Better Bionic Eye Offers New Hope of Restored Vision

Profoundly blind people could get their best shot yet of restored vision with a more advanced bionic eye, researchers have announced. Trials of the new retinal prosthesis will begin shortly, following the success of a prototype that has enabled six blind people to see again. The prototypes were fitted in 2002 to patients who had lost their sight entirely. Within a few weeks all could detect light, identify objects and even perceive motion again. For one patient, this was the first time he had seen anything in half a century, after his sight was destroyed by retinitis pigmentosa, a virus that attacks retinal cells