UK Optical Chain Expands in Tough Economy
Topic: Optical
The Financial Times reports that "in spite of tough economic conditions, the world’s biggest privately owned optical retailer [Specsavers] has continued its trend for aggressive expansion." The 26-year-old optical retailer has expanded into Australia. "In the process it has driven up turnover from about £1bn {$1.6 billion] in 2008 to an expected £1.6bn [$2.56 billion] this year and it now has 1,600 stores in 10 countries."

Transitions Distances Itself from "Free" Promo
Topic: Lenses
"Transitions Optical [in Australia] has distanced itself from a recent consumer promotion that markets the company's lenses as 'free' when bundled with particular products," according to Mivision.com.au.

Artificial Retina? Yeap!
Topic: Eye Care
"Scientists have constructed an artificial retina that incorporates the signals the eye normally sends to the brain. The new prosthetic may be capable of reproducing normal vision more effectively than existing technologies (Sheila Nirenberg, PhD, abstract 20.1)," notes a post on MedicalNewsToday.

Consumer Reports Survey of People Buying Eyewear
Topic: Eyewear

Here are some of the results of a Consumer Reports survey:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vision Implant Design of the Year
Topic: Optical
The Implantable Miniature Telescope by Dr. Isaac Lipshitz was named "Best of What's New" 2010 by Popular Science magazine, according to a press release from VisionCare Ophthalmic Technology Inc. The first-of-kind telescope implant is integral to a new patient care program, CentraSight™, for treating patients with end-stage macular degeneration.

You and an Angelfish Seeing Eye to Eye
Topic: Optical
A week ago MedicalNewsToday reported about a new vision discovery. "To a hungry fish on the prowl, the split-second neural processing required to see, track, and gobble up a darting flash of prey is a matter of survival. To scientists, it's a window into how our brain coordinates the eye motions that enable us to hit a baseball, sidestep an errant skateboarder, and otherwise make our way in a world full of danger and opportunity. This process is now better understood, thanks to a team of scientists that imaged the activity of individual neurons in a part of a zebrafish's brain called the optic tectum. The optic tectum receives signals from the retina, filters them, then sends the signals to other parts of the brain that control motion. "

Eye Allergies Unnoticed and Untreated for Millions
Topic: Eye Care
"Millions of Americans suffer unnecessarily with itchy, gritty, watery eyes, according to allergists at the annual scientific meeting of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) in Phoenix, Nov. 11-16. The underdiagnosis, undertreatment and self-treatment of eye allergies may seriously diminish quality of life, allergists say." That's the most recent post about vision care from MedicalNewsToday.

Girl Blinded in 10 Weeks
Topic: Eye Care

"Schoolgirl Becky Cranmer has baffled doctors after she went blind in just 10 weeks," according to a post on TamesideAdvertiser. (Another version of the story was posted on the website for the DailyMail.) "Six months ago Becky, 11, was looking forward to the summer break before starting at Denton Community College. But during a family holiday in June, her eyesight started to fail – and 10 weeks later she was blind. Becky’s mum took her to an optician, who told them to go to hospital. She spent the next six weeks having tests at the Royal Oldham Hospital and the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital before doctors diagnosed optic neuritis, the inflammation of the optic nerve." Then her story worsens. 

NJ Non-Profit Center Gets Glaxo Award
Topic: Eye Care
On December 13, the healthcare company GlaxoSmithKline will award the South Jersey Eye Center, Inc.,  Camden, NJ, its  14th Annual IMPACT Award. Glaxo's press release noted that the Camden eyecare facility will receive $40,000 for providing access to effective healthcare services.

Harry Potter's Glasses Stolen--Sort Of
Topic: Optical--Sort Of
"Daniel Radcliffe has joked that he 'stole' his character's glasses from the Harry Potter movie," reports the New Zealand website Stuff. "The British actor plays the lead role and title character in the Harry Potter film franchise about a group of wizard students battling a villain called Voldemort, adapted from the books by author J.K. Rowling."

Free Eye Exams for the World's Poor
Topic: Eye Care
"Around the world, half a billion people live with uncorrected vision problems, according to World Health Organization estimates, in part because eye specialists are rare in the developing world," according to a story on the Boston Globe's website Boston.com. "But a team at the MIT Media Lab believes it can help restore sharp eyesight to many of these people, with a vision test that uses cellphones, an inexpensive clip-on eyepiece, and free software."

