Re: "Star Trek: First Contact" Technical Questions

Chris Hind (chind@juno.com)
Sun, 24 Nov 1996 22:17:53 -0800


>My eye doctor told me that if someone is truly blind (e.g., the retina is
>destroyed), then the optic nerve dies. Therefore, it would not be possible
>to replace the entire eye *unless* you invent a way to bypass the optic
>nerve.

How much is destroyed? Does it have little atrophied remains or is it gone
completely? I've read that a damaged blinded eye can still tell the
difference between night and day and communicates that information back to
the brain whereas people where the eye was removed due to complete
destruction of the eye have problems with insomnia so this points in the
direction of an atrophied optic nerve. Perhaps with some type of
genengineered cell or nanites we can create a new optic nerve by pulling a
strand from the brain?