photoreceptors
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This is why you don't look directly at a solar eclipse
Remember all that talk about eclipse glasses ahead of the full solar eclipse in August? Remember NASA repeatedly letting everyone know how important those glasses were for eye safety? Do you remember how many times you heard someone say to not under any circumstances look directly at the sun during the eclipse? Well despite all of those persistent warnings, some people still did just that and a new paper published today in JAMA Ophthalmology shows that just six seconds of unprotected viewing can cause permanent damage.
Researchers discover a 'partial workaround' for blindness
When your eyes' photoreceptors (the so-called rods and cones) fail due to either illness or injury, so too does your vision. And until very recently, few options to correct the condition existed -- typically in the form of a bulky and intrusive wearable. But now, a long-researched gene therapy is finally ready for human trials and could pave the way for at least partial restoration of a patient's sense of sight.
Subretinal implant uses light instead of batteries, shows promise in initial testing
There's been significant progress in bringing sight to the blind in recent years, and this looks set to continue that miraculous trend. Scientists at Stanford University have invented a subretinal photodiode implant for people who have lost their vision due to degenerative retinal diseases. Existing tech involves batteries and wires, but the new implant works without such crude appendages. Instead, it's activated by near-infrared beams projected by a camera that's mounted on glasses worn by the patient and can record what the patient sees. The beams then stimulate the optic nerve to allow light perception, motion detection and even basic shape awareness. It hasn't actually been tested with humans just yet, but the first few rodents volunteers have yet to lodge a single complaint.
