StemCell Therapy

mendelian genetics

The scientific study of heredity

Augustinian monk and botanist whose experiments in breeding garden peas led to his eventual recognition as founder of the science of genetics (1822-1884)

specific physical characteristic that varies from one individual to another

section of DNA that codes for a specific trait

a genotype with two different alleles.

different forms of a gene

Mendel's second conclusion, which states that some alleles are dominant and others are recessive

specialized cell involved in sexual reproduction

process in sexual reproduction in which male and female reproductive cells join to form a new cell

term used to describe organisms that produce offspring identical to themselves if allowed to self-pollinate

parental generation, the first two individuals that mate in a genetic cross

the first generation of offspring obtained from an experimental cross of two organisms

the second generation of offspring, obtained from an experimental cross of two organisms; the offspring of the F1 generation

The likelihood that a particular event will occur

a chart that shows all the possible combinations of alleles that can result from a genetic cross

genetic makeup of an organism

The physical traits that appear in an individual as a result of its gentic make up. What an organism looks like.

Scientific term for having two different alleles for a trait

Scientific term for having two identical alleles for a trait

Scientific term for having two dominant alleles for a trait

Scientific term for having two recessive alleles for a trait

creates a blended phenotype; one allele is not completely dominant over the other

situation in which both alleles of a gene contribute to the phenotype of the organism

(genetics) cell division that produces reproductive cells in sexually reproducing organisms

term used to refer to a cell that contains a complete set of chromosomes

an organism or cell having only a half set of chromosomes

pair of identical chromosomes

a genotype with two of the same alleles.

the study of genetics

SS and Ss

QQ, Qq, qq

3 smooth face: 1 face spikes

tongue rolling

3 tongue rolling:1 cannot roll tongue

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Annual Review of Genetics - Home

Inattentional blindness is the failure to notice a fully-visible, but unexpected object because attention was engaged on another task, event, or object.

This phenomenon is related to but distinct from other failures of visual awareness such as change blindness, repetition blindness, visual masking, and the attentional blink. In most cases, studies of inattentional blindness involve a single critical trial in which an object appears unexpectedly while observers are performing their task. At the end of the trial, observers are asked a series of questions to determine whether or not they saw the unexpected object.

The term inattentional blindness was coined by Arien Mack and Irvin Rock to describe the results of their extensive studies of the visual perception of unexpected objects. Many of their studies from the early 1990s culminated in their 1998 Book entitled Inattentional Blindness (Mack & Rock, 1998). In their canonical task, observers view a briefly-presented cross on a computer display and attempt to judge whether the horizontal or vertical arm of the cross is longer. On a critical trial, an additional shape appears in the display, and after the trial, observers are asked whether they noticed anything other than the cross on that trial. Subsequent trials examine whether observers notice the shape now that it is expected (they know it can appear). Such trials were described as divided attention trials. Finally, observers often complete one trial in which they are told to ignore the cross and to report anything they see (see Figure 1). This full attention trial serves as a control condition to demonstrate that the unexpected object was perceptible even if it was not perceived on the critical trial. Using this approach, Mack, Rock, and their students and colleagues showed that people often miss the unexpected shape on the critical trial, even when it was a unique color and appeared for 200ms. Noticing rates typically ranged from 25-75% depending on the condition.

Although Mack and Rock coined the term inattentional blindness, earlier work had explored similar failures of awareness under conditions of selective attention. In perhaps the most prominent early demonstrations of this phenomenon, Ulric Neisser and his colleagues (Neisser, 1979; Neisser & Becklen, 1975) used a selective looking task to explore the role of attention in the detection of unexpected events. Their task was a visual analogue of earlier dichotic listening methods in which people often failed to notice the content of speech presented to one ear when they were actively focusing attention on speech presented to the other ear (e.g., Moray, 1959). In the studies by Neisser and colleagues, observers viewed two distinct, superimposed videos of people performing simple actions such as passing a basketball or playing a hand-slapping game. When observers focused attention on one of the events, they often failed to notice an unexpected event occurring in the other. For example, when counting the number of times several people passed a basketball while ignoring a hand-slapping game, they often failed to notice when the people in the hand-slapping stopped and shook hands (Neisser & Becklen, 1975). Recent replications and extensions of this approach by Simons and Chabris (1999) showed that such sustained inattentional blindness occurs even when the unexpected object is fully visible and the displays are not superimposed. In their study, participants counted basketball passes by players wearing white shirts and ignored passes made by players wearing black. Under these conditions, approximately 50% of observers failed to notice when a person in a gorilla suit entered the display, stopped and faced the camera, thumped its chest, and exited on the far side of the display (see movies at http://www.dansimons.com/videos.html).

More recent studies of inattentional blindness have explored how aspects of the task and stimuli contribute to inattentional blindness and the detection of unexpected objects: the role of expectations in the detection of unexpected objects (Most et al, 2005), the role of visual similarity of the unexpected objects to the attended and ignored items in the display (Most et al, 2001), the role of visual distinctiveness of the unexpected object, and the role of spatial proximity of the unexpected object to the focus of attention (Newby & Rock, 1998; Most et al, 2000). Other recent studies have examined how differences in the observers affect detection, including the effects of alcohol consumption (Clifasefi et al, 2006) or expertise in the primary task (Memmert, 2006).

All of the following criteria must hold to classify a failure of awareness as inattentional blindness as opposed to a different type of failure of awareness. Note that not all failures of awareness that result from distraction or inattention to a stimulus constitute inattentional blindness.

Traditionally, inattentional blindness refers specifically to the failure to notice unexpected objects. Some recent studies have demonstrated failures to notice objects that occur on many trials due to attentional engagement on a primary task. In such cases, the critical objects are expected, but observers fail to report them because they are engaged in another task. Although such failures of awareness can be attributed to attentional engagement, they do not precisely constitute examples of inattentional blindness. When a critical stimulus appears repeatedly during an experiment, observers do have a reason to look for it (they will be asked about it). Consequently, it might be attended, just not sufficiently to produce awareness of it. Such failures of awareness might be due to insufficient attention rather than inattention. The unexpected nature of the critical stimulus is what differentiates inattentional blindness from other failures of awareness due to distraction or attentional failures (e.g., the attentional blink).

Conclusions from studies of inattentional blindness are premised on the idea that a failure to report an unexpected stimulus results from a failure to see that stimulus. In principle, though, people might fail to report the unexpected stimulus even if they did see it they could simply forget that they saw it by the time they are asked about it. That is, they have inattentional amnesia rather than inattentional blindness (Wolfe, 1999). Differentiating these alternatives might be impossible because questioning inherently occurs after the event, leaving open the possibility of forgetting. Whether or not the inattentional amnesia explanation is more plausible or palatable is a matter of debate. For the amnesia account to hold, observers would have to consciously perceive the unexpected object and then forget that they saw it, something that might be less plausible when the unexpected object is particularly distinctive or unusual (e.g., a person in a gorilla suit).

Another alternative to the inattentional blindness account is that observers see the critical object in the display but do not process it extensively and consequently do not retain it. In essence, they experience inattentional agnosia (see Simons, 2000). They might see that there is something in the display, but not identify it as a gorilla. In fact, they might not identify it as a coherent object at all. Under this explanation, something is perceived, but it is not perceived as some thing. Because it is not encoded as a thing, it is not remembered and reported after the display is removed. However, evidence that the critical object can prime a subsequent response suggests that it is processed to some extent, even when it is not reported.

Change blindness refers to the failure to notice something different about a display whereas inattentional blindness refers to a failure to see something present in a display. Although these two phenomena are related, they are also distinct. Change blindness inherently involves memory people fail to notice something different about the display from one moment to the next; that is, they must compare two displays to spot the change (see Simons & Rensink, 2005). The signal for change detection is the difference between two displays, and neither display on its own can provide evidence that a change occurred. In contrast, inattentional blindness refers to a failure to notice something about an individual display. The missed element does not require memory people fail to notice that something is present in a display. In a sense, most inattentional blindness tasks could be construed as change blindness tasks by noting that people fail to see the introduction of the unexpected object (a change it was not present before and now it is). However, inattentional blindness specifically refers to a failure to see the object altogether, not to a failure to compare the current state of a display to an earlier state stored in memory.

