Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch… hear that? That’s the sound of Steve Austin (aka The Bionic Man, aka The $6 Million Dollar Man) bench pressing a school bus. The guy has to keep the old bionic muscles toned. Same goes for his bionic eye, which needs batteries to work. Researchers at Stanford, however, have come up with a new bionic eye that is powered by light. Light! No more pesky batteries, which were probably always in need of replacing and probably just when he was trying to read the call letters on an airplane flying overhead at night.
The BBC reports:
A retinal implant, which works in a similar way to a solar panel, is fitted in the back of the eye.
A pair of glasses fitted with a video camera records what is happening before a patient’s eyes and fires beams of near infrared light on to the retinal chip.
This creates an electrical signal which is passed on to nerves.
So far the new and improved eye has only been tested on rats in the lab, which means that for the time being, Mr. Austin might want to hit up Costco for a pack of bulk AAs.
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