What I Learnt For This Week #2: Bionic Lens, Tokophobia, Rapunzel Syndrome, Xeroderma Pigmentosum, 5D Data Storage

Hello steemians and friends, welcome to another edition of What I Learnt For This Week, it promises to be very educative and interesting.

I made a lot of amazing discoveries last week (11 th - 15 the June), which I'm so happy to be sharing with you guys. Enjoy !!!

Monday: Bionic Lens

Can you imagine seeing 3 times better, or imagine seeing things that are 30 feet away from you clearly, I didn't say 10 or 20 feet, I mean 30 feet away from you, won't that be great or let's also imagine you looking at your phone or laptop or reading anything all day with no eye strain whatsoever, amazing right? Ain't all these imagination wonderful and kinda of unrealistic? Yes, they are wonderful and my friends, they are realistic. All these imaginations are realities with the use of Bionic Lens.

^{[Source: Pixabay. Author: Intographics. CCO Licensed]}

The Bionic Lens was developed by a Canadian Dr. Garth Webb. This lens would be the future, as it would make glasses and other contact lens obsolete. Glasses and contact lens to some extent have some side effects but that's not the case with the Bionic Lens, because it posses biocompatible materials which means that, it does not have any short or long term side effects. The Bionic Lens would provide you with better vision more than that of glasses and contact lens and even better than the aspired perfect 20/20 Vision. According tp Dr Garth Webb.

This is vision enhancement that the world has never seen before. Source

The Bionic Lens would be implanted inside your eyes using the cataract surgery procedure, which is the most common and successful procedure in medicine. These Bionic Lens would ensure that Cataracts and Glaucoma would be a thing of the past. These Lens use only about 1/100 amount of energy that our natural eye lens uses, which would also make strained eyes a thing of the past. With these Lenses, you could be able to focus on anything for as long as you want without getting strained eyes or worrying about damaging your eye sight. The Bionic Lens also provides you with a camera-like vision, which can help you to auto-regulate your vision, whereby giving you the ability to have a sharp focus. For example, seeing details of things 30 feet(9.1 meters) away from you.

Although, the Bionic Lens does not address every eye problems such as cloudy corneas, torn optic nerves or color blindness, but it's a major advancement in the world of optometry and ophthalmology and also in technology.

Enjoy this amazing video by Dr Garth Webb

To know more, click here.

Tuesday: Tokophobia (Fear Of Pregnancy)

Do you know that there are some women that fear the thought of being pregnant more than anything in their life. I happen to know a friend while in school, who always told me that she doesn't think, she would ever give birth because she lost her aunt while she was in labor, and the thought of being in labor terrifies her.

Tokophobia is gotten from two Greek words which are Tokos which means Childbirth and Phobos which means intense fear. So if you put the two words together, it means Intense fear of childbirth. There are other names of this phobia, such as, Tocophobia, Enfantaphobia, Maieusiphobia and Parturiphobia, all these phobias means the same thing, the fear of childbirth/pregnancy.

^{[Source: Pexels. Author: Freestocks. CCO Licensed]}

What causes this phobia? Like all phobias, there is no one specific cause that exist to really explain the cause of the phobia, but there are various factors which might be the actual cause of this phobia and they include; some women may fear the intense pain during delivery/childbirth, or some previous traumatic childbirth experience, or childhood abuse/rape, or bad hospital experience, or the fear of having miscarriage/the thought of the previous miscarriage, or the lose of someone close in the process of childbirth or having the fear of dying during labor, etc.

The signs of a tokophobic woman is quite obvious, and they include; carrying out abortion/always having the thought of carrying out abortion, or not wanting to get pregnant at all, or hate hanging out with pregnant women, or requesting for an elective cesarean delivery i.e the use of surgery for delivery, or overreacting when getting the signs of pregnancy, having nightmares, or having the thoughts of dying and in some extreme cases they may completely abstain from sex, or some women may decide not to marry at all, or to some women the sight or hearing of some words such delivery or I'm pregnant, can make them feel very uncomfortable.

