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Seeing floaters kind of sucks. In certain lighting conditions it can seem a bit like swimming through transparent seaweed. There are several types of floaters but they all seem to be comprised of protein strands. Proteins exhibit diamagnetic behaviour, and since vitreous floaters are basically protein
suspended near weightless in fluid it should be possible to magnetize glass contact lenses to repel floaters to the absolute edges of the fluid containing them so they can not cross the center of vision while worn.
...and as a way to make [Dentworth]'s idea [link] a reality future adaptations, perhaps in conjunction with glasses to house the electronics, it will be possible to manipulate the floaters into coherent shapes which would act as messages which only the wearer could see for spies and such.
Spy Eye
Spy_20Eye
[2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jan 24 2015]
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There are only a few fundamental problems with
this. First, the floaters are floating in either aqueous
or vitreous humour, which I suspect is rich in
proteins. Second, I have a feeling that water (which
is the rest of the humour) is also diamagnetic, though
maybe less so than the proteins. Third, the fields
you'd need to apply would be huge. |
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If your floaters are an issue, you can have them
eliminated with a laser treatment. |
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Interesting. You are probably right. I had assumed that since the floaters are suspended that the force needed to move them would be small in much the same way that a balanced glass rod or two grapes on a balanced straw can be made to repel with a fairly weak magnet.
The contacts could be recharged between uses. |
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From : Structural origins of diamagnetic anisotropy in proteins.
"Magnetic anisotropy in proteins and polypeptides can be attributed to the diamagnetic anisotropy of the planar peptide bonds. The alpha helix in particular has large anisotropy due to the axial alignment of the peptide bonds. The regular arrangements of the peptide bonds in beta pleated sheet and collagen structures also produce substantial anisotropy, but less than for alpha helix. The anisotropy permits orientation of small structures of these types in magnetic fields of several kilogauss."
I took this to mean that the protein strands would more diamagnetic that the surrounding fluid. |
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Call me paranoid, but if I can help it I'm not letting anyone anywhere near my eyes with anything containing a word ending with aser or alpel. |
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//Call me paranoid// OK. You're paranoid. |
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The humour is quite viscous, and I think you'd need
quite a large force to drag a protein gloppet* through
it. |
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Also, the word "kilogauss" is indicative. It indicates
that we're dealing with large fields. |
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// I think you'd need quite a large force to drag a protein gloppet* through it.// |
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Even micro movements of the eye cause floaters to move through the vitreous humor. They move with ease and then descend gradually. They are basically weightless in what might as well be water for the viscosity.
Forget the kilogauss part, it is the anisotropy part that is important. If the proteins are more diamagnetic than their surrounding fluid because of their shape, and if they are almost neutrally buoyant, then they should be repelled from a weak magnetic field. |
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Does this happen in an MRI machine? |
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In LA the main electric power lines cross the suburbs. |
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Under these lines no one is allowed to build homes. There are businesses like plant nurseries, wrecking yards there instead. |
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The people who work under these high power lines all day should be surveyed as to whether they have more or less floaters than a similar population elsewhere. |
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Maybe this is already baked. Perhaps all you need are a few tennis courts and juice bars under the power lines to be able to charge eye health treatments to the customers health insurance. |
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//Does this happen in an MRI machine?// |
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Good question. It's dimly lit, you're lying on your back so floaters naturally move away from the center of vision, and the magnetic fields spin in circles around you. My bet is on no. |
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Strangely enough, experimenting with a blank computer screen and a stack of neodymium magnets it would seem that the floaters are attracted rather than repelled. Either optical properties are causing the floater shadows to appear to be inverted or the floaters themselves are magnetic.
Once I get one of the slippery little buggers oriented to drop down the center of my sight, the stack of magnets seem to make them stop when held almost in contact with the top of my pupil but it does not draw them upwards. |
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Isaac Newton would be so proud of you. Magnetic bodkin
next? |
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// //Call me paranoid// OK. You're paranoid // |
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You're not paranoid. "They" really are out to get you. Floaters are
an inevitable side effect of the CIA Secret Brane Ray. Just make
sure you wear your tinfoil balaclava at all times and they'll soon
fade away … |
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I'm not paranoid about doctors, I'm paranoid about Murphy and that friggin law of his. Every time I've had a medical procedure performed, some mistake makes it worse than if I had never gone.