Studies of inattentional blindness demonstrate that people fail to notice unexpected objects in a display. Or, more precisely, that they fail to report having noticed an unexpected object. The information from the unexpected object is filtered from awareness by the time people are asked about it. However, it is unclear how much processing of the unexpected object occurs before this filtering. In its strongest form, the word "blindness" implies that the information is processed minimally if at all. However, other evidence suggests that the unexpected object is processed and that it can influence perception. For example, when the unexpected object involves the grouping of background dots in a display, the unreported grouping can affect judgments of line length in the Mueller-Lyer illusion (Moore & Egeth, 1997). And, as for early studies of dichotic listening (Treisman, 1964), some stimuli apparently are less subject to inattentional blindness. For example, observers typically fail to see common words in the Mack and Rock task, but they do see their own name when it appears unexpectedly (Mack & Rock, 1998). Observers also show some priming from unreported words as evidenced by a tendency to complete word fragments with the unreported word rather than other more common words (Mack & Rock, 1998). These findings suggest that the unexpected object is processed, possibly to a semantic level, even when it is unreported. If so, they also suggest that the inattentional agnosia explanation is wrong, at least at some level semantic processing implies that the object was identified at some level of the visual system.

Evidence that the unreported stimulus is processed to some extent is reminiscent of other research on subliminal perception, the idea that unseen stimuli exert an influence on perception or possibly behavior. However, care must be taken to draw strong inferences about implicit or subliminal perception from the inattentional blindness tasks. Inattentional blindness tasks rely on a single critical trial to determine whether or not an unexpected object was consciously perceived. However, the inference that it was not perceived depends on a report after the trial, and such reports are subject to many influences other than just whether or not the object was seen. For example, some people might be more hesitant to report an incredible object when they lack certainty that they saw it (in signal detection terms, they respond conservatively). If so, they might not report the unexpected object even if they have some inkling that something might have been present in the display. In other words, they might have consciously perceived the unexpected object, but been hesitant to say so definitively. With only one critical trial, the inattentional blindness task is poorly designed to discriminate between the ability to detect the stimulus and biases in the tendency to report the stimulus. That said, the unexpected object does fall below a subjective threshold for awareness in that people do not report it. And, that subjective threshold for awareness may be practically important, even if observers objectively saw something.

Evidence for inattentional blindness comes mostly from relatively simple laboratory tasks, but the phenomenon likely has many daily analogues. For example, automobile accident reports frequently report driver claims that they looked but failed to see the other vehicle. Many collisions between cars and motorcycles involve cars turning in front of an oncoming motorcycle, with the car driver not seeing the motorcyclist. Given that in many contexts, motorcycles are less common that cars, inattentional blindness is more likely. Critically, the difficulty of the primary task in an inattentional blindness task increases the probability that people will miss the unexpected object. In practical terms, the more people focus on aspects of their visual world other than the detection of unexpected objects, the less likely they are to detect such objects. Recent evidence suggests that talking on a cell phone, for example, dramatically increases the probability of missing an unexpected object (Scholl et al, 2003).

Although inattentional blindness constitutes a limit of the visual system, it also illustrates a critical aspect of visual processing. Specifically, it reveals the role of selective attention in perception. Inattentional blindness represents a consequence of this critical process that allows us to remain focused on important aspects of our world without distraction from irrelevant objects and events. Only when those unselected aspects of our world are both unexpected and important does inattentional blindness have practical consequences. And, inattentional blindness itself may be useful in some contexts. For example, by guiding selective attention to one part of a display, it is possible to reduce the visual quality of a different part of the display with minimal consequence, possibly allowing greater visual compression in motion sequences (Cater et al, 2002).

Internal references

Attention, Cognition, Models of Consciousness, Neural Correlates of Consciousness, Consciousness and Attention, Visual Cognition, Visual Attention, Change Blindness

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Inattentional blindness - Scholarpedia

What are the different types of blindness?

Color blindness is the inability to perceive differences in various shades of colors, particularly green and red, that others can distinguish. It is most often inherited (genetic) and affects about 8% of males and under 1% of women. People who are color blind usually have normal vision otherwise and can function well visually. This is actually not true blindness.

Night blindness is a difficulty in seeing under situations of decreased illumination. It can be genetic or acquired. The majority of people who have night vision difficulties function well under normal lighting conditions; this is not a state of sightlessness.

Snow blindness is loss of vision after exposure of the eyes to large amounts of ultraviolet light. Snow blindness is usually temporary and is due to swelling of cells of the corneal surface. Even in the most severe of cases of snow blindness, the individual is still able to see shapes and movement.

People often say, "I am 'blind as a bat' without my glasses." All bat species have eyes, and most have excellent vision. More importantly, the term blindness means the inability to see despite wearing glasses. Anyone who has access to glasses and sees well with the glasses cannot be termed blind.

The many causes of blindness differ according to the socioeconomic condition of the nation being studied. In developed nations, the leading causes of blindness include ocular complications of diabetes, macular degeneration, and traumatic injuries. In third-world nations where 90% of the world's visually impaired population lives, the principal causes are infections, cataracts, glaucoma, injury, and inability to obtain any glasses.

Infectious causes in underdeveloped areas of the world include trachoma, onchocerciasis (river blindness), and leprosy. The most common infectious cause of blindness in developed nations is herpes simplex.

Other causes of blindness include vitamin A deficiency, retinopathy of prematurity, blood vessel disease involving the retina or optic nerve including stroke, ocular inflammatory disease, retinitis pigmentosa, primary or secondary malignancies of the eye, congenital abnormalities, hereditary diseases of the eye, and chemical poisoning from toxic agents such as methanol.

Medically Reviewed by a Doctor on 2/25/2015

Blindness - Causes Question: Please discuss the cause of blindness in a relative or friend?

Blindness - Diagnosis Question: Discuss the events that led to a diagnosis of blindness.

Blindness - Treatment Question: Please discuss treatments for blindness received by you or someone you know.

Blindness - Legally Blind Question: Please discuss in what ways being "legally blind" has affected your lifestyle.

Medical Author:

Andrew A. Dahl, MD, is a board-certified ophthalmologist. Dr. Dahl's educational background includes a BA with Honors and Distinction from Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT, and an MD from Cornell University, where he was selected for Alpha Omega Alpha, the national medical honor society. He had an internal medical internship at the New York Hospital/Cornell Medical Center.

Medical Editor:

Dr. Shiel received a Bachelor of Science degree with honors from the University of Notre Dame. There he was involved in research in radiation biology and received the Huisking Scholarship. After graduating from St. Louis University School of Medicine, he completed his Internal Medicine residency and Rheumatology fellowship at the University of California, Irvine. He is board-certified in Internal Medicine and Rheumatology.

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Blindness Symptoms, Causes, Treatment - MedicineNet

By Jose Saramago. Translated from the Portuguese by Giovanni Pontiero from the 1995 Ensaio sombre a Cegueira. 309 pages London: The Harvill Press, 1997 ISBN: 0-15-136700-9

Comments of Bob Corbett October 2001

How are we to imagine a world in which some central part of our meaning system suddenly disappears? I've played with the idea in thinking about having survived an atomic war which destroyed most humans, and all the basic infrastructures of everyday life. The problems one runs into even in such a game of imagination is to be consistent and being able to step far enough away to see what it is that really changes. In my day-dreaming imaginings I never went so far as to even dare to consider the inner changes in my person or the other survivors around me. It was much more than I could do to even anticipate and manage the physical problems of change and how to deal with them.

