Issue 66 of the research*eu Results Magazine – Let there be light: technology for the visually impaired The latest research*eu Results Magazine is now available in free, accessible PDF. © European Union, 2017 On 12 October 2017, we will be celebrating the World Sight Day in the face of a thought-provoking statistic: of all the blind or visually-impaired people out there, 80% are avoidably so. For the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness, the most effective weapon to change this fact is awareness, hopefully leading to more eye examinations in both developed and developing economies. The question we asked ourselves when working on this issue of the research*eu Results Magazine was how about the other 20 %? Are they doomed to literally be left in the dark, or can R&D provide innovative solutions for them to catch up with this fast-paced world we live in? Looking through the long list of research projects being funded by the EU, we found that there are indeed reasons for hope. On the one hand, those victims of currently incurable, blinding diseases are currently the focus of projects aiming to find new treatments using gene therapy or new drugs. On the other hand, engineers across Europe are designing innovative devices, either boosting the remaining senses to compensate for the loss of sight; or even creating tactile devices that will enable visually-impaired people to benefit from the increasingly graphical contents used in digital communications. Other topics in this edition include the following highlights: - New imaging technology could predict patient response to NMD treatment - Better investing in Europe - Putting the info into urban mobility - Modelling ocean flows advances climate change understanding - From bees to pest control – evaluating nature’s hidden service - Bringing the promise of advanced nano-material products closer, thanks to a new process - A step closer in tackling online rumours and fake news - First satellite able re-enter the atmosphere in a controlled way - Novel methods lift the veil on chromatin’s role in gene expression The research*eu Results Magazine is the main source of information for all findings related to EU-funded science projects. It covers a large spectrum of scientific topics and is published 10 times per year in English. For more information, sign up for a free subscription and to download the new edition, please visit: http://cordis.europa.eu/research-eu/home_en.html Countries Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czechia, Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Spain, Finland, France, Croatia, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, Slovenia, Slovakia, United Kingdom
