On January 5th and 6th RSBS enjoyed hosting year 11 students from the National Youth Science Forum . Groups of budding scientists participated in activities at the Visual Science (VS) and the CNS Stability and Degeneration (CSD) Groups' laboratories.

At CSD the students heard a short presentation about the visual system and a group of its diseases: retinal degeneration, which is the focus of the group's research activities. Later, students were busy in the laboratories, where they performed dissections and histological staining, microscopy and analysis. The students had the opportunity to have their stained retinal sections photographed and could take the images with them to show others the beauty of the retinal structure.

At VS the students spent an afternoon being introduced to two of the many areas of vision research. Dr. Jochen Zeil & Martin How introduced them to visual communication in fiddler crabs and flight control in insects, discovering how visual environments shape the visual systems of animals. With Dr. Maddess they were introduced to the patchy blindness of diseases like glaucoma and were shown how basic science can help develop new ways of diagnosis and quantifying damage by such disorders.