Researchers envision artificial retina

In an early episode of "Star Trek," a blind character "sees" with the aid of electronic sensor arrays. This science-fiction scenario may be close to reality in a decade, if work by a collaboration bears fruit. Project codirectors Joseph Rizzo at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary (Boston, MA) and John L. Wyatt at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA) run a program with participants at MIT Lincoln Laboratory (Lexington, MA), Draper Laboratories (Cambridge, MA), and Southe