Jose Saramago presents us with exactly such a problematic, yet his masterful analysis deals not only with the physical aspects of change and how his characters deal with them, but he inters into the psychological realm and astounds us with his insights and brilliance.

A man is sitting at a traffic light one day waiting for the light to turn green and he suddenly goes blind. This is the "first blind man." Slowly this mysterious form of blindness, the like not known in the literature of modern medicine, spreads to the whole nation. As best we know, there is only one sighted person left in the realm. We follow a cast of fewer than 10 characters in detail. We have no names, only descriptors. After all one character tells us "blind people need no names." There is the first blind man, the first blind man's wife. The blind man had a seeming good semaritan who helps him home and but then steals his car and is thus called the man who had stole the car. There is the doctor whom he consults and the doctor's wife, the girl with dark glasses, the boy with the squint and the man with the black eye patch. There are a few others, but these become our key characters, later on adding the dog of tears.

In the early days of the white blindness in which each person seems only a white creamy mass, the government freaks out at the quick contagion of it and inters a large number of the blind in an old insane asylum. There, in scenes which are quite reminiscent of Golding's The Lord of the Flies, pure anarchy reigns and a gang sets itself up to control the government delivered food.

Soon however, the 7 central characters have escaped the asylum when it turns out that all the guards who are keeping them interred have themselves gone blind and they simply walk out into a world of all blind people.

All blind people that is, save one. The doctor's wife somehow remains sighted and she is able to give this small group the advantages that allows it to survive when others could not. She can locate places, keep them all in line and, most importantly, find food and water in a world gone blind.

What is this odd book of Jose Saramago? Is it an allegory? If so an allegory of what? Of the dependency of humans on basic systems of order in the manner of Thomas Hobbes? Is it a condemnation of humans as being only on the edge of civilization and being shown to be ready to plunge into barbarism at the least shaking of central systems of order? Or on a more positive note, is the tiny group of 7 the hopeful core that even in such catastrophic circumstances would maintain humanity and re-create a safer environment? Were this latter the case then the critic has a difficult time explaining the presence of the one sighted person who survives and leads. Or does this problematic suggest that leaders are essential to the continuation of the human species?

Or, abandoning the allegory theory, is this simply an astonishing tour-de-force of imagination, being just what it is literally and no more, the investigation of the logic of life when something such as sight disappears and the sighted woman is necessary as a sop since no other believable mode of survival would be easily available. This view would harmonize with the direction one finds in other Saramago novels especially The Stone Raft and The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, perhaps even of The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis. Saramago seems to have a passion for playing with alternative realities and attending with care to the logic of the system he once sets up.

I believe I lean much more to this notion that we are to understand Blindness not as an allegory, but as an exploration of an alternative reality. On his view we are freer to remain inside the story as given and just marvel at how he unravels the story and develops not only the physical ramifications, but especially how he deals with the inner realities and changes in the character's minds. However, on this view we are left with the curious status of the doctor's wife's sight, and then the even more curious recurrence of the "special" dog which we had in The Stone Raft as well. Saramago seems to like dogs in nearly occult roles in his fantasies. This one, however, plays no central as the dog in The Stone Raft. Rather, it gets it name by licking away the tears of the doctor's wife when she breaks down in near despair on see what has happened to the blind city. The dog of tears remains with the group the rest of the tale, but seems to have no other role.

After just the first few pages I nearly lost my faith in Saramago. The blind man goes blind at the stop sign, gets taken home by the car thief and soon is taken to the doctor, who is an ophthalmologist, by his wife. I began to wonder -- how in the world can he sustain an entire moderately long novel as the story of this blind guy. Where could this go? What is there to build on? I suspected I may have had a weak Saramago novel in my hand. And then the thunderous second shoe drops, the doctor goes blind in the night. I simply gasped aloud on the subway I was riding when that happened. I knew I was now in for something odd, but I had no idea just how odd and soon people were falling into blindness with great rapidity and I was hooked on a new alternative world according to Saramago. The ending, which I won't mention was very unsatisfactory to me, but I'll leave that to the reader to discover and evaluate on his or her own.

Jose Saramago is one of the great masters of storytelling and fiction of our time. His language is impeccable and he plays with it often, calling attention to it, even interrupting the story to reflect on words and modes of expressing thoughts. The story itself is captivating and in the later sections when the group of 7 are wandering in this nightmare of a city where all are blind is one of the most frightful and even terrifying scenes I know in fiction. This is in no way a horror story, yet I can't imagine a novel in the genre of horror rising to the level of terror that Saramago strikes in us in these scenes of wandering bands of blind people struggling to find food and stay alive. It is a macabre and brilliant painting of pictures for the verbally sighted and yet another addition to the marvelous list of Saramago triumphs.

Special thanks to George Snedeker for this note:

I have just read your review of Saramago's BLINDNESS. as a visually impaired person, I have been trying to make sense of his use of blindness as a trope. blindness operates in his text as both an intertextual sign and as a referent. blindness represents limitation. this is true in the very obvious sense of the analogy between knowing and seeing. blindness also leads the characters to return to the state of nature. I have always been troubled by the doctor's wife. her eyes allow her to lead the others to safety. she is also necessary as the narrator of the story. without her, who would describe the events and scenes of the novel.

A more systematic review from George Snedeker

BETWEEN METAPHOR AND REFERENT:Reading Saramago's "Blindness" George Snedeker Sociology Program SUNY/College at Old Westbury

Jose Saramago received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998. Although several of his books were available in English translation, not many people in the United States had read his novels prior to the award. Soon his latest novel, Blindness, was on the New York Times Best-Seller List. If I had not previously read two of his earlier books, I would not have been much interested in reading an allegorical novel that uses blindness as its master sign.

Saramago uses a quotation from the Book of Exhortations as the epigram to Blindness: "If you can see, look. If you can look, observe". Near the end of the novel, when the blind people are getting their vision back, he has one of his characters remark:" I don't think we did go blind, I think we are blind, Blind but seeing, Blind people who can see, but do not see" (292). These two quotations indicate the political and philosophical intention of the novel. They indicate, but do not disclose it. The greatest problem with an allegorical novel like Blindness is that it grants too much freedom to the reader. It allows too many interpretations.

Saramago uses blindness as a metaphor for both personal misfortune and social catastrophe. The story begins when the first blind man loses his vision in his car while waiting for a traffic light to change. The man who helps him get safely home goes back and steals his car. The next day the wife of the first blind man takes him to see the eye doctor. Within a few days, the wife of the first blind man, the car thief, the doctor and all of the patients in his waiting room also go blind. The only character in the novel that miraculously avoids the affliction of blindness is the doctor's wife.

With a large number of people going blind quickly and with no apparent cause, public health officials panic and the blind are interned in a former mental hospital to protect the population from infection.

They are provided with food but are left to fend for themselves within the walls of the abandoned mental hospital. Soldiers keep watch and threaten to kill anyone who tries to escape.

The numbers of infected persons increases rapidly. New groups of blind people are imprisoned in the hospital. Among the new inmates are a group of hoodlums, one of whom possesses a gun. The hoodlums soon demand that the other internees pay for their food and provide them with women to fulfill their sexual desires. This outrage soon leads to a revolt. A few days later, the blind internees realize that the entire population of the city has gone blind and they leave the hospital in search of food.

As the narrative of Blindness progresses, the conditions of the blind continue to get worse. They find themselves in a society that no longer functions. Blind people roam the streets looking for food and shelter. After scavenging for days, they realize that soon it will be impossible to obtain enough nourishment to keep alive. While they are at the edge of despair their vision miraculously begins to return. The novel abruptly ends without making clear in what ways people have been transformed by the horrific experience of collective blindness.

As I mentioned earlier, the doctor's wife is the only character who does not go blind. She remains free from infection. This allows her to assist the group of blind people. Her eyes allow her to exercise a degree of control over the situation. It is she who kills the blind man with the gun. It is she who leads the blind in their search for food and shelter.