Can a tokophobic woman overcome this phobia? Oh yes, by talking or sharing their feelings with loved ones such as family members or spouse, and also to obstetricians and psychiatrist, in order for them to support you and help you from you, by discovering the root cause of the phobia and how best it can be resolved. This is one of the best and most common way of overcoming tokophobia.

To read more, click here.

Wednesday: Rapunzel Syndrome

Can you imagine pulling out your hair and eating it, it's weird right, but there are people that do it and these people are suffering from a rare syndrome called Rapunzel Syndrome. The name Rapunzel Syndrome was gotten from the Brothers Grimm's fairy tale about Rapunzel, the princess which was trapped in a very tall tower, where the only way out was a widow, which you could climb by crawling up her extremely long hair. Alright, enough with that, this syndrome is life-threatening and has killed some people duffering from this syndrome. I got to know of this syndrome after the death of a 16 years old in the United Kingdom, who died after ingesting her hair for several years.

Rapunzel Syndrome is a very rare medical condition where an individual tends to eat their own hair or hair extensions. Any hair or hair extensions can not be digested, therefore it would only accumulates and overtime it would become a trichobezoars which would cause an extreme discomfort and even death, if not detected on time and removed.

Why would an individual eat their own hair? Most of the individuals that do this are most times suffering from Trichopagia i.e a disorder which causes an individual to compulsively eat their own hair and Trichotilomania i.e a disorder which causes an irresistible urge of pulling your hair. This syndrome are mostly common in women, children and psychiatric patients. Eating of one's own hair could be related to a repressed/hidden emotional or psychiatric issue which may include; depression, stress, emotional or sexual abuse and also it could be impulse disorder from childhood, which they do whenever there are bored, sad, it may even serve as their sleeping pill and a way for them to reduce their tension and anxiety.

^{[Rapunzel. Source: Flickr. Author: Ivania Martinez. CCO Licensed]}

Although, the signs that someone may be suffering from this syndrome is quite unnoticeable, as the sufferers of this syndrome tend to be very secretive of their issues. The signs becomes noticeable when the sufferers have over time ingested their hair to the extent that it builds up into a trichobezoar which begins to cause great discomfort in the abdomen region of the sufferers. Other signs apart from the sufferers experiencing abdominal pain includes, weight loss, constipation/diarrhea, nausea & vomiting, hematemesis(vomiting of blood), etc.

The sufferer of this syndrome may require a surgical gastronomy procedure to remove the trichobezoar. After the surgery steps must be taken in order to treat the sufferer such as psychotherapy sessions in order to know the root cause of the Rapunzel Syndrome and stop the bad habit completely.

To know more, click here.

Thursday: Xeroderma Pigmentosum

There are some people who can't take the chance to be out in the sun, you are guessing Vampires, right?(smiles) but no, they are not Vampires, these people are suffering from a rare genetic disease called Xeroderma Pigmentosum mostly called XP. People with this rare disease are commonly called Moon Children reason being that, they are nocturnal in nature i.e they are more active at night.

XP is a rare genetic disease which makes people extremely sensitive to sunlight/UV light, which makes being out in the sun nearly impossible for these people because of the damages their skin may face if they are exposed to sunlight. This disease is very rare. Sufferers of this disease may also experience some other neurological condition such as developmental delays, eye problems, intellectual disabilities or hearing loss. XP is an inherited or hereditary disease, it is caused by a mutation in genes. An XP sufferer does not have the ability to replicate or repair their DNA which has been damaged by sunlight/UV light, by the way UV light means Ultraviolet light. The parents of an XP sufferer always have a mutated gene or are also sufferers of this disease, which causes the XP sufferer to possess a mutated gene which does not repair once damaged by sunlight.

^{[A child with XP. Source: Wikimedia Commons. Author: Himynameislax. CC-BY-SA-3.0]}

The signs that an individual have XP disease is quite obvious and it starts to show in the early stages of such individual's life(early childhood), mostly within the first three(3) years. They would have painful or blistering sunburns whenever they are exposed to sunlight/UV light regardless of how much time they were actually exposed. These sunburns could last for weeks. Other signs include; dry skin, thinning skin or changes in skin pigmentation which are very common, and can lead to hypopigmentation or hyperpigmentation. They also wound have spider veins, they are photophobic, obviously(smiles), they may have slow or reflexes, or poor control of their body, their eyes can be easily irritated by sunlight, they may also have hearing problems and many more.

