News by Subject Medicine & Health

Smartphones could be used to scan people's eyes for early-warning signs of glaucoma - helping to prevent severe ocular diseases and blindness, a new study reveals.

Eye conditions that do not cause vision impairment but have economic and social consequences represent a serious and growing challenge for public health services worldwide, according to a new paper published by The Lancet Global Health Commission.

In the largest genome-wide association study of glaucoma comparing the genes of 34,179 people with the disease to 349,321 control subjects, an international consortium of researchers identified 127 genes linked to glaucoma, including 44 previously unreported gene loci. The researchers hope these findings can lead to new treatment targets.

Strategies based on the use of gene therapy to mitigate the effects of mutations that cause blindness are undergoing rapid development. Novel gene vectors now achieve widespread gene delivery and reduce the risks associated with these approaches.

The unprecedented and deadly blazes that engulfed the American West in 2020 attest to the increasing number, size and severity of wildfires in the region. And while scientists predict the climate crisis will exacerbate this situation, there's still much discussion around its contributing factors.

A color illusion that strongly induces color contrast effect has been found by a research team at the Toyohashi University of Technology. The powerful visual illusion clarified a century-old contradiction relating to simultaneous color contrast theory. The team demonstrated that the presence or absence of flanking contours formed from extremely thin white lines could be used to switch between contradictory visual phenomena. This solution is expected to contribute to industrial design and high-definition imaging.