Blindness is clearly a sign of limitation in this novel. It causes the entire society to no longer function. It also places blind people in the condition of physical jeopardy and psychological torment. The society no longer functions because the blind are not able to provide the ordinary services that we are routinely dependent upon for survival: the production and distribution of food, water and electricity and the maintenance of the infrastructure of transportation and communication.

The central problem with Saramago's novel is that his master sign "blindness" is a floating signifier. No matter what his intention, the metaphor of blindness has a real referent. Readers of this novel are faced with an ambiguity, the relationship between the "symbolic" and the "real". The authorial voice of the novel and the critical response which has appeared in the mainstream press has occluded the problem of the referent. Saramago writes as if his metaphorical depiction of misfortune and catastrophe could somehow be innocent of the cultural meanings that are routinely associated with visual impairment. It is interesting to note that reviews which have appeared in the mainstream press fail to even consider that the use of blindness as a metaphor might pose a problem.

Reviewers have often made the comparison between Blindness and Camus' Plague, Kafka's Trial and Golding's Lord of the Flies. None of the reviews I have read have made the more obvious comparison to H.G. Wells' short story "The Country of the Blind". In this story, Wells uses blindness to represent a restricting society and the struggle of the individual against social conformity. Both Saramago and Wells use blindness as a sign of limitation because this idea is readily available. It is part of our common stock of cultural images. They use "blindness" for the same reason that Golding uses "children" in Lord of the Flies.

Like Camus, Saramago uses disease as a way of representing social and political crisis. Both authors emphasize the human response to social catastrophe. However, there is a problem with the representation of historical events by means of a medical model. In this representation, nature displaces the social and replaces it with an image of fate. As a consequence, blindness is defined as a physical condition.

Saramago's writings have often been discussed as an example of "magic realism". However, Blindness has more in common with Kafka's allegorical novels than it does with works by Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Salman Rushdie.

The fundamental problem posed by allegorical novels is how to locate their political and social meaning. Saramago provides his readers with few clues to guide interpretation. The story is set in an unnamed country, somewhere in the second half of the twentieth century. There are few identifying characteristics that provide a context for the events that transpire.

The epidemic of blindness takes place without any apparent cause; the disease spreads quickly and as the novel ends the blind are getting their vision back. Their recovery has as little explanation as the onset of blindness. The problem the reader is faced with is what to make of the metaphorical illness, the social catastrophe, and the miraculous recovery. What does it all mean?

Near the end of the book, Saramago has one of his characters suggest that perhaps they had never really been blind, that perhaps the sighted do not really see. If this is meant to be the underlying message of the novel it is, in fact, not a very original idea, since the analogy between "seeing" and "understanding" is one of the oldest ideas in Western philosophy. It is perhaps most clearly illustrated in Book 7 of The Republic, where Plato uses a visual metaphor to illustrate the limits of human understanding. He describes a cave where several people are seated in such a way that they cannot see the direct light of the fire. Instead, they can only see its distorted shadows upon the wall of the cave.

I suspect that Saramago is more interested in probing the human capacity to understand social reality than the Platonic concept of Absolute Truth. I wish he had chosen a better way of representing this quest.

Bibliography

Plato. 1961.The Collected Dialogues of Plato. Princeton: Princeton University Press

Saramago, Jose. 1997. Blindness. New York: Harcourt Brace

Wells, H. G. 1911. The Country of The Blind and Other Stories. London: T. Nelson

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BLINDNESS by Jose Saramago - Webster University

01/14/2016

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Sensory neuron diversity is required for organisms to decipher complex environmental cues. Qingyun Li and colleagues highlight the importance of the early prepatterning gene regulatory network as a modulator ofsensory organ precursorand terminally differentiated olfactory receptor neurondiversity in Drosophila.

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Telomeres shorten with each cell division and telomere dysfunction is a recognized hallmark of aging. Madalena Carneiro and colleagues show that telomere shortening and DNA damage in key tissues triggers not only local dysfunction but also anticipates the onset of age-associated diseases in other tissues, including cancer.

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The thymic medulla is known to be an essential site for the deletion of auto-reactive T cells. Rumi Satoh and colleagues show thatStat3 meditated signal via EGF-R is required for the postnatal development of thymic medullary regions.

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Stephanie Dyke and colleagues examine the variation in data use conditions that are based on consent provisions for genomics datasets in research and clinical settings.

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12/23/2015

review

Albino Bacolla and colleagues discuss recent advances on three-stranded (triplex) nucleic acids, with an emphasis on DNARNA and RNARNA interactions.

Image credit: mira66, Flickr, CC BY

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PLOS Genetics: A Peer-Reviewed Open-Access Journal

Gene therapy is an experimental treatment that involves inserting genetic material into your cells to give them a new function or restore a missing function, as cancer may be caused by damaged or missing genes, also known as gene mutations. Although gene therapy may be one way to overcome these changes and treat or prevent cancer, it is currently only available through clinical trials.

Cancer is caused by changes in our genes. Genes are inherited from our parents, and determine our traits and characteristics. They are made of biological molecules called deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA). DNA and RNA are responsible for making proteins, which have many functions, such as helping a cell to maintain its shape or controlling its growth and division. Changes or mutations in genes can affect the proteins and may sometimes lead to diseases, such as cancer.

Gene therapy is designed to modify cancer cells at the molecular level and replace a missing or bad gene with a healthy one. The new gene is delivered to the target cell via a vector, which is usually an inactive virus or liposome, a tiny fat bubble.

Gene therapy can be done in two ways: outside (ex vivo) or inside (in vivo) your body. Ex-vivo techniques involve taking some of the cancer cells out of your body, injecting them with good genes, and then putting them back into your body. The in-vivo process requires that good genes be put directly into a tumor, which may be difficult depending on its location or if the cancer has spread. Scientists generally use two types of cells in gene therapy the tumor cells themselves and immune system cells that attack the tumors.

Researchers from Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego Health System are studying several gene therapy techniques for breast cancer, melanoma, leukemia and pancreatic cancer.

For example, they have been integrally involved in the development of Herceptin, a targeted therapy that is proving to be effective in curing localized human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER2) breast cancer. HER2 controls how cells grow, divide and repair themselves.

Researchers have also been injecting a modified herpes virus into melanoma tumors, with the intention of improving the bodys immune defenses against the disease.

Gene therapy called TNFerade Biologic involves a DNA carrier containing the gene for tumor necrosis factor-alpha, an immune system protein with potent and well-documented anti-cancer effects. TNFerade is being studied in combination with radiation therapy for first-time treatment of inoperable pancreatic cancer.

TNFerade and the herpes strategies use gene therapy to enhance the killing effect of the primary mechanism radiation in TNFerade and viral induced cell lysis, or splitting, in the herpes virus.

When will gene therapy be available? Gene therapy is only available as a cancer treatment through clinical trials.

Are there any risks associated with gene therapy clinical trials? Yes. Viral vectors might infect healthy cells as well as cancer cells, a new gene might be inserted in the wrong location in the DNA, or the transferred genes could be overexpressed and produce too much of the missing protein, causing harm. All risks for any procedure should be discussed with your doctor.

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Gene Therapy - Cancer Treatments - Moores Cancer Center ...

Human eyesight is a sense which enables animals to perceive the light, different colors, shapes and it serves to the general perception of the environment. It is oriented mainly towards the perception of contrast and thus even contours and it significantly helps with orientation in space. For a human being the eyesight is the most important sense and that is mainly because almost 80% of information from our surroundings is perceived through it.

The human eye (oculus) is the organ of eyesight and is composed of the eye bulb and additional organs. Photosensitive layer is called the retina and contains photoreceptors, highly specialized photosensitive cells, rods and cones thanks to which the image is created. These cells are embedded in the pigmented epithelium which supplies them with nourishment and light isolation.

