Exceptionally Talented Artist Paints with Her Lips

Natalie Irish is one of those artists who use only her lips and stick to create mind-blowing masterpieces. Like someone said, she has more talent in her lips than most do in their whole body.

We probably haven’t seen Natalie’s art before, neither had I, and that’s a real shame because she creates some pretty unique stuff. Using only her lips and a lipstick, she makes detailed portraits, like the one of Marilyn Monroe, pictured below. The Houston-based artist simply crease her lips and kisses the paper canvas thousands of times, until she gets the desired

China Celebrates the World’s Longest Sea Bridge Inauguration

Four of the world's six longest bridges releases to the public in China today.

Three of the bridges – as well as the two longest ever built – are part of the Beijing-Shanghai High Speed Railway which made its first profitable trip earlier today. The Jiaozhou Bay bridge, which is the world's longest over-water bridge at 26.4 miles, also opened today.

This bridge connects the port city of Qingdao to the suburban Huangdao on the other side of the bay. China, with the world's largest populace, deals with often-crippling transportation congestion issues, so the government has spent billions of dollars in recent years to ease these issues.

“It is a superb and very advanced bridge,” Li Qun, the local Communist party secretary, said at the bridge's opening ceremony. “It is another stepping stone in the city's smooth and rapid development.”

Cost figures for the Jiaozhou Bay Bridge, which is likely to carry 30,000 cars a day, vary widely: State-run CCTV accounted that the cost was more than 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) and the Xinhua news agency put the cost at $2.3 billion, and some approximates have put the cost at more than $8.8 billion.

For that cost, the Jiaozhou Bay Bridge is seriously strong. The Guinness Book of World Records announced that "the earthquake- and typhoon-proof bridge ... is intended to withstand the impact of a 300,000-ton vessel."

Although the bridge will be free to use for the next month, government officials pointed to that they plan to finally charge a toll of 50 yuan ($7.70). The bridge has six lanes, is about 110 feet wide, and officials estimate that it will halve the journey from Qingdao to Huangdao to about 30 minutes.

The Jiaozhou Bay bridge is the sixth longest bridge ever built, and smashes the record for world's longest over-water bridge by more than 2.5 miles, beating the United States' Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in Louisiana.

The Beijing-Shanghai High Speed Railway, is a project that began in 2008, and, in making that trip in under four hours, more than halved the previous 10-hour run time of a parallel train. It cost approximately $33 billion to build and is expected to carry 80 million passengers a year, doubling the route's capacity.

In building the railway, the Chinese government constructed three large over-land bridges: the 102-mile long Danyang–Kunshan Grand Bridge, the 71-mile long Tianjin Grand Bridge and the 30-mile Beijing Grand Bridge – the first, second, and fifth longest bridges in the world respectively.

Eleven of the world's 15 longest bridges are located in China.

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Man stung by scorpion on commercial flight

An airline passenger man got a shock – and some pain – when he was stung by a scorpion during a flight from Seattle to port, Alaska.

Jeff Ellis, who lives in Oregon, tells K he was trying to sleep on an during the night Alaska Airlines flight when he felt something in his sleeve and tried to brush it away.

He says he felt the crawling again, looked down and saw the culprit. "I picked my hand up and said, 'Oh, my God. That's a scorpion."'

Ellis says he clutched the scorpion with a napkin, but not before it stung him on the elbow. He says it caused a burning sensation.

Ellis was checked by two doctors on board and medics on the ground.

The flight originated from Austin, Texas, where Alaska Airlines officials believe the scorpion got on board. Ellis says the airline offered him some frequent-flyer miles and two round-trip tickets.

Negative Emotion May Improve Memory

Picture a menacing drill sergeant, a gory slaughterhouse, a devastating scene of a natural disaster. Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have found that viewing such emotion-laden images immediately after taking a test actually enhances people's retention of the tested material.

The data the researchers gathered in recent studies are the first to show that negative arousal following successful retrieval of information enhances later recall of that information.

The finding is counterintuitive. One would think that viewing a negative scene would tend to blot out anything learned before seeing the image.

Instead, learning is enhanced by the (negative) emotion, says Bridgid Finn, PhD, postdoctoral researcher in psychology in Arts & Sciences. "Memory is labile and dynamic -- after you retrieve something, you're still engaged in processing that information in some way," Finn says.

