Scientists have made blind mice see clearly again in a breakthrough that offers hope to millions.
The technique, using high-tech spectacles containing a tiny camera rather than surgery, could be tested on people for the first time in just one to two years.
Neuroscientist Sheila Nirenberg, who is honing the technique, says it is hoped the blind will be able to 'see faces, walk through the supermarket and pick out a box of cereal, and recognise their children'.
The first beneficiaries are likely to be sufferers of age-related macular degeneration, the most common cause of blindness in the elderly. When we look at something, light falls on cells in the retina and is converted into electrical signals which are sent to the brain for processing into images.
The signals are encoded, with the pattern for a dog being different to that for a cat or a baby.