Vision itself, individual perception of the light, is based on the sensitivity of the eyesight pigments (e.g. rhodopsin) to the light. Under the influence of light the sight pigments decompose and that triggers the cascade chemical reactions which lead to the change of signal into electric potential, impulse, that carries information to the optical centers of the brain.

For the eyesight perception to be perfect we need also parts of the human eye that form its optical system (cornea, vitreous humor, lens, vitreous body) that collects the rays in the way that their focus is on the retina. A defect of optical system causes inability to create a sharp image on the retina and it leads to refractive errors (short-sightedness, long-sightedness, astigmatism).

Human eye equity is the ability to differentiate between two points in space. It depends on the ability of the optical apparatus to concentrate rays on the retina but also depends on the transparency of the human eye, intensity of light and on density and integration of photoreceptors in the given place on the retina.

Ultraviolet rays are the component of sunlight and is divided into UV-A and UV-B and UV-C radiation. UVA rays tan skin and is due to premature skin aging. UV-B rays cause sunburn and are often associated with skin cancer and eye problems such as cataracts. UV-C rays are most dangerous. There are, fortunately, blocked by ozone layer and do not get to the earth's surface.

The color vision is a very complicated psychophysical process during which human eye distinguishes different colors. From the physical point of view the color does not exist and it is only a visual perception which is conditioned by the wavelength of the light. The certain part of the spectrum reflects from different objects, then it falls on the eye where it causes the irritation of the light sensitive elements which react to color the cones. For its realization, it is necessary to have a correct and undisturbed function of the eyesight and the human eye as the receiving organ, the optical path as the transmitting system and the centers of the brain thanks to which we distinguish and thus they are the analyzer of the perception.

When driving a motor vehicle a driver has to continuously monitor not only what is happening on the road but also the data on the panel board. The tilting of his head (in average around 30 degrees) leads to reduction of the sharpness of the image of events happening on the road which is caused by the movement of the eyes. When looking at the speedometer the movement of the eyes exceeds the target by 5 degrees in average and it is immediately balanced with the subsequent movement of the eyes.

If you have uneasiness and it seems to you, that your sight worsen and feeling pain in eyes, you should visit an ophthalmologist. Today, good vision is very important and sight problems should not be ignored, but solved.

Accommodation of the eye is the ability of the human eye to see sharply all objects which are located at various distances in front of the eye depending on the changes of massiveness of the optical system of the eye. The mechanism of eye accommodation is not the same for all animals. For example fish accommodates through the change of position of the lens, some types of birds accommodate through the increase of curvature of the cornea and protraction of the human eye. As far as humans are concerned accommodation is caused by the increased curvature of anterior area of the eye lens while at the same time its thickness also changes. Accommodation is usually the same on both eyes.

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Eyesight and vision - About-Vision.com

Most Common Adult Vision Problems Most Common Childhood Vision Problems Blurred vision (refractive errors)

These conditions affect the shape of the eye and, in turn, how the eye sees. They can be corrected by eyeglasses, contact lenses, and in some cases surgery.

Strabismus occurs when the eyes do not line up or they are crossed. One eye, however, usually remains straight at any given time. Common forms of strabismus include:

If detected early in life, strabismus can be treated and even reversed.

If left untreated strabismus can cause amblyopia.

Amblyopia often called lazy eye is a problem that is common in children.

Amblyopia is a result of the brain and the eyes not working together. The brain ignores visual information from one eye, which causes problems with vision development.

Treatment for amblyopia works well if the condition is found early. If untreated, amblyopia causes permanent vision loss.

All people with diabetes, both type 1 and type 2, are at risk for DR. It is caused by damage to blood vessels in the back of the eye (retina). The longer someone has diabetes, the more likely he or she will get DR.

People with this condition may not notice any changes to their vision until the damage to the eyes is severe. This is why it is so important for people with diabetes to have a comprehensive eye exam every year.

There are four stages of DR. During the first three stages of DR, treatment is usually not needed. To prevent progression of diabetic retinopathy, people with diabetes should control their levels of blood sugar, blood pressure, and blood cholesterol. For the fourth stage of DR, called proliferative retinopathy, there are treatments that reduce vision loss, but are not a cure for DR.

Warning signs of diabetic retinopathy includes blurred vision, gradual vision loss, floaters, shadows or missing areas of vision, and difficulty seeing at nighttime.

People with diabetes are at greater risk for cataract and glaucoma as well.

Photos courtesy of the National Eye Institute, National Institutes of Health

AMD is a disease that blurs the sharp, central vision needed to see straight-ahead. It affects the part of the eye called the macula that is found in the center of the retina.The macula lets a person see fine detail and is needed for things like reading and driving.

The more common dry form of AMD can be treated in the early stages to delay vision loss and possibly prevent the disease from progressing to the advanced stage. Taking certain vitamins and minerals may reduce the risk of developing advanced AMD.

The less common wet form of AMD may respond to treatment, if diagnosed and treated early.

Photos courtesy of the National Eye Institute, National Institutes of Health

There are different types of glaucoma, but all of them cause vision loss by damaging the optic nerve. Glaucoma is called the sneak thief of sight because people dont usually notice a problem until some vision is lost.

The most common type of glaucoma happens because of slowly increasing fluid pressure inside the eyes.

Vision loss from glaucoma cannot be corrected. But if it is found early, vision loss can be slowed or stopped. A comprehensive eye exam is important so glaucoma can be found early.

Photos courtesy of the National Eye Institute, National Institutes of Health

A cataract is a clouding of the lens of the eye. It often leads to poor vision at night, especially while driving, due to glare from bright lights.

Cataracts are most common in older people, but can also occur in young adults and children.

Cataract treatment is very successful and widely available.

Photos courtesy of the National Eye Institute, National Institutes of Health

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Types of Vision Problems - Department of Health

In 2012, when Tyler Millard wrote the song Alivenow available on iTunes, with proceeds going to the Foundation Fighting Blindnesshe was having a rough time. Since being diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa (RP) seven years earlier, hed lost enough eyesight to have to give up his plans to teach math. Hed also taken up the guitar and was singing and songwriting, although the gigs were few and far between. Continue Reading

One of the biggest challenges in overcoming rare retinal diseases is, well, that theyre rare. Theres limited information about the conditions in humans, making it difficult for researchers to understand why they cause blindness and develop vision-saving treatments. Continue Reading

The Foundation Fighting Blindness scientists, donors and volunteers made 2015 an outstanding year in our fight against blindness. As I tabulated the years top 10 research advancesall made possible through FFB fundingI realized that eight are for clinical trials of emerging therapies that are launching or underway. Continue Reading

Its holiday time, the giving season, when people not only buy gifts for family, friends and co-workers, but also donate to worthy causesof which there are many. But, if youll permit me, Id like to make a pitch for the Foundation Fighting Blindness (FFB), which happens to be offering a Holiday Board Match, meaning every donation is doubled. Continue Reading

If youre a young or middle-aged adult who enjoys being outside in the bright sunshine, youre probably not thinking about the risk for going blind from age-related macular degeneration (AMD). But according to a new study published in the journal Retina, you should be. Continue Reading

Were approaching a critical milestone in the fight against blinding retinal diseases, and it has the potential to tremendously boost and accelerate the advancement of virtually all gene therapies in development for dozens of inherited retinal diseases.

