Free Republic

A beloved Arizona yoga teacher who vanished after he set out for a would-be romantic meetup with a blind date last month has been found dead. The body of Marcus Freiberger, 45, was discovered at a rock quarry in Phoenix, about 6 miles from Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, on March 19 — nearly one month after the scheduled date, AZ Family reported, citing the Phoenix Police Department. His sister, Tina Hall, broke the news of her brother’s death on Tuesday in a heart-wrenching Facebook post. “It is with a heavy heart that I share the tragic news that Marcus...

For Elon Musk, giving sight to the blind isn't just a first century phenomenon. The Tesla and X CEO brain implant venture, Neuralink, filed trademark applications with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on March 3 for "Telepathy," "Telekinesis," and "Blindsight," hinting at a future where human thought could transcend traditional communication and control. The company, co-founded by Musk in 2016, is developing a brain-computer interface (BCI), a system that decodes neural signals to operate external devices. Musk has touted telepathy as Neuralink’s first product, designed to empower people with paralysis to "control a computer or phone just...

A popular and controversial drug used for weight loss is among others that could potentially have extremely serious side effects. According to multiple studies, patients taking drugs such as Ozempic may experience conditions that cause inflammation and the blockage of blood flow to their eyes. That could result in severe and possibly irreversible vision loss, the Daily Mail reported Monday. “Now, researchers have detailed nine new reports of US patients who went blind after taking semaglutide or tirzepatide, the active ingredients in Ozempic and Mounjaro, respectively,” the article continued: The researchers wrote in JAMA Ophthalmology last month that it’s not...

Former Australian child star Rory Sykes, who was born blind and had cerebral palsy, died Wednesday in the California wildfires despite his mother’s frantic efforts to save him from their burning Malibu home as she claimed available water was “switched off.” Shelley Sykes said in a post on X her 32-year-old son had lived with her on a 17 acre property in Malibu and after she lost the water supply to hoses she was using to extinguish embers on the home’s roof. “It is with great sadness that I have to announce the death of my beautiful son @Rorysykes to...

The man, a doctor left blind by two successive strokes, refused to take part in the experiment. He could not see anything, he said, and had no interest in navigating an obstacle course — a cluttered hallway — for the benefit of science. Why bother? When he finally tried it, though, something remarkable happened. He zigzagged down the hall, sidestepping a garbage can, a tripod, a stack of paper and several boxes as if he could see everything clearly. A researcher shadowed him in case he stumbled. “You just had to see it to believe it,” said Beatrice de Gelder,...

An experimental eye implant could be the secret to restoring a patient’s central vision—the part of our eye that lets us see faces, details, and letters more clearly. Many patients now using the implant as part of a clinical trial have reported successful results. The implant was developed by Science Corporation, a competitor to Elon Musk’s Neuralink, which Musk plans to use to merge humans and AI together. The company announced preliminary results for its latest clinical trial this week, reporting that some study participants can now see well enough to read from books, play cards, and more. All of...

Researchers have identified a protein that may prevent age-related macular degeneration (AMD), according to a new study published in the Developmental Cell on Oct. 2.AMD is the leading cause of vision loss among older adults, affecting nearly 20 million Americans. As the population ages, this number is expected to rise significantly. Currently, there are no treatments that can stop AMD’s progression.MR.PRAWET THADTHIAM/Shutterstock“I think we identified something that can target early-stage disease. ... That’s a big deal,” the study’s lead author Ruchira Singh, an associate professor of ophthalmology at the University of Rochester in New York, told The Epoch Times.The study...

A Missouri police officer gunned down a beloved deaf and blind dog Sunday, first claiming he was putting it out of its misery before backtracking and saying the 13-pound pup made him fear for his life. The disturbing killing was captured in the cop’s bodycam footage — and happened just three minutes after the officer arrived to find the escaped dog exploring a neighbor’s yard. “If you watch the video, the dog is very playful and happy and kind of turned his head when he noticed somebody’s there, looking for somebody to touch him as he’s always done,” grieving owner...

Toby Addison, 21, recalled the mortifying moment years prior when he was kicked out of the gym for “creepily” staring at a woman — despite the fact he cannot see — while on the “Happy Hour Podcast” earlier in June. Addison, who shares his life as a blind person on his TikTok account, @blindtobes, said he was “minding his own business” during a workout when he heard a woman say: “Oh, do you like the view?” “Obviously I don’t really know where I’m looking a lot of the time,” the content creator shared on the podcast. “I was just staring...

A reporter and 2024 presidential hopeful Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) shared a tense exchange during the Florida governor’s first campaign event in New Hampshire on Thursday after the reporter asked him why he did not take questions from voters during the event. “Why not take any questions from voters, though?” the reporter, identified as the Associated Press’s Steve Peoples, asked as DeSantis mingled with the crowd, posing for pictures with the event’s attendees. “Governor, how come you’re not taking questions from voters?” the reporter asked again, prompting a response from DeSantis, who explained that he was now very clearly talking...