"Having a picture of a gun pointed at you just after you've just been tested on something probably isn't the best situation for learning, but because there is an intricate relationship between areas involved in emotion and remembering, the amygdala and the hippocampus, we find that the negative picture can enhance later retention."

Finn and Henry L. Roediger III, PhD, James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor and dean of academic planning, published their findings in the June 2011 issue of Psychological Science.

The researchers tested 40 undergraduate WUSTL students who studied ten lists of ten pairs of Swahili-English vocabulary items (lulu/pearl; ubini/forgery). Participants were given a cued recall test after studying each set of ten pairs, and then given a final test on all 100 pairs.

On the initial test, following each correct answer, they were shown a picture either of a negative emotional image such as a pointed gun; a neutral image, such as a chair, or a blank screen.
They then did a one-minute multiplication test, a sort of mental palette cleansing to remove the effects of short-term memory, like a serving of sherbet in a multiple course meal.

A final cued-recall test on all 100 Swahili-English items revealed that participants did best on items that had been followed by the negative pictures.

This initial experiment showed that the process involved in retrieving an item does not end when that item is retrieved. In a second experiment designed to explore the limits of the enhancement effect, the researchers tested a second group of students who viewed the images two seconds after successful retrieval. The question: Does the retrieval process persist during those two seconds?

"The answer appears to be yes, the students continue to process the information during the two second pause," Finn says.

A third study of 61 students was intended to rule out the possibility that arousing images simply made certain pairs of words seem more distinct, and thus made them easier to remember. This experiment was very similar to the other two with one major distinction: Instead of taking the initial tests, participants restudied the items.

"For negative emotion to enhance later retention of something, this experiment shows that you have to retrieve that information," Finn says. "That is, you have to go get it. In the absence of retrieval, the negative pictures do not enhance later performance. That's critical."

The study revealed no gender differences in participants' success rates. Finn and Roediger did not measure the effects of physiological parameters such as adrenaline or hormonal responses in connection with the negative arousal.

Importantly, other studies Finn and Roediger are doing thus far show that positive images do not enhance retrieval or retention. For instance, preliminary data on a study of participants who were tested on items that were followed by sexually arousing images show no learning enhancement. While the pictures were arousing, they weren't linked to enhanced retrieval on the later test.

"Positive content, so far, doesn't seem to be doing the trick," Finn says.

The researchers believe that their results mark the first step in understanding the kinds of things that might be beneficial to enhance memory after retrieval.

"We've established that the period after retrieval is key in retaining information," Finn says. "We want to build on that foundation and explore it in depth. We want to see what kinds of manipulations can possibly be introduced in the post-retrieval phase to understand when enhancement or impairment of retention might occur."

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First man ‘functionally cured’ of HIV

Since HIV was discovered 30 years ago this week, 30 million people have died from the disease, and it prolongs to spread at the rate of 7,000 people per day globally, the UN says.

There's not much good news when it comes to this disturbing virus. But that is perhaps why the story of the man scientists call the "Berlin patient" is so extraordinary and has generated so much thrilled among the HIV support community.

Timothy Ray Brown suffered from both leukemia and HIV when he received a bone marrow stem cell transplant in Berlin, Germany in 2007. The transplant came from a man who was immune to HIV, which scientists say about 1 percent of Caucasians are.

What happened next has stunned the dozens of scientists who are closely monitoring Brown: His HIV went away.

"He has no replicating virus and he isn't taking any medication. And he will now probably never have any problems with HIV," his doctor Gero Huetter told Reporters. Brown now lives in the Bay Area, and suffers from some mild neurological difficulties after the operation. "It makes me very happy," he says of the incredible cure.

The development of anti-retroviral drugs in the 1990s was the first sign of hope in the epidemic, transforming the disease from a sudden killer to a more convenient illness that could be lived with for decades. But still, the amazing cocktail of drugs is expensive, costing $13 billion a year in developing countries alone. That figure is expected to triple in 20 years--raising the worry that more sick people will not be able to pay for the treatment.

Although Brown's story is extraordinary, scientists were quick to point out that bone marrow transplants can be fatal, and there's no way Brown's treatment could be applied to the 33.3 million people around the world living with HIV. The discovery does give confidence "cure research," according to Dr. Jay Levy, who co-discovered HIV thirty years ago, something that many people did not even think was possible years ago.