Sometime in 2016, Spark Therapeutics will request marketing approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its landmark gene therapy for retinal conditions caused by mutations in the gene RPE65, namely certain forms of Leber congenital amaurosis and retinitis pigmentosa. Continue Reading

Gordon Gund, whos held in extremely high esteem by people inside and outside the Foundation Fighting Blindness (FFB), has been completely blind for decades. He lost his eyesight to a disease called retinitis pigmentosa in his thirties. Not that it slowed him down much. Among other accomplishments, hes been a financier, venture capitalist, sports-team owner and sculptor. And, of course, hes a co-founder of FFB and its chairman of the board. Continue Reading

I am delighted to welcome Valerie Navy-Daniels to the Foundation Fighting Blindness family. As our new chief development officer, she is overseeing all of our fundraising programs including events, major gifts and membership as well as communications and marketing. As many of you know, most of our research is funded by these fundraising programs, so her role is critical to the success of our mission of saving and restoring vision. Continue Reading

Many people with retinal conditions such as retinitis pigmentosa (RP) and age-related macular degeneration dont think they can donate their eyes after theyve passed away. They cant imagine anyone would want eyes that didnt work well. But in reality, affected eyes are in big demand. Continue Reading

X-linked retinitis pigmentosa (XLRP) is an inherited retinal disease causing significant vision loss, sometimes complete blindness, in males. Females are often considered to be unaffected carriers of the condition, with a 50 percent chance of passing XLRP to their sons. Continue Reading

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Eye on the Cure - Blog of the Foundation Fighting Blindness

Inattentional blindness is an inability to perceive something that is within one's direct perceptual field because one is attending to something else. The term was coined by psychologists Arien Mack and Irvin Rock, who identified the phenomenon while studying the relationship of attention to perception. They were able to show that, under a number of different conditions, if subjects were not attending to a visual stimulus but were attending to something else in the visual field, a significant percentage of the subjects were "blind" to something that was right before their eyes.

Because this inability to perceive, this sighted blindness, seemed to be caused by the fact that subjects were not attending to the stimulus but instead were attending to something else ... we labeled this phenomenon inattentional blindness (IB).*

Mack and Rock go on to argue that, in their view, "there is no conscious perception without attention."

Others, such as U. Neisser, D. Simons, and C. Chabris, have replicated and extended the work of Mack and Rock with experiments that have subjects attending to a specific task while watching a film, such as counting how many times a basketball is passed from one team member to another, while someone walks through the scene carrying an umbrella or wearing a gorilla suit. A surprisingly large percentage of subjects do not perceive something as obvious as a person in a gorilla suit moving through the scene they are observing, if they are attending to something else in their visual field. (Several examples of these experiments can be viewed on the Simons Lab page of the University of Illinois.)

Inattentional blindness may explain, for example, how a pilot with an interest in crop circles could fly right over one without even noticing it. The pilot had flown to see a recently discovered crop circle near Stonehenge. After visiting the site, he flew back to the airport to refuel before setting off on a trip that took him back over the site he had just visited. On the return flight he noticed another crop circle near the one he had visited earlier in the day and swears that the new circle was not there just forty-five minutes earlier. The new circle is very elaborate and could not have been produced by human hoaxers in such a short time. He concludes that some mysterious force must have been at work. Perhaps, but it seems more likely that the pilot experienced inattentional blindness when he was flying to the airport. He was focused on other tasks when he flew over the site and didnt notice what was right beneath him all the time. (See "Crop Circles - Quest for Truth.")

Research by Chabris and Simons indicates that inattentional blindness is a "necessary, if unfortunate, by-product of the normal operation of attention and perception" (2010, p. 38). They point out that even radiologists, who are highly trained experts at detecting visual signs of medical problems, "can still miss subtle problems when they 'read' medical images." This may explain why my dentist didn't see a crack in one of my teeth on an x-ray until I started to complain about the pain in a particular area. To eliminate inattentional blindness, we'd have to eliminate focused attention. That would not be a good idea. Even worse would be the condition of being able to attend to everything in our sensory field at once. It would drive us mad.

Research also shows that training people to improve their attention abilities may do nothing to help them detect unexpected objects. "If an object is truly unexpected, people are unlikely to notice it no matter how good (or bad) they are at focusing attention" (Chabris and Simons: 2010, p. 32). Remember this the next time you're at the airport watching the transportation security screener do his or her job. It should not be surprising to find that these folks miss a lot of contraband planted by their bosses to test them. You might also remember this: there is no scientific evidence to support the belief that driving while talking on a hands-free phone is safer than driving while holding a cell to your ear. Worse, both have about the same effect as driving under the influence of alcohol (Chabris and Simons: 2010, pp. 22-26).

See also change blindness, confabulation, and my review of The Invisible Gorilla.

further reading

books and articles

Chabris, Christopher and Daniel Simons. 2010. The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us. Crown.

Simons, Daniel J. and Christopher F. Chabris. (1999). "Gorillas in our midst: sustained inattentional blindness for dynamic events." Perception, 1999, volume 28, pages 1059-1074.

Mack, Arien and Irvin Rock. (2000). Inattentional Blindness. MIT Press.

websites

The Invisible Gorilla blog

Simons Lab (teachers may be interested in purchasing the DVD the VCL sells)

Inattentional Blindness - An Overview by Arien Mack & Irvin Rock

David Chalmers's list of papers on change blindness and inattentional blindness

The Choice Blindness lab

news

AAA: Voice-to-text devices worse driver distraction than cell phones An in-depth scientific study from AAA finds that using voice-to-text electronic devices is a far greater distraction for drivers than talking on cell phones, even if they are hands free.

Why Even Radiologists Can Miss A Gorilla Hiding In Plain Sight by Alix Spiegel - 83 percent of the radiologists didn't see the gorilla in the X-ray.

Study reveals how memory load leaves us blind to new visual information "The new results reveal that our visual field does not need to be cluttered with other objects to cause [inattentional blindness] and that focusing on remembering something we have just seen is enough to make us unaware of things that happen around us."

gorillas, working memory, and the media by Daniel Simons The news media doesn't get it quite right about a new study from the University of Utah. Typical is this Eureka alert:

University of Utah psychologists have learned why many people experience "inattention blindness" the phenomenon that leaves drivers on cell phones prone to traffic accidents and makes a gorilla invisible to viewers of a famous video. The answer: People who fail to see something right in front of them while they are focusing on something else have lower "working memory capacity" a measure of "attentional control," or the ability to focus attention when and where needed, and on more than one thing at a time.

"The media is reacting to the finding that, under some conditions, differences in working memory capacity predict noticing of an unexpected gorilla. They over-generalize the finding to suggest that people who are high in working memory capacity are immune to inattentional blindness....Any scientist reading the journal article would recognize that the correlation between working memory and noticing is imperfect and would separate speculative conclusions from definitive results. Unless the press release makes those limitations explicit, the media will not either. Unless the press release explicitly identifies the limited scope and imperfect correlation and flags speculation as such, an untrained reader (or headline writer) will naturally infer that the result and the speculation are one and the same. In this case, they will infer that working memory differences explain inattentional blindness in its entirety. By not reining in the speculation, the release suggests that the working memory is the primary (if not the only) reason that some people notice and some people miss unexpected objects."

Ghost busters, parapsychology, and the first study of inattentional blindness "More than 50 years ago, Tony Cornell, a parapsychology researcher, decided to test how people would react upon seeing him dressed as a ghost. Would they experience him as a "real" ghost or as something more mundane?....Each night, Cornell or his assistants dressed in a white sheet and strolled down a path, making various hand gestures before shedding the sheet 4.5 minutes later. Other assistants observed how many people were "in a position to observe the apparition." His finding: "although it was estimated that some 70-80 persons were in a position to observe the apparition, not one was seen to give it a second glance or to react in any way." That's true even though a number of cows apparently followed the ghost around."Last updated 14-Jan-2014

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inattentional blindness (aka inattention blindness)- The ...

Medical Editor:

Catherine Burt Driver, MD, is board certified in internal medicine and rheumatology by the American Board of Internal Medicine. Dr. Driver is a member of the American College of Rheumatology. She currently is in active practice in the field of rheumatology in Mission Viejo, Calif., where she is a partner in Mission Internal Medical Group.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease that causes chronic inflammation of the joints. Autoimmune diseases are illnesses that occur when the body's tissues are mistakenly attacked by their own immune system. The immune system contains a complex organization of cells and antibodies designed normally to "seek and destroy" invaders of the body, particularly infections. Patients with autoimmune diseases have antibodies and immune cells in their blood that target their own body tissues, where they can be associated with inflammation. While inflammation of the tissue around the joints and inflammatory arthritis are characteristic features of rheumatoid arthritis, the disease can also cause inflammation and injury in other organs in the body. Because it can affect multiple other organs of the body, rheumatoid arthritis is referred to as a systemic illness and is sometimes called rheumatoid disease. Rheumatoid arthritis that begins in people under 16 years of age is referred to as juvenile idiopathic arthritis (formerly juvenile rheumatoid arthritis).

While rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic illness, meaning it can last for years, patients may experience long periods without symptoms. However, rheumatoid arthritis is typically a progressive illness that has the potential to cause significant joint destruction and functional disability.

A joint is where two bones meet to allow movement of body parts. Arthritis means joint inflammation. The joint inflammation of rheumatoid arthritis causes swelling, pain, stiffness, and redness in the joints. The inflammation of rheumatoid disease can also occur in tissues around the joints, such as the tendons, ligaments, and muscles.

In some people with rheumatoid arthritis, chronic inflammation leads to the destruction of the cartilage, bone, and ligaments, causing deformity of the joints. Damage to the joints can occur early in the disease and be progressive. Moreover, studies have shown that the progressive damage to the joints does not necessarily correlate with the degree of pain, stiffness, or swelling present in the joints.

Rheumatoid arthritis is a common rheumatic disease, affecting approximately 1.3 million people in the United States, according to current census data. The disease is three times more common in women as in men. It afflicts people of all races equally. The disease can begin at any age and even affects children (juvenile idiopathic arthritis), but it most often starts after 40 years of age and before 60 years of age. Though uncommon, in some families, multiple members can be affected, suggesting a genetic basis for the disorder.

Medically Reviewed by a Doctor on 11/12/2015

Rheumatoid Arthritis - Early Symptoms Question: What were your symptoms at the onset of your rheumatoid arthritis?

Rheumatoid Arthritis - Treatments Question: What treatments have been effective for your rheumatoid arthritis?

Rheumatoid Arthritis - Experience Question: Please describe your experience with rheumatoid arthritis.

Rheumatoid Arthritis - Prognosis Question: What's the prognosis for your rheumatoid arthritis?

Rheumatoid Arthritis - Diet Question: Discuss the diet or other lifestyle changes you've made to relieve symptoms of RA.

Rheumatoid Arthritis - Diagnosis Question: What led to your rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis?

Medical Author:

Dr. Shiel received a Bachelor of Science degree with honors from the University of Notre Dame. There he was involved in research in radiation biology and received the Huisking Scholarship. After graduating from St. Louis University School of Medicine, he completed his Internal Medicine residency and Rheumatology fellowship at the University of California, Irvine. He is board-certified in Internal Medicine and Rheumatology.

Medical Editor:

Melissa Conrad Stppler, MD, is a U.S. board-certified Anatomic Pathologist with subspecialty training in the fields of Experimental and Molecular Pathology. Dr. Stppler's educational background includes a BA with Highest Distinction from the University of Virginia and an MD from the University of North Carolina. She completed residency training in Anatomic Pathology at Georgetown University followed by subspecialty fellowship training in molecular diagnostics and experimental pathology.

While early symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis can actually be mimicked by other diseases, the symptoms are very characteristic of rheumatoid disease. Rheumatoid arthritis symptoms and signs include the following:

Continued here:
Rheumatoid Arthritis Symptoms, Treatment, Diet, Medication

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How to Cure Severe Tendonitis

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How to Avoid Foods that Aggravate Gout

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Bunions Vs. Arthritis

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How to Recognize Psoriatic Arthritis

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Hands that are suddenly sore, stiff in the morning or whose joints are painful and swollen may be showing signs of arthritis. If your fingers are bothering you, a correct Read More

Difference Between Arthritis & Rheumatoid Arthritis

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Arthritis | Conditions & Treatments | eHow

Symptoms

The most common signs and symptoms of arthritis involve the joints. Depending on the type of arthritis you have, your signs and symptoms may include:

The two main types of arthritis osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis damage joints in different ways.

The most common type of arthritis, osteoarthritis involves wear-and-tear damage to your joint's cartilage the hard, slick coating on the ends of bones. Enough damage can result in bone grinding directly on bone, which causes pain and restricted movement. This wear and tear can occur over many years, or it can be hastened by a joint injury or infection.

In rheumatoid arthritis, the body's immune system attacks the lining of the joint capsule, a tough membrane that encloses all the joint parts. This lining, known as the synovial membrane, becomes inflamed and swollen. The disease process can eventually destroy cartilage and bone within the joint.

Risk factors for arthritis include:

Severe arthritis, particularly if it affects your hands or arms, can make it difficult for you to do daily tasks. Arthritis of weight-bearing joints can keep you from walking comfortably or sitting up straight. In some cases, joints may become twisted and deformed.

Jan. 07, 2016

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Symptoms and causes - Arthritis - Mayo Clinic

Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most prevalent type of arthritis, affecting more than three million Canadians thats one in 10! Though once referred to as the wear-and-tear arthritis, the Osteoarthritis Research Society International (OARSI) recently re-defined this condition. It describes OA as the result of the bodys failed attempt to repair damaged joint tissues. However, OA isnt always developed due to abnormal stresses or injury; it may also occur as part of the normal aging process. This condition leads to the breakdown of cartilage (the tough elastic material that covers and protects the ends of bones) and the underlying bone, resulting in pain, stiffness, swelling and bone-on-bone reduction in range of movement in the affected joint. The joints most commonly affected by OA are the knees, hips and those in the hands and spine. The cause of OA is multi-factorial and complex, with development of OA depending on interplay between factors such as age, obesity, gender, occupation (injury as a result of a physical job), participation in certain sports, history of joint injury or surgery and genetics.

Inflammatory arthritis is a group of conditions whereby the bodys defense system begins to attack the tissues of our joints instead of germs, viruses and other foreign substances. This can result in stiffness, pain and joint damage.As a result of this damage, some of the joints may gradually change shape and deformities can develop. Once a joint is damaged, the damage cannot be reversed. Early treatment aimed at reducing inflammation is important to prevent damage to the joint and, for some forms of inflammatory arthritis, to other organs. Inflammatory arthritis is often called systemic because it can affect the whole body. The most common forms of inflammatory arthritis are: rheumatoid arthritis (RA), ankylosing spondylitis and psoriatic arthritis. Inflammatory arthritis also affects children.

More here:
About Arthritis - Arthritis Society

IN this issue of GENETICS we launch FlyBook, which will present the current state of knowledge of the molecular biology, cellular biology, developmental biology, and genetics of the fruit fly Drosophila.

That we commence this project at the end of the journals first century is fitting: it was work on Drosophila that established the genetic basis of Mendels laws of inheritance (leading to Drosophilas first Nobel prize in 1933). In fact, the very first article published in the journal described experiments with Drosophila that established chromosomes as the carriers of hereditary information (watch for a Perspectives article in January commemorating that article).

The prominence of Drosophila in the pantheon of model organisms is undisputed. T. H. Morgan knew that it could serve as a model multicellular organism when he chose it for his path-breaking work early in the last century, and his prescience has been apparent in nearly every issue of GENETICS. In fact, >20% of the 18,000 articles in GENETICS feature Drosophila in the title!

We did not need to be reminded of how similar Drosophilas genes are to those of other organisms (including ours) when complete genome sequences started appearing 15 years ago, but it was heartening to see. Studies of Drosophila will no doubt continue to inform biology for decades to come.

We have acquired an enormous amount of information about the biology of the fruit fly, and have devised innovative experimental approaches for its study. FlyBook aims to make that information and insight accessible to scientists unfamiliar with Drosophila as well as to the seasoned Drosophila researcher.