Patients with a specific form of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a leading cause of blindness, are also highly likely to have either underlying heart damage from heart failure and heart attacks, or advanced heart valve disease, or carotid artery disease associated with certain types of strokes, according to a study. This research, is the first to identify which types of high-risk cardiovascular and carotid artery disease are linked to the eye disorder. "We have been able to connect these specific high-risk cardiovascular diseases to a specific form of AMD, the one with subretinal drusenoid deposits (SDDs)," explains R. Theodore Smith,...

On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher stated that America was “robbed blind” by fraud with coronavirus relief programs and said that this makes him “a little less excited about the money they’re planning to spend.” He also wondered why Democrats aren’t being “the good government party” they’re supposed to be and Republicans aren’t being the fiscal watchdogs they’re supposed to be. Maher said, “[T]his is the question I asked back in April and I’m going to ask it again, it doesn’t really make me a conservative, does it, that I don’t want to be absolutely robbed...

The World Health Organization’s (WHO) director-general is pressing countries to maintain COVID-19 surveillance and share information on its transmission and sequencing, saying reduced testing abroad “makes us increasingly blind to patterns of transmission and evolution.” Speaking on Tuesday during a press conference, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noted that while COVID-19 cases and deaths continue to decline, the world needed to welcome the news “with some caution.”

Since the first Covid-19 vaccine was authorised for use in the United Kingdom, and administered on the 8th December 2020, there have been hundreds of thousands of adverse reactions reported to the MHRA Yellow Card scheme. But there is one particular adverse reaction which is both concerning and strange, and the number of people suffering from it is increasing by the week – Blindness. The MHRA Yellow Card scheme analysis print for the Pfizer / BioNTech mRNA jab shows that since the first jab was administered on the 9th December 2020, and up to 6th April 2022, 163 people have...

A Florida family has been charged with hate crimes after they allegedly beat a gay man so severely that he was left blinded. Inna Makarenko, 44, Yevhen Makarenko, 43, and 21-year-old Oleh Makarenko are accused of attacking the 31-year-old victim after allegedly breaking into his Pompano Beach home last summer.

BERKELEY, Calif. — If, in the fall of 1987, you found yourself at the University of California, Berkeley, and you made your way through the sloping, verdant campus to Moffitt Library, you could walk through the doors and take two flights of stairs down to the basement. Turn right and you would find a door tucked in the corner — room 224, though the placard isn’t written in braille. After unlocking the door using a key with a ridged top, you’d walk through a small lobby with tables, chairs, and a “sofa” made of seats pulled from a van. The...

At long last, President Joe Biden has undergone a thorough physical exam, and the detailed White House report ought to end the frequent insinuations from some critics that the nation’s oldest president is not up to the job. But it probably won’t, given that he does show some signs of his age. “President Biden remains a healthy, vigorous 78-year-old male, who is fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency, to include those as chief executive, head of state and commander in chief,” concluded Kevin O’Connor, who has been his primary care physician for 13 years. The report didn’t...

Carey McWilliams is a gun owner, a successful small and big game hunter, holding concealed carry permits for 20 years. He has been turned down for a Minnesota permit because he is blind. He has applied for a second time.It is blatant discrimination based on a disability. It probably violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).Update: The Minnesota Sheriff, confronted with the evidence, and with the possibility of an ADA lawsuit, has issued Carey a Minnesota Carry permit.The initial thought of blind people carrying firearms causes many to do a double-take. Consider the concept more closely and you will see...

Texas congressman, former Navy SEAL, lost his right eye after being wounded by IED in AfghanistanRep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, said he underwent emergency surgery Friday for a detached retina in his left eye and will be unable to see as he recovers."The surgery went well, but I will be effectively blind for about a month," Crenshaw said in a Twitter statement on Saturday.Crenshaw, a U.S. Navy SEAL veteran, lost his right eye during a deployment in Afghanistan when he was wounded by an improvised explosive device (IED) and wears a patch on that eye.Congressman Dan Crenshaw's post on Twitterhttps://twitter.com/RepDanCrenshaw/status/1380896286082265089 https://twitter.com/RepDanCrenshaw/status/1380896286082265089

The Biden campaign is taking flack for a recent television ad featuring a struggling Michigan bar owner that the ad neglects to mention is actually an affluent veteran tech investor who donated to the Democratic presidential nominee’s campaign. Joe Malcoun, who is introduced in the ad as the “co-owner” of The Blind Pig in Ann Arbor, Mich., backed Democratic Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s stringent lockdown orders that kept businesses shuttered for months but says he blames President Trump’s administration for his business’s pandemic woes. the ad does not mention Malcoun’s other business ventures, including being an “angel investor” in several...