Protein from Bones of 600,000-Year-Old Mammoth Extracted Effectively

Researchers from the University of York and Manchester have successfully extracted protein from the bones of a 600,000-year-old mammoth, paving the way for the recognition of ancient fossils.

Using an ultra-high resolution mass spectrometer, bio-archaeologists were able to create a near complete collagen series for the West Runton Elephant, a Steppe Mammoth skeleton which was discovered in cliffs in Norfolk in 1990. The remarkable 85 per cent complete skeleton -- the most total example of its species ever found in the world -- is potted by Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service in Norwich.

Bio-archaeologist Professor Matthew Collins, from the University of York's Department of Archaeology, said: "The time depth is totally extraordinary. Until several years ago we did not believe we would find any collagen in a skeleton of this age, even if it was as well-preserved as the West Runton Elephant.

"We consider protein lasts in a useful form ten times as long as DNA which is normally only useful in detections of up to 100,000 years old in Northern Europe. The implications are that we can use collagen sequencing to look at very old extinct animals. It also means we can look through old sites and recognize remains from tiny fragments of bone."

Dr Mike Buckley, from the Faculty of Life Sciences at the University of Manchester, said: "What is truly charming is that this basically important protein, which is one of the most abundant proteins in most (vertebrate) animals, is an ideal target for obtaining long lost genetic information."

The collagen sequencing was carried out at the Centre for Excellence in Mass Spectrometry at the University of York and is debatably the oldest protein ever sequenced; short peptides (chains of amino acids) have controversially been accounted from dinosaur fossils.

The research formed part of a study into the sequencing of mammoths and mastodons, which is published in the journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. The West Runton Elephant was compared with other mammoths, modern elephants and mastodons. Despite the age of the fossil, sufficient peptides were obtained to recognize the West Runton skeleton as elephantid, and there was sufficient sequence variation to distinguish elephantid and mammutid collagen.

Nigel Larkin, co-author and Research Associate with Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service, said: "The West Runton Elephant is unusual in that it is a nearly total skeleton. At the time this animal was alive, before the Ice Ages, spotted hyenas much larger than those in Africa today were scavenging most carcasses and eat greedily the bones as well as meat. That means most fossils found from this time period are individual bones or fragments of bone, making them difficult to identify. In the future, collagen sequencing might help us to decide the species represented by even smallest scraps of bone.

"Therefore this research has important insinuation for bones and bone fragments in all archaeological and palaeontological collections in museums and archaeology units around the world, not just those of Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service in Norwich."

Rare White Kiwi Chick Born

A rare white kiwi chick, named Manukura, hatched on May 1 at New Zealand's national wildlife center. It's believed to be the first all-white kiwi chick born in captivity.

The unusual chick is not an albino, but the rare offspring of kiwi that were transferred the center, called Pukaha Mount Bruce, from Hauturu/Little Barrier Island last year.

"The kiwi population on Little Barrier Island has birds with white markings and some white kiwi, but this was still a big surprise," Pukaha Mount Bruce Board chairman, Bob Francis said in a press release.

Manukura was the thirteenth of fourteen kiwis successfully hatched at Pukaha Mount Bruce this breeding season. When it is old enough to protect itself, Mankura may be released into a wildlife sanctuary.

But wildlife officials say they will make that decision carefully since, as Department of Conservation area manager Chris Lester pointed out, "A white kiwi might really stand out making it more vulnerable."

Pukaha board member, Jason Kerehi, said tribal elders saw the white chick as a "tohu" or "sign" of new beginnings. "Every now and then something extraordinary comes along to remind you of how special life is."

A six years old young magneto in the making!!

Ivan Stoiljkovic, a six-year-old boy from a small town in norther Croatia, has been drawing media attention with his unusual gift of making large amount of metal stick to his torso.

Young Ivan may not look to be in the best likely shape for his age, but that’s never stopped him from taking off his t-shirt and attaching metal objects on his chest and belly. “We always felt he was a bit special. At 15 months-of-age he was rollerblading, he started on foot at eight months. He was less than two when he started driving a little motorcycle, and it was a bit weird,” says Ivan Surlovic, young Magneto’s grandfather.

