[Magdalen] Random facts of the day

[Lynn Ronkainen]

This is fascinating info Sally. It made me remember something I heard 
yesterday about a possible genetic  cure for deafness in newborns (from the 
unique detail angle)... I was surprised how many babies are born deaf these 
days...

Lynn

website: www.ichthysdesigns.com

When I stand before God at the end of my life I would hope that I have not a 
single bit of talent left and could say, "I used everything You gave me." 
attributed to Erma Bombeck
 "Either Freedom for all or stop talking about Freedom at all" from a talk 
by Richard Rohr

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Sally Davies" <sally.davies at gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, July 09, 2015 2:41 AM
To: "magdalen" <magdalen at herberthouse.org>
Subject: [Magdalen] Random facts of the day

> Supposed to be on a study day and getting distracted by random facts.
>
> Did you know...
>
> - the nerve cells in the eye (retinal ganglion cells) do not have any
> myelin around them until after they pass beyond the back of the eye?
>
> After that, they do. Myelin would speed them up BUT it's opaque to light
> and would affect our vision.
>
> Then it gets really random...
>
> - some species, e.g. chicken and rabbit, do have myelinated retinas. So
> their eyes would react very fast but not see very well? Might that explain
> why these animals sometimes seem to take fright at silly things?
>
> I tried to find out which other animals have myelinated retinas but Google
> has not been my friend there.
>
> - some humans have a mostly benign condition with white or grey patches on
> their retina under opthalmoscope. This is because when their eyes were
> forming, the physical barrier that is supposed to stop the myelin-forming
> cells from getting inside the eye, didn't do its job and let a couple of
> them in. Not enough to cause visual impairment in most cases so it's only
> found when you're been examined for something else.
>
> By about eight months' gestation, a baby has myelin most of the way down
> its optic nerves, but when it is born the eyes aren't quite ready to work
> and the brain still has to figure out what to do with visual information.
> So the eyes wander around, at first only fixing onto faces - because the
> human face is already pre-wired into their brain as something they can
> recognise and like.
>
> As always with neuroscience, this stuff about myelin in the eye was
> mostly discovered by doing nasty things to animals.
>
> But it is an example of how wonderfully and remarkably we are made!
>
> Sally D