Winning the Battle--Slowly--Against River Blindness with Merck's Support
Topic: Eye Care
"Public health officials at the 20th Inter-American Conference on Onchocerciasis in Antigua, Guatemala, confirmed that more than one-third of all Latin Americans who ran the risk of contracting river blindness (onchocerciasis), a leading cause of preventable blindness, are no longer at risk," reports MedicalNewsToday. "Officials attribute the successes in Latin America to a ...partnership led by the Carter Center...The Carter Center - through its sponsorship of the Onchocerciasis Elimination Program of the Americas (OEPA) - assists national ministries of health in six affected countries in Latin America to conduct health education and distribute Merck's medicine, ivermectin (registered trademark Mectizan)...'Merck has donated Mectizan for more than 20 years and will continue to do so until river blindness becomes a disease of the past,' said Richard T. Clark, chairman and CEO of Merck."

Rewiring the Brain to See Patterns
Topic: Optical
"A team of researchers from the University of Minnesota's College of Liberal Arts and College of Science and Engineering have found that an early part of the brain's visual system rewires itself when people are trained to perceive patterns, and have shown for the first time that this neural learning appears to be independent of higher order conscious visual processing," according to a post on MedicalNewsToday. 

"Seeing" Like a Fruit Fly?
Topic: Optical
We all know that an image is projected on the retina. Then what? Nerves cells separate the image into different channels, and "this pre-sorted information is then transmitted to the brain as parallel image sequences," notes MedicalNewsToday. "Scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Martinsried have now discovered that fruit flies process optical information in a similar way. The evidence suggests that this type of wiring is an effective energy-saving mechanism and is therefore deployed by a diverse range of animal species. (Nature, November 11, 2010)"

Deaf or Blind See Better

MedicalNewsToday posted the following: "Adults born deaf react more quickly to objects at the edge of their visual field than hearing people, according to groundbreaking new research by the University of Sheffield. The study, which was funded by the Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID), has, for the first time ever, seen scientists test how peripheral vision develops in deaf people from childhood to adulthood."

On a post from the same website earlier, there was this: "People who are blind from birth are able to detect tactile information faster than people with normal vision, according to a study in the Oct. 27 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. The brain requires a fraction of a second to register a sight, sound, or touch. In this study, a group of researchers led by Daniel Goldreich, PhD, of McMaster University explored whether people who have a special reliance on a particular sense - in the way blind people rely on touch - would process that sense faster."

Teenager Going Door-to-Door Seeking Money for Eye Treatment
Topic: Eye Care
"Christopher Gipp has been knocking on strangers’ doors asking for help to pay for a procedure OHIP won't cover. Gipp, who suffered a stroke seven months ago, is hoping to have his sight restored — somewhat, at least — through hyperbaric oxygen therapy," according to HamiltonMountainNews.

Facebook Isn't Making Visitors Blind
Topic: Eye Care
Two days ago, Facebook shrank the font size of news feeds on people's home pages. Then the complaints flew, some claiming the onset of blindness. CNET reported that "If your eyes are hurting from the text on Facebook's home page, they were probably already subject to eye strain--the term for the discomfort, dryness, redness, and other unpleasant symptoms that can result from focusing on a computer screen or other object for too long--long before you loaded up the social network to check up on your FrontierVille homestead or to remove some unflattering photo tags. Eye care professionals say the smaller font size is unlikely to affect users' vision or eye health any more than its larger-type brethren. Eye strain, too, is temporary and very preventable." By the way CNET is not affliiated with Facebook.

Volunteers Provide Care for 12,000
Topic: Eye Care

An international team of volunteer eye care professionals has reached more than 12,000 underprivileged people in the latest OneSight Foundation mission to a poor township, just outside of the South African city of Pretoria, goes the post on MiVision.

Optical Sec Gets Two in the Slammer
Topic: Optical--Sort Of
OpticianOnline reports that "an optician's secretary who stole more than £170,000 over five and a half years was sentenced to two years imprisonment in Nottingham Crown Court."

Eye Clinic Gets Millions from a Reader
Topic: Eye Care
"Clemence “Keme” Williams, never one to mince words, has strong feelings about the Storm Eye Institute at the Medical University of South Carolina," goes the post on GreenvilleOnline. "'The Storm Eye Clinic saved my life,' says Williams, who was in such excruciating pain in 1998 that she says she 'would have committed suicide' had the Storm Eye Institute not solved a serious problem in both eyes.Williams, 85, has shown her appreciation by planning a gift of more than $1 million to the institute. Already a member of the Millennium Society of MUSC, Williams has established a fund that will donate the proceeds of her and her deceased sister’s estate, valued at more than $1 million, to the Storm Institute."