help treat veterans with the condition. Read more…
Professor and self-proclaimed cyborg Steve Mann created an eye and memory-aid device he calls the EyeTap Digital Glass. The EyeTap, worn by Mann above on the left, is a wearable device that is similar to Google Eye, pictured right, but he’s been making them at home since the 1980s. The goal of his project is to use images to aid memory, or even to augment the memories of people with Alzheimer’s Disease or who simply want to preserve their memories more permanently. However, a recent misunderstanding over Mann’s technology allegedly caused a confrontation between Mann and several employees at a Paris McDonald’s restaurant.
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Image sensors and the advent of digital imaging have been met with differing reactions from the photographical community. But what a team of doctors at the Oxford Eye Hospital have managed to do with the technology is 100% digital, and 100% amazing. Clinical trial leaders Robert MacLaren and Tim Jackson have helped two blind men to partially see again. Read more…
Mother Jones reports that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is cracking down on glymes — chemicals linked to health problems that can be found in many products we regularly come in contact with, including digital cameras:
Did you print a piece of paper today? Or use a digital camera? If so, it could have exposed you to glymes, a clear liquid class of chemicals used as solvents in printer ink, carpet cleaners and other household products. For a decade, the EPA has known about studies that link glymes to health problems including miscarriages, developmental damage, and gene mutation. And yet only now is the agency beginning to regulate them. This July, the EPA announced that it plans to clamp down on glymes, which may join the ranks of the 360 chemicals subject to the EPA’s “significant new use rule.” This means that any time a company wants to use glymes, it would have to ask the EPA first.
This Mystery Chemical Could Cause You To Miscarry [Mother Jones]
Image credit: point & shoot by quapan
Medical experiments can be quite bizarre — I once heard about one that involved injecting subjects with various kinds of animal feces. After a year of participating in various clinical trials for cash, photographer and recent art-school graduate Josh Dickinson decided to start a project called Studied to document what it’s like to be a human guinea pig. His experiences range from being pricked with needles and subjected to pain to being suffocated…
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According to Hoya founder Shigeru Yamanaka’s grandson, Yutaka Yamanaka, Hoya’s acquisition of Pentax may not have been the best business move. The younger Yamanaka said the $1 billion acquisition in 2007 was made mostly to expand Hoya’s involvement in medical optics, but turned out to be “overpriced.” Yamanaka, a Hoya shareholder, went so far as to say it was one of Hoya’s business “failures” which led to financial turbulence over the last three years until Pentax turned profitable.
In spite of Yamanaka’s disapproval of the Pentax purchase, it’s rumored that other companies might be interested in buying up Hoya’s unwanted acquisition. Canon Rumors reports that Canon attempted to buy Pentax, perhaps in order to control more of the DSLR marketshare, in direct competition with Sony. Sony may also be interested in Pentax’s user base. But so far, no word on whether Hoya’s ready to hand off Pentax anytime soon.
(via Bloomberg)