XP sufferers are 10,000 times more likely to have skin cancer which makes taking extreme preventive measures against sunlight exposure very important. They should remain indoor during the day for their own safety and also they should have protective widows which can be able to preventing sunlight/UV light. The light bulb used in their houses should be checked. It is recommended that they use UV meter to test the UV level in their homes or any where they go in order to know if they are exposed to UV light. It is also advisable that XP sufferers visit their dermatologists and ophthalmologists regularly in order to help detect any cancer early.

Sadly, XP disease have no cure and that is why it is very important for the sufferers to avoid exposing themselves to sunlight. It has been estimated that fewer than 40% of people with this disease live beyond 20 years.

I got to know of this rare disease through a movie called Midnight Sun, I highly recommend you watch it, to understand more about people with Xeroderma Pigmentosum.

Watch this short video to meet Ivonne who is suffering from XP disease.

To know more, click here.

Friday: 5D Data Storage

Have you ever imagined having a storage disc that can store any amount of data you want and last forever, yea, you read right, forever. I introduce to you guys to the 5D Data storage, the future of digital data storage, which was developed by scientists from the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom, and the team's lead researcher is Professor Peter Kazansky and according to him

Normally, you don’t think about whether something can live forever. But it seems that, with our technology, we’ve managed this. If we record some data or documents, they’ll live forever. That could be interesting for future civilizations. We can now claim that information is immortal. Source.

The 5D Data Storage discs are made out of nanostructured glass, which is known for it's stability and resistance to very high temperature. This nanostructured glass is capable of withstanding temperature even up to 1,000 degree celsius, which makes the 5D disc safe and capable of lasting forever, isn't this mind blowing? The nanostructured glass can also be used to record, store and retrieve data by femtosecond laser writing. Unlike CD/DVD which can be easily damaged by physical scratches or exposure to heat and humidity because their bumpy line are stored on the surface of the CD/DVD. The 5D Data storage discs data are written inside the glass, which makes it very difficult to get damaged.

[5D Data Storage discs. Source: Wikimedia Commons. CC-BY-SA-4.0]

Why is it called 5D Data Storage? 5D means 5 Dimensions, yea, 5 Dimensions, I know some of you guys are wondering what is 5D, because we only know of 3D technologies. The 5D data storage uses the same 3D technology but added two more dimensions, which are size and orientation, which allows more data to be stored in less space and also has several different images depending from which angle it is viewed from and the magnification of the microscope that is used to view it.

The 5D data storage disc have a storage capacity of 360 terabytes and can last 13.8 billion years(which is like forever) and can also withstand 1,000 degree celsius , this is definitely the future in the world of digital data storage and advancement of technology in general. This technology would definitely help big organisations with very large archives such as Libraries, Museums, National archives and lots more. The 5D data storage disc is also called Superman Memory Crystal. Lastly, according to A. Patel

"Who knows what's going to happen thousands of years down the line, no one can predict that, but what we can guarantee is that we have the ability to store the culture, language, and essence of the human race in a simple piece of glass. For future civilizations — or whatever else is out there. Source.

Enjoy this video from Professor Peter Kazansky.

To know more, click here.

These are the amazing discoveries I made for this week, I hope you enjoyed reading through.

Special thanks to @mobbs for this great initiatives and @samminator for getting me interested with his awesome editions.

Till next time guys

Thank you for reading

References

Ref 1 | Ref 2 | Ref 3 | Ref 4 | Ref 5 | Video 1 | Video 2 | Video 3.

All images used in this article are free source licensed under the Creative Commons and are liable for commercial use.

I'm a proud member of @air-clinic

I'm a proud member of @promo-mentors



I'm a proud member of @bigwaves

I'm a proud member of @stemng

I'm a proud member of @steemstem

^{Gif by @foundation}