It all started as a joke, a few months ago, when Ivan’s grandmother was watching a show about a boy with magnetic capabilities. Her grandson took his shirt off and asked if he could do something like that, so they tried putting metal things on him and they just stuck.

According to Ivan Surlovic’s family, his powers are strongest in the morning and when he is calm and focused. They say he is capable of carrying up to 25 pounds of metal on his body, with heavier objects actually sticking better than lighter ones. His upper body appears to be more magnetic.

And magnetism isn’t the only “super power” this boy has, according to his folks his wounds heal much faster than they normally should, leaving no scars, and his healing scars have been known to alleviate his grandfather’s stomach pains, and the pain of a neighbor who hurt his leg in a tractor accident.

The above story sounds pretty impressive, but after reading James Randi’s thoughts on the matter, I’m not that convinced of his magnetic powers.

Giant Guitar With 7,000 Trees Made By A Farmer

Pedro Martin Ureta, a 70-year old Argentine farmer from General Levalle, has used 7,000 cypress and eucalyptus trees to make a giant guitar in memory of his late wife, Graciela, who expired in 1977, when she was only 25. He discussed with a number of landscapers, but none of them were interested in such a daring try, so the farmer just had to do it himself.

Planting the tree guitar required a family effort. His kids would stand in a row, three meters apart, and the farm hands would plant trees in those exact spots, after which they re-formed the line in another position and more trees were planted. Most of the guitar, including the body and star-shaped hole were designed using cypress trees, as for the strings the bluish tones of eucalyptus trees were used.

World’s Largest Ice-cream Cake - Canada

Yesterday, Canadian company Dairy Queen has placed a new world record by making the world’s largest ice-cream cake in Yonge and Dundas Square, Toronto.













It took 100 people over a year to plan the occasion, but after 30 years and 52 million ice-cream cakes sold, this was the ideal way to celebrate, according to Denise Hutton, vice-president of marketing at Dairy Queen Canada. Dozens of chefs worked around the clock using over 9,000 kg of ice-cream, 91 kg of sponge cake, around 136 kg of icing and Oreo crumbles, to beat the former world record, a nearly 8,000 kg ice-cream cake made by China, in 2006.

After the cake was finished and approved by the Guinness Book of Records, pieces of it were served to the crowd met in Yonge and Dundas Square, with 100% of suggested donations going to Children’s Miracle Network. “When else can eating ice cream cake help to fund medical care, research and educational programs so that Canadian kids have access to world-class care? It’s the best of all worlds – a delicious treat and a great cause.” said the charity’s Paul Lethbridge.

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First Successful Full Face Transplantation - United States

Dallas Wiens, the first person in the United States to undergo a full face transplant, has came into view publicly for the first time.

The construction worker suffered horrific burns in an accident in the United States more than two years ago, which left him blind and with no a nose or lips.

He underwent a 15-hour procedure in March, in which a team of 30 doctors at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, transplanted an whole new face from an nameless donor.

Mr Wiens, 26, wearing dark sunglasses, said: "To me the face feels natural, as it if has turn out to be my own. I can never express what has been done, what I have been given.

"The ability to breathe through my nose normally, that in itself was a major gift."
He said his three-year-old daughter Scarlett liked his new face, adding: "She actually said 'Daddy, you're so handsome'."

New proof - Caffeine Is a Healthful Antioxidant in Coffee

Scientists are reporting an in-depth analysis of how the caffeine in coffee, tea, and other foods appears to defend against conditions such as Alzheimer's disease and heart disease on the most basic levels.
The report, which describes the chemistry behind caffeine's antioxidant belongings, appears in ACS' The Journal of Physical Chemistry B.

Annia Galano and Jorge Rafael León-Carmona describe evidence suggestive of that coffee is one of the richest sources of healthful antioxidants in the average person's diet. Some of the latest investigate points to caffeine (also present in tea, cocoa, and other foods) as the source of powerful antioxidant effects that may help defend people from Alzheimer's and other diseases. However, scientists know little about exactly how caffeine works in scavenging the so-called free radicals that have damaging effects in the body. And those few studies sometimes have reached contradictory conclusions.