FlyBook will span the breadth of Drosophila biology in 50 chapters that will appear as review articles in GENETICS, and will also be compiled on a separate FlyBook website. This enables FlyBook to benefit from the established infrastructure of GENETICSits professional preparation and presentation of articles; its indexing, search, and navigation functions; helpful article features unique to GENETICS, such as direct linking of terms to FlyBase; and its outstanding peer editing. GENETICS is a fitting venue for this updated model of a book.

Experts in their fields will write the chapters, which will be edited by a stellar group of scientists serving on the FlyBook Editorial Board. We thank our Section editors and the authors for their selfless service to GENETICS, to the Genetics Society of America (GSA), and to science.

Work on the fruit fly has yielded much insight into neurobiology, so it is fitting that we launch FlyBook with two articles on this subject. In addition, a Commentary by Gerry Rubin sets FlyBook in perspective.

FlyBook continues the GSAs long tradition of supporting, promoting, and presenting model organism research. FlyBook joins Yeastbook (http://www.genetics.org/site/misc/yeastbook.xhtml) as an important resource for the genetics community. We are proud to present in this issue of GENETICS the first two chapters of what we know will be a seminal series of articles.

Section Editors CELL SIGNALING Marek Mlodzik Mount Sinai School of Medicine Jessica E. Treisman New York University School of Medicine

DEVELOPMENT & GROWTH Trudi Schpbach Princeton University Carl S. Thummel University of Utah

ECOLOGY & EVOLUTION Terese Ann Markow University of California, San Diego Trudy F. C. Mackay North Carolina State University

GENE EXPRESSION Brian Oliver NIH Eileen Furlong EMBL

GENOME ORGANIZATION Sue Celniker Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Gary Karpen Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

METHODS Norbert Perrimon Harvard Medical School Hugo Bellen Baylor College of Medicine

NERVOUS SYSTEM & BEHAVIOR John R. Carlson Yale University James W. Truman HHMI, Janelia Research Campus

REPAIR, RECOMBINATION, & CELL DIVISION R. Scott Hawley Stowers Institute for Medical Research Terry Orr-Weaver MIT

STEM CELLS & GERMLINE Ruth Lehmann NYU School of Medicine, Skirball Institute Allan C. Spradling HHMI

See the rest here:
FlyBook! | Genetics

About Inherited Conditions

Many diseases and disorders are caused by a persons genetic makeup. These include abnormalities in genes that occur randomly or because of environmental exposures. Other genetic factors run in the family and are inherited at birth from one or both parents.

The Division of Medical Genetics, based in the University of Iowa Department of Pediatrics and UI Childrens Hospital, is a comprehensive statewide resource for families and health care professionals.

Our multidisciplinary team provides hospital- and clinic-based medical care for children and adults with genetic conditions. Testing, diagnosis, counseling, and treatment services include:

We understand that genetic diseases and disorders affect families as well as individuals. Our medical team provides the information, support, and follow-up you need to make informed decisions. We will work with your family physician so you will continue to receive the best all-around care as you move forward. We also collaborate with state and federal agencies, educators, researchers, support groups, and others to provide the latest information and treatment options for Iowans and their families.

From Our UI Children's Hospital Specialists

Read more health library articles on pediatric genetics

A new standardized test for infants alerted doctors to Zachs MCAD deficiency, possibly saving his young life.Read more about Zachs story.

Zephan was born with Alagille syndrome and has had many surgeries because of it, but has made giant strides.Read more about Zephans story.

Andrew was growing up a little bit smaller than the rest of his classmates and new tests revealed why.Read more about Andrews story.

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Genetics Clinic - University of Iowa Children's Hospital

The first major-specific course required of freshman genetics majors is Careers in Genetics and Biochemistry. This introductory course brings in professionals to aid students in discovering the diversity of career opportunities available from this degree. This course also helps you become aware of professional organizations, ethical issues and the requirements for advanced studies.

In the first two years at Clemson, youll take various science courses such as general and organic chemistry, biology, physics and mathematics.These will prepare you for upper-level course work that includes molecular biochemistry, molecular and general genetics, comparative genetics and population genetics. Additionally, youll be able to tailor your degree to your specific interests by selecting from approved scientific courses such as microbiology, immunology, and human anatomy and physiology.

Genetics students spend quite a bit of time in Clemsons laboratories with our nationally recognized faculty. Our faculty have diverse research interests from alternative fuel to molecular parasitology. You also have a chance to participate in internships and study abroad, as well as join any of Clemsons hundreds of student organizations.

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Genetics (B.S.) | Degree Programs | Clemson University, South ...

Honor the Life and Accomplishments of Professor Jim Crow with a Donation to The Crow Professorship

Over the next year, The Laboratory of Genetics will honor Professor Jim Crow in anticipation of what would have been his 100th birthday. A birthday celebration will take place in Fall 2016 in the form of a symposium and dinner. In preparation for the fall celebration, the department is focused on reaching a $1 million goal to have a professorship in Prof. Crows honor. If the Crow Professorship fund reaches $50,000 in gifts and pledges by June 8, the new gifts and pledges will be matched dollar for dollar.

Click here to read the full article and make a donation to The Crow Professorship.

Welcome to the University of Wisconsin-Madison Laboratory of Genetics. The Laboratory of Genetics is comprised of two sister departments that function as one. The Department of Genetics in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences was founded in 1910 and is the oldest genetics department in the country. The Department of Medical Genetics, which recently celebrated its fiftieth anniversary, is housed within the School of Medicine and Public Health. Our mission is to address fundamental problems in genetics as they relate to medicine, agriculture, and basic knowledge of biology.

The Laboratory of Genetics is also home to the Genetics Training Program, with over 80 faculty trainers from diverse departments on campus that together provide graduate students diverse opportunities in modern genetics research. Please visit our pages to find out more about us.

John Doebley Chair, Laboratory of Genetics

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University of Wisconsin Laboratory of Genetics

Course Description

BIOL 2316 GENETICS (3-3-0) is an introduction to the basic concepts of human heredity and cytogenetics including Mendelian, molecular, and population genetics. Prerequisite is BIOL 1406 Cell and Molecular Biology or BIOL 2304 Human Anatomy with minimum grade of C.

Instructional Methodology

This is a three-credit lecture course.

Course Rationale

BIOL 2316 Genetics is an intensive sophomore-level course that explores modern genetics. The course is divided into three parts.

Common Course Objectives

The common course objectives are available at http://www2.austincc.edu/biology/ccobjectives.

Grading Rubric

TESTS: There will befour unit tests whose dates are listed on the attached schedule. Each of these tests is worth 100 points. Each test will have 10 questions and will be designed to be completed in one hour in class. There is no curve. Students who receive below 70 on a test may hand in test corrections within 1 week to receive up to 6 additional points. One make-up test is allowed with prior permission of the instructor. Contact me in advance to arrange for a make-up test. Tests are given on material discussed in class, so regular attendance is strongly encouraged.

CLASS ACTIVITIES: Activities are given out throughout the semester to reinforce ideas discussed in lecture. These are usually small group activities and are graded at 5-10 points each. One make-up is allowed if a student is absent. It is the students responsibility to complete these class activity sheets and hand them in for grading. The grading rubric will be adjusted at the end of the semester to reflect the exact number of class activity points that may be obtained this semester.

HOMEWORK PROBLEMS: The study of genetics involves considerable problem-solving. Therefore, homework problems are provided for each chapter. There will be a total of 100 questions assigned, each one worth 1 point. These problems are similar to questions on the test, so successful completion usually improves test grades. Each problem set is due the week following the day the relevant chapter was discussed in class. Late homeworks will be accepted, but will be discounted 5% for each class they are late. Late homework handed in after the test date will not be accepted.

POWERPOINT PRESENTATION: Each student will develop a PowerPoint presentation on a genetic disease or syndrome to be handed in on April 19 as indicated on the syllabus. Details will be provided later in the semester.

Grade Component

Points

4 tests @ 100 pts each

400

Class activities

~50

HW problems

100

PowerPoint disease project

50

Total points

600

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Syllabus - Genetics