Paranoia won't blind me by accident. |
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// Paranoia won't blind me by accident. // |
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Imagine running away from them who are out to get you and looking back and running into a lamp post. With your luck you're bound to lose your sight. Wouldn't you call that an accident? |
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But who puts up the lamp posts ? The Government, of course … |
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It's all part of the same evil plan. If you look at the film, there
were lamp posts all round where JFK was shot; and the tunnel
where Princess Diana died* was well supplied with lighting
fixtures. Coincidence ? Maybe … maybe not … |
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How do you magnetize a lens? I suggested it once
as a means of blocking lasers from dazzling pilots.
I seem to recall lots of technical objection that went
over my head. |
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That said... If the floaters are floating in such a
viscous fluid, and you insert the lens at a time when
the floater is not currently where you don't want it
to be, then it might take a very small force to simply
keep the floater from moving in the first place. |
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//Imagine running away from them who are out to get you and looking back and running into a lamp post. With your luck you're bound to lose your sight. Wouldn't you call that an accident?// |
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Maybe, but I won't have paid for that one. The distinction is subtle, I'll grant you that. |
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//It's all part of the same evil plan.// |
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Naw... I'm just a jinx is all. I've learned to live with it... and to avoid medical procedures. The two may or may not be affiliated. |
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//How do you magnetize a lens?// |
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It is possible to magnetise clear plastic sheets. I assume that little curved plastic sheets can be magnetic. |
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//That said... If the floaters are floating in such a viscous fluid, and you insert the lens at a time when the floater is not currently where you don't want it to be, then it might take a very small force to simply keep the floater from moving in the first place.// |
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Floaters, as a rule, don't seem to want to remain in a person's line of sight at all unless dragged there by the eyes movement. They always float away to the periphery when your eyes stop moving, and it is very hard to focus on any given strand for any length of time.
If magnetic glass or plastic lenses are not possible then an outer magnetic lens ring might serve the same function and not be visible. |
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//it would seem that the floaters are attracted rather than repelled// |
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Are you taking into account the inversion caused by the eye's optics? For example, a downwards-moving floater would (I assume) produce a downwards-moving image on the retina, and therefore appear to be upwards-moving. |
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I hope someone here knows the answer to that. |
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I can't seem to find info about any optical inversion of objects inside the eye. Supposedly it is not the floaters themselves we see, but the shadows they cast, (although it certainly doesn't look that way) which are reflected and we see them through the back of the lens... I guess.
Since they float around in the vitreous humor behind the lens of the eye itself, I can't wrap my head around whether they actually drift downwards from the tug of gravity, or if they are slightly buoyant while just appearing to drift downwards, and I haven't been able to think up an experiment to figure that out... yet. |
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(always have to remember to put that 'yet' part in there) |
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//I'm not letting anyone anywhere near my eyes with
anything containing a word ending with aser or alpel.// |
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How about a nice, pointy encil? |
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//How about a nice, pointy encil?// |
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No words ending in a consonant or a vowel. There may be some bush-man language with a word ending in a click or something, but I'll just have to take my chances. |
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A couple of findings;
-The vitreous is two to four times the viscosity of water yet no one seems to be able to answer the question about their ease of movement or why they return to their original positions after swirling them up.
-On inversion: "The Purkinje images are the reflections from the anterior and posterior surfaces of the cornea and the anterior and posterior surfaces of the lens. While these first four reflections are not entoptic, Becker[9] described how light can reflect from the posterior surface of the lens and then again from the anterior surface of the cornea to focus a second image on the retina, this one much fainter and inverted."
...and
Through eye movements, we can move floaters in all directions. But as soon as we keep our eyes still, we realize that they sink down in our visual field – the nearer and bigger ones faster, the others more slowly. Gravity effects seem to be a plausible explanation for this sinking of physical particles in the vitreous. The case is more complicated, though: As we know, our eyes project an upside-down image of what we are looking at on the retina. |
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So, if floaters are the shadows of protein strands then the images are inverted which would mean that their decent is an illusion and that they are slightly buoyant.
That the stack of magnets stopped one from sinking by placing it above the lens would mean that they are repelled from a weak magnetic field. |
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If someone knows safe levels of magnetism around the human eye and has access to the equipment to test this, people will pay large to temporarily not have to swim through transparent seaweed without risking asers, alpels, or encils to do it. |
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