In an effort to bolster scientific knowledge about caffeine, they present detailed theoretical calculations on caffeine's interactions with free radicals. Their theoretical conclusions show "excellent" consistency with the results that other scientists have report from animal and other experiments, bolstering the likelihood that caffeine is, indeed, a source of healthful antioxidant activity in coffee.

Talented Man creates detailed artwork with his mouth and right foot

Now you must shut your mouth if you say this 41-year-old Huang Guofu, is disabled. Because he does more than what an able person can do. This great man is from Chongqing, China, has learned to master the paintbrush with his mouth and right foot, after he lost both his hands in a childhood accident.

Huang Guofu lost his arms in dreadful electric shock accident, at the tender age of four, but that didn’t stop him from following his dreams, and at age 12 he began painting with his feet. The gifted artist remembers that in the start, his artworks didn’t look at all like what he future to paint, but as the years went by his skills improved significantly. Huang quit his studies when he was 18, as his father was very ill and he needed to make money for his treatments. He started travelling to other Chinese cities, creating stunning paintings on the side of streets and selling them to passers-by.

It was during his art actions that he began using his mouth to paint, after hearing some comments that painting with one’s leg isn’t very stylish. He put a brush in his mouth and started painting. During a trip to a city in China’s Sichuan Province, Huang Guofu met Hu Guoui, a woman who quickly fell in love with his strong will and artistic talents, and the two got married in 2000. Since then, she has become his helper, carrying his canvas and tools, whenever he needs to paint a scene on location.

Huang Guofu has been named vice-curator of the newly established Chongqing Talents Museum, for his artistic attainments and powerful spirit. Since then, many more mouth-and-foot painters have joined the museum. The artist believes that “when life closes one door to you, it must have opened another at the same time” and says publicly he is happy and content with what God has given him.

Paul Gauguin statue sells for record price

A wooden bust by Paul Gauguin has sold for $11.3m (£6.8m) at Sotheby's in New York, a record price for a statue by the 19th Century French artist.

Jeune tahitienne (Young Tahitian) was last seen in public in 1961.

The work had been predictable to sell for between $10m (£6m) and $15m (£9m), the sale house said.
The current record for a Gauguin work is held by L'homme a la hache (The Man with an Axe), which sold for $40.3m (£24.4m) in 2006.

The latest auction agrees with a Gauguin exhibition taking place at the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

It is the first main exhibit of the artist's career in the United States in approximately 20 years.

This week's sale contrasts with an earlier auction in London in February when a rare Gauguin picture failed to sell.

Nature Morte A L'Esperance (Still Life with Sunflowers) had been probable to fetch up to £10 million at the Christie's event.

World Population to reach 10 billion by 2100 if Fertility in all Countries Converges to Replacement Level

The current world population of close to 7 billion is projected to reach 10.1 billion in the next ninety years, reaching 9.3 billion by the middle of this century, according to the medium variant of the 2010 Revision of World Population Prospects, the official United Nations population projections prepared by the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, which is being launched today. Much of this increase is projected to come from the high-fertility countries, which comprise 39 countries in Africa, nine in Asia, six in Oceania and four in Latin America.

Small variations in fertility can produce major differences in the size of populations over the long run. The high projection variant, whose fertility is just half a child above that in the medium variant, produces a world population of 10.6 billion in 2050 and 15.8 billion in 2100. The low variant, whose fertility remains half a child below that of the medium, produces a population that reaches 8.1 billion in 2050 and declines towards the second half of this century to reach 6.2 billion in 2100. For long-term trends the medium variant is taken as reference.

The medium-variant projection for 2050 is more certain than for 2100 because people who will be 40 years and older in 2050 are already born. According to the medium variant, it will take 13 years to add the eighth billion, 18 years to add the ninth billion and
40 years to reach the tenth billion. According to the high variant, an additional billion would be added every 10 or 11 years for the rest of this century.

Current fertility levels vary markedly among countries. Today, 42 per cent of the world’s population lives in low-fertility countries, that is, countries where women are not having enough children to ensure that, on average, each woman is replaced by a daughter who survives to the age of procreation. Another 40 per cent lives in intermediate-fertility countries where each woman is having, on average, between 1 and 1.5 daughters, and the remaining 18 per cent lives in high-fertility countries where the average woman has more than 1.5 daughters (see map).

