[mugwump]

I talked to an ophthalmologist at Penn who said the MIT guy who invented this is doing brain surgery to restore sight in blinded mice - implanting silicon devices of some sort. Implanting stuff in the brain is like suturing Velveeta cheese that bleeds.

With this new stuff they take off a section of the cranium, build a coffer dam out of wax around the edge of the skull and fill it with the fluid. They then perform surgery underneath the totally clear fluid. It is apparently revolutionary. Absolutely no bleeding. They are all champing at the bit to get their hands on it.

If this holds up it will save innumerable lives on the battlefield. It's apparently stable at room temp and there'd be no magic to administering it -- shove the nozzle in the wound and squeeze. No exothermic reaction, no clogs of gunk to flush out later. The wound can be irrigated and suctioned dry and then you can look right into it -- it doesn't fill with blood or serum. Weird, eh? They've only done rodents to date but it's on the fast track.