High-fertility countries are mostly concentrated in Africa (39 out of the 55 countries in the continent have high fertility), but there are also nine in Asia, six in Oceania and four in Latin America. Low-fertility countries include all countries in Europe except Iceland and Ireland, 19 out of the 51 in Asia, 14 out of the 39 in the Americas, two in Africa
(Mauritius and Tunisia) and one in Oceania (Australia).

Population for countries grouped by fertility level, medium variant, 1950-
2100

Total fertility for countries grouped by fertility level, medium variant, selected periods

Small differences in fertility levels sustained over long periods have a major impact on the future population.

Korean Girl Removes Make-up after 24 Months

Doctors advise women remove their make-up every night before they go to sleep, in order to prevent harm to their skin, but a young South-Korean girl preferred to wear her make-up mask full-time, for the last two years.

20-year-old Bae Dal-mi first exposed make-up when she was just 14. You could say it was love at first brush, and ever as then, the young Koream urbanized her make-up talents to the point where she became so needy on it that she didn’t want to remove it anymore. As she kept applying ever-thicker layers of make-up on her face, the mirror became the most significant item in Bae’s life and she declares “I wanted to look perfect at all time, I even slept with the make-up on.” Shae wasn’t happy with her appearance, and said she wanted to have plastic surgery in 10 different places.

For the last two years, the young girl never used make-up removers, so her mother, infuriated by Bae’s behaviour, contacted a TV station and told them Bae’s unbelievable story. During a variety show, dermatologists managed to talk into Bae Dal-mi to finally remove the layers of make-up, and after a particular check-up they found her skin was two times older than her actual age. All because of an mania with beauty…

The world's smelliest flower

The titan arum is a giant among plants, with a massive flowering structure that rises some three metres above the ground. Its flowering is rare and unpredictable, and always grabs the headlines! The titan arum or Amorphophallus titanum is a flowering plant with the largest unbranched inflorescence in the world. Due to its odor, which is reminiscent of the smell of a decomposing mammal.

The Titan Arum plant, nicknamed the Corpse flower because of its pungent smell of putrid flesh, is in full blossom after 75 years at the University of Basel in Switzerland. The eight foot plant, indigenous to Indonesia's rainforests, has the chief unbranched shoot in the world. On average, they bloom once in a decade. Titan Arum is coveted by collectors and plant enthusiasts around the world because of its strange blooming patterns.

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Southern storms death toll nears 300

Dazed Southerners on Thursday reassured one another and began the procedure of rebuilding after a barrage of storms maintained nearly 300 lives and reduced once-familiar neighborhoods to piles of bricks and lumber.

The grim death toll from the 24-hour storm period sustained to rise, with 294 counted in six states. Among them were two university students in Alabama. Nearly 1 million customers were without electricity.

The vast majority of fatalities occurred in Alabama, where at least 207 people rotten, according to state and local officials. Gov. Robert Bentley and other officials stood Thursday afternoon in the bright sunshine in Tuscaloosa, the epicenter of the state's misery, to detail the damage and recovery effort.

"People's lives have just been turned upside down," Bentley said. "It affects me expressively. When I fly over this, it is hard."

The South endured the second deadliest tornado outbreak in the nation's history since 1950. Weather experts said humidity, cooler temperatures and vertical wind shear made for a deadly concoction.

The death toll in the hard-hit city of Tuscaloosa, in west-central Alabama, was at 38 as of Thursday, said Mayor Walter Maddox. Infrastructure losses are ache revival efforts, he said.

The storms are being compared to the "super outbreak" of tornadoes April 3 and 4, 1974, Craig Fugate, the FEMA administrator, said Thursday. In that period, 148 tornadoes were reported in 13 states, and 330 people died. States affected were Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.

New Retinal Implant allows Blind People to See Shapes and Objects

One blind person was even able to recognize and find objects placed on a table in face of him, as well as walking around a room separately and future people, reading a clock face and differentiating seven shades of grey. The device, which has been developed by the corporation Retinal Implant AG together with the Institute for Ophthalmic Research at the University of Tuebingen, represents an unprecedented advance in electronic visual prostheses and could eventually revolutionize the lives of up 200,000 people worldwide who suffer from blindness as a result of retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disease.

In this disease light receptors in the eye cease to purpose. Writing in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Prof. Dr. Eberhart Zrenner (founding Director of Retinal Implant AG and Director and Chairman of the University of Tuebingen Eye Hospital) states that "The results of this pilot study provide strong evidence that the visual functions of patients blinded by a hereditary retinal dystrophy can, in principle, be restored to a degree enough for use in daily life."

The device -- known as a subretinal implant -- sits underneath the retina, directly replacing light receptors lost in retinal deterioration. As such, it uses the eyes' natural image processing capabilities beyond the light discovery stage to produce a visual perception in the patient that is stable and follows their eye movements. Other types of retinal implants known as epiretinal implants -- sit outside the retina and because they bypass the intact light-sensitive structures in the eyes they require the user to wear an external camera and processor unit.

The subretinal implant described in this paper achieves unprecedented clarity because it has a great deal more light receptors than other similar devices. As Prof. Dr. Zrenner states, "The present study...presents proof-of-concept that such devices can restore useful vision in blind human subjects, even though the ultimate goal of broad clinical application will take time to develop."

How the First Earth Day Came About

What was the purpose of Earth Day? How did it start? These are the questions I am most frequently asked.

Actually, the idea for Earth Day evolved over a period of seven years starting in 1962. For several years, it had been troubling me that the state of our environment was simply a non-issue in the politics of the country. Finally, in November 1962, an idea occurred to me that was, I thought, a virtual cinch to put the environment into the political "limelight" once and for all. The idea was to persuade President Kennedy to give visibility to this issue by going on a national conservation tour. I flew to Washington to discuss the proposal with Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who liked the idea. So did the President. The President began his five-day, eleven-state conservation tour in September 1963. For many reasons the tour did not succeed in putting the issue onto the national political agenda. However, it was the germ of the idea that ultimately flowered into Earth Day.

I continued to speak on environmental issues to a variety of audiences in some twenty-five states. All across the country, evidence of environmental degradation was appearing everywhere, and everyone noticed except the political establishment. The environmental issue simply was not to be found on the nation's political agenda. The people were concerned, but the politicians were not.

After President Kennedy's tour, I still hoped for some idea that would thrust the environment into the political mainstream. Six years would pass before the idea that became Earth Day occurred to me while on a conservation speaking tour out West in the summer of 1969. At the time, anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, called "teach-ins," had spread to college campuses all across the nation. Suddenly, the idea occurred to me - why not organize a huge grassroots protest over what was happening to our environment?

I was satisfied that if we could tap into the environmental concerns of the general public and infuse the student anti-war energy into the environmental cause, we could generate a demonstration that would force this issue onto the political agenda. It was a big gamble, but worth a try.

At a conference in Seattle in September 1969, I announced that in the spring of 1970 there would be a nationwide grassroots demonstration on behalf of the environment and invited everyone to participate. The wire services carried the story from coast to coast. The response was electric. It took off like gangbusters. Telegrams, letters, and telephone inquiries poured in from all across the country. The American people finally had a forum to express its concern about what was happening to the land, rivers, lakes, and air - and they did so with spectacular exuberance. For the next four months, two members of my Senate staff, Linda Billings and John Heritage, managed Earth Day affairs out of my Senate office.

Five months before Earth Day, on Sunday, November 30, 1969, The New York Times carried a lengthy article by Gladwin Hill reporting on the astonishing proliferation of environmental events:

"Rising concern about the environmental crisis is sweeping the nation's campuses with an intensity that may be on its way to eclipsing student discontent over the war in Vietnam...a national day of observance of environmental problems...is being planned for next spring...when a nationwide environmental 'teach-in'...coordinated from the office of Senator Gaylord Nelson is planned...."

It was obvious that we were headed for a spectacular success on Earth Day. It was also obvious that grassroots activities had ballooned beyond the capacity of my U.S. Senate office staff to keep up with the telephone calls, paper work, inquiries, etc. In mid-January, three months before Earth Day, John Gardner, Founder of Common Cause, provided temporary space for a Washington, D.C. headquarters. I staffed the office with college students and selected Denis Hayes as coordinator of activities.

Earth Day worked because of the spontaneous response at the grassroots level. We had neither the time nor resources to organize 20 million demonstrators and the thousands of schools and local communities that participated. That was the remarkable thing about Earth Day